#darkness visible

[electricthursday]

The madness of depression is, generally speaking, the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk.

- William Styron, Darkness Visible

[casualist-tendency]

[azaleasdawn]

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

_ William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

[timeisoutofjoint]

Passage from Paradise Lost.

Inspired by the latest post in this series of mine (timeisoutofjoint.tumblr.com/tagged/BSons/chrono) based on songs. I'm still hoping that someone who can actually edit might step in for some of them lol.

And yes, apparently none of my previous posts on the matter showed up in searches because tumblr hates any kind of hyperlink.

[the-final-sentence]

And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.

William Styron, from Darkness Visible [quoted from Dante’s Inferno in Styron’s book]

[fallschirmjager]

We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.

William Golding

[39adamstrand]

Since the publication of Darkness Visible in October 1990 -- in which William Styron described his own battle with depression and suicidal impulses -- its author had become “the guru of depression;” he listened to and counseled others who shared his illness and tried to help them stave off suicide the way he had (his widow, Rose Styron, said that people would call the house at all hours when they felt suicidal, and Mr. Styron would talk with them). Styron knew he was a role model, and in a 1999 NPR interview, he declared, “I’m in very good shape, if I may be so bold as to say that. It’s as if I had purged myself of this pack of demons.”

Then in 2000, the depression took hold again. “When he crashed again the worst thing for him was that he felt guilty for having assured everyone at the end of Darkness Visible that life would be good forever,” Rose said. “He felt terrible that he had misled people. He was so sad.”

On 5 June 2000, the 74-year-old Styron composed a suicide note, directly addressing the readers who had found comfort and courage in his writing, “I hope that readers of Darkness Visible — past, present and future — will not be discouraged by the manner of my dying,” the note began. It ended with encouragement: “Everyone must keep up the struggle, for it is always likely that you will win the battle and nearly a certainty you will win the war. To all of you, sufferers and nonsufferers alike, I send my abiding love.”

Styron won that battle. He would live another 6 years, dying from pneumonia on 1 November 2006.

[jhesite]

"In the absence of hope, we must struggle to survive—by the skin of our teeth."

Darkness visible, William Styron