For real, actionable advice feel free to skip ahead to the second big text. tl;dr look around the red text.
Why do people write this?
Typically advice for depressed people is written by people who aren't depressed. That does make sense since depression makes it so much more difficult to do things. Things that are done are most often done by people that find it easy to do things.
For the author, a making a cup of tea or sitting outside for a few minutes are examples of something that is a "free action". You might here someone express the belief that "willpower is infinite".
I used to think I could walk forever up until I did so for 9 hours. What is going on when someone writes this is that they never had to come up to these limits before. That leads to advice that isn't helpful to the people that need it most.
This is also a problem with physical exercise. Most people think of running or lifting weights as typical starting points. But what does someone who can't stand for long do?
The same principles apply, you stretch the muscles, they break, they repair. It's just that when you are starting from scratch, lifting the leg and standing or what have you is enough to do that.
So I am depressed and can't get out of bed. What do I do?
Just like with exercise we start small.
Think about breathing manually. This is impossible to fail. You don't have to do anything besides think of breathing. And yet, as you do it it is proof you have some control still.
Wiggle your fingers. Open and close your hand.
Move your arm. Lift it up. It can be just at the elbow to start
Put your hand in a position to push you to the side. It's okay if this just gets you to your side. That is progress
Get the legs involved. You can start with the toes, then ankles, then up to your knees
With more limbs involved we can shift over to the edge of the bed
Get some legs off
Sitting position
Now stand up
Reading this you may find that it doesn't take that many steps. That's great. You may find that it takes more and that you have to recover from each one. That's fine too. The important part is that you gained some progress each time. Even if you fall back, it gets easier and easier to do the same thing, just like building muscle.
At the end of the day, no one is going to know how many steps you used to get out of bed. The trick is that when something seems insurmountable you break it down into small enough steps that the next one is doable to you personally.
Once you get it done, then that's as good as anyone else.
He has given gifts to the other inmates for Christmas using the donations people sent his commissary account.
He appears to have attempted to communicate through flashing his cell lights to show his supporters outside that he could hear them cheering for him (this exact light flashing is what inmates at the previous prison did to communicate to the news that they were in support of Luigi, so he may have learned it from them and taken this form of light communication with him to MDC.)
It is rumored he is paying for the other inmates' healthcare using donations to his commissary account.
Inmates who shared time with him at the Penn prison say he 'gave them a voice' when they 'had never had one before' (in reference to the collective shouting 'Free Luigi' the inmates did.
He is writing back to supporters and is alleged to have informed one supporter that he is warm, taken care of, and will be okay. He does not want people to stay up at night worrying about him.
han kang, winner of the nobel prize for literature, refused to celebrate because of the wars: 'With the war intensifying and people being carried out dead every day, how can we have a celebration or a press conference?'
toshiyuki mimaki, co-chair of Hidankyo, the A-bomb survivors’ group that won nobel peace prize, said: 'Gaza right now is like Japan 80 years ago' and had thought the prize would go to those working hard in Gaza, not to Hidankyo.
arundhati roy, winning the PEN pinter prize, in her speech at the british library: "Not all the power and money, not all the weapons and propaganda on earth can any longer hide the wound that is Palestine."
alaa abdel fattah, who was named PEN Writer of Courage by Roy, is in egyptian prison. but in 2021 his mother brought his letters from prison on gaza: Free Jerusalem; tranquil Alexandria, Bride of the Sea; Beirut, the Sheltering Tent — the symbols seem more real than the cities. But Gaza and Cairo are both cities that resist romanticization and so elude song. No one sings to Cairo, but it is the capital of the Arabs. No one sings to Gaza either, but it remains the indisputable capital of Palestine. Both are always present in a crisis. [...]
Do I have the right to dream of escaping to Gaza? Do I have the right to dream of a road to Cairo that passes through Gaza? Does a captive have the right to ask for help from the besieged? I know that these questions show how ancient I am, but I’m an Arab and Palestine’s always on my mind. And, in my defense, I’ll say that I refused to be humiliated in my country, and I never lowered my banners, and it should count that I stood in the face of my oppressors: an orphan, naked and barefoot, and my solace is that the tragedy I’m living is but my share of yours. I call out to you: you are always on my mind."
these are the things the brave and intellectual people of our time are saying. it is possible to be principled. it is always possible to be principled. it is also possible to be less than that—look around and you'll see it in all the writers and artists of our time who are abdicating their roles within humanity. we're living in a time of perfect clarity.
A little girl died from hunger in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, despite being in the area where aid trucks are distributed. Another family in the north in Gaza city was forced to eat a donkey, which for many in Palestine is inconceivable culturally. Bisan says there isn't even water (clean OR dirty) for them to drink or wash with.
will never forget the parents who lost all 8 of their kids saying "they slept hungry, we were trying to get them a piece of bread but they were killed"
we are witnessing a population run out of food. WFP said a few days ago that half of the population are starving, nine out of 10 are not eating every day.
keep in mind that not having enough food, even when you're not literally starving to death, makes your body heal slower so all these people (who have all sorts of wounds from the bombing and everything else) are all physically healing much more slowly than they would be if they had any food to eat. it also causes you to have difficulty regulating body temperature which means that these people (who had to leave their homes with no winter clothes to speak of) are much more susceptible to the cold than they would be if they just had food.
the current problems every gazan is facing right now all exacerbate each other.
So, uh, now that someone fired a gun outside of a Jewish synagogue and preschool (that was in session) here in the U.S., is now the time we can talk about rising antisemitism on the left in the U.S.?
Because here’s the thing: American Jews have been trying to raise the issue. Over and over and over. And repeatedly we’ve been told we are paranoid, that “real” leftists/progressives aren’t antisemitic, that our pointing out truly troubling language being used by those that identify as anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian isnt a real issue but is us being secret Zionists and whining to distract from Israel’s wrongdoings…
Jews have been written off, ignored, silenced, and even threatened for bringing up the rising tide of leftist antisemitism and antisemitism in some pro-Palestinian activism. We’ve been told that it isn’t the time, that diasporic Jews’ concerns and fears can’t be addressed right now because of what is happening elsewhere, if, of course, they are even based on reality at all.
Now that shots have been fired outside an in-session Jewish preschool, rooms full of toddlers - not by a neo-Nazi, not by a white supremacist, not by a MAGA idiot, but by someone who shouted “free Palestine” - now can we talk about it?
I can speak only for myself, but I am not asking you not to care about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, I am not asking you to support the Israeli government. What I am asking you to do is include us in your activism, to listen to us when we tell you that some of the rhetoric being used on the left is dangerous to us, to believe us when we say that there is actual antisemitism on the left.
Because if now is not the time, I suspect that the only time will be when it is too late.
To this day people will cry over the knowledge and works destroyed when the library of Alexandria was burned down.
And yet no tears are shed as Palestinian archives and libraries are bombed.
Saint Porphyrius Church, built in 1150 and the 3rd oldest church in the world has been bombed.
It's not an accident.
Israel aren't simply killing Palestinians, they are trying to erase that there ever were Palestinians in the first place.
Destroying their livelihoods, trying to to destroy their culture and history and pretend this land was never there's.
It's easy to deny someone's existence when there's no record of them.
Which is why it's so important to look at the atrocities and bear witness to what's happening.
But to also recognise that Palestine is more than it's suffering.
There is a living breathing culture, of art, history, literacy which all come from the Palestinians.
Traditions they've carried for centuries.
So while we mourn the dead, we shall fight for the living. Fight for the preservation of their crafts, amplify their voices as they speak on their culture.
Palestinian history and culture is alive. And no matter how much the world wants to erase that, they cannot and will not.
I just want to say that out of the +7,028 Palestinians killed, only 13 members of hamas are estimated to have died. The point is, if after all this time you still believe israel is "defending" itself or is targeting hamas then you're not even ignorant you're cruel and you support genocide.
The Big Damn List Of Stuff They Said You Didn't Know
Listen to this episode from Cocktails & Capitalism on Spotify. Continuing the story of Palestine, Leeh outlines the Great Arab Revolt and th
What will the maps of Palestine and Israel look like if Israel illegally annexes the Jordan Valley on July 1?
Five free eBooks on the colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine
Here we have collated our free ebooks, reading lists and ongoing publishing on the Verso Blog. These resources challenge much of the zionist
Pluto Books Free Palestine Reading List 30-50% off
LGBT Activist Scott Long's Google Drive of Palestine Freedom Struggle Resources
(includes some of the reading material recced below)
The Cambridge UCU and Pal Society Resources List
List of Academic and Literary Books Compiled by Dr. Kiran Grewal
Academic Books (many available in Goldsmiths library)
Rosemary Sayigh (2007) The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Bloomsbury
Ilan Pappé (2002)(ed) The Israel/Palestine Question, Routledge
(2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, OneWorld Publications
(2011) The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel, Yale University Press
(2015) The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge, Verso Books
(2017) The Biggest Prison on earth: A history of the Occupied territories, OneWorld Publications
(2022) A History of Modern Palestine, Cambridge University Press
Rashid Khalidi (2020) The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, MacMillan
Andrew Ross (2019) Stone Men: the Palestinians who Built Israel, Verso Books
Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir (2012) The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine, Stanford University Press.
Ariella Azoulay (2011) From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950, Pluto Press
Jeff Halper (2010) An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Pluto Press
(2015) War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification
(2021) Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State, Pluto Press
Anthony Loewenstein (2023) The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the Technology of Occupation around the World (CURRENTLY FREE TO DOWNLOAD ON VERSO)
Noura Erakat (2019) Justice for some: law and the question of Palestine, Stanford University Press
Neve Gordon (2008) Israel’s Occupation, University of California Press
Joseph Massad (2006) The persistence of the Palestinian question: essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, Routledge Edward Said (1979) The Question of Palestine, Random House
Memoirs, Novels & Poetry:
Voices from Gaza - Insaniyyat (The Society of Palestinian Anthropologists)
Letters From Gaza • Protean Magazine
Raja Shehadeh (2008) Palestinian Walks: forays into a Vanishing Landscape, Profile Books
Ghada Karmi (2009) In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, Verso Books
Mourid Barghouti (2005) I saw Ramallah, Bloomsbury
Izzeldin Abuelaish (2011) I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, Bloomsbury
Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke (eds)(2015) Palestine Speaks: Narrative of Life under Occupation, Verso Books
The Works of Mahmoud Darwish
Human Rights Reports & Documents
Information on current International Court of Justice case on ‘Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’
UN Commission of Inquiry Report 2022
UN Special Rapporteur Report on Apartheid 2022
Amnesty International Report on Apartheid 2022
Human Rights Watch Report on Apartheid 2021
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ 2009 (‘The Goldstone Report’)
Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, International Court of Justice, 9 July 2004
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