The Dark Place Pt. 2

 Living in the dark place can be tough and other times not so bad. I know this place very well. For all the pain the dark place holds, it is familiar and comforting. It is the only place where I am not confused by how I feel.  I know what it feels like to be in the dark place. I recognize that one can't reside in this place all the time but sometimes we have no choice in the matter.

It seems like we have no choice as we have to try and break the cycle.  This is not so easy to do. It took several years for me to get to a place where I could talk about the darkness.  Courage to talk about this place that exists in my head but physically feel. One thing is for certain, you need to know you are in a cycle to begin with.  Recognizing where you are and what is going on is probably the hardest thing to do because the moment you acknowledge it, you can no longer ignore it. 

The dark thoughts in your mind are now given life and words. You cannot put them back in the bottle. This is why the journey to break the cycle is so difficult.  You have to be in a place to tackle it. I learned over the years that the saying 'when the time is right' is actually true. It's not a hard fast rule to follow but you know when it's time to tell someone something.

Over the course of our lives, we come arrive at various destinations that cause to decide the direction we will go.  At that moment in time, we may not be ready to leave the dark place that is holding us hostage, but another time will arrive where we do decide to take the path to break the cycle or simply alter the journey.

Time and time again we will come upon a place, a post in our life where we will make a choice. Do we go this way or that way?  No matter what choice we make, there is no wrong path for we will always be on the right path at that moment in time.  We will always return to the place we need to make a choice and will always know where we need to be. We know it in our guts, our intuition.  We simply know, we simply keep holding on. 

Enjoy your musical treat of Simply Reds' 'Holding Back the Years'

Rock On!

~Maynard

The Dark Place

 It's funny when you tour YouTube and what pops up in your recommendations. I clicked on a video of The HoneyDew Podcast with Ryan Sickler. I am not familiar with Ryan Sicker, didn't even know he was a comedian, but his guest was Josh Wolf. Turns out Josh has been on plenty of times but the one I tuned into was about a year old. They talked about Josh's life and career; even talking briefly about how Josh had found himself at one point in a dark place. 

As Josh spoke, it struck me that when he said he'd been in a "dark place" he hadn't been to THE dark place.  It was clear Josh was speaking of being in a dark place but more from a depressive state but not the full-on dark place - the place I know all too well. What Josh was talking about was more of a midnight-blue and not the black world of the suicidal. 

I'm not saying Josh wasn't in a dark place, it's just his dark place is not the same definition as I would give it.  If Josh thought he was in a dark place, he didn't know just how dark stuff can get. I don't want to discount his experience because it was his to endure, it was his journey and for him it was dark.

For me, it made me realize that society as a whole when describing their depressive state, they call it a "dark place". However, when I hear someone say they were in a dark place I equate to having been in the dark place I once resided in but that's not the case.

It's disappointing for me. I think for a moment I found someone who understands the dark place but learn they haven't been where I have been. For a long time, I have tried to find people like me and haven't. It's one let down after another in some ways. I will admit when Josh said he'd been in a dark place that I was going to hear about a man, raising three children by himself, poor and struggling talk about it. I was hoping to hear his story about being in the dark place.  It was a story I would not hear.

The show wasn't bad as Josh went through a lot of stuff and I have been discovering his stand-up through YouTube and just finished reading his book. It was good.

All right my friends, it's time for me to end this post. Today's music treat is a song by Kim Richardson called "Out Here On My Own".  The YouTube video has the wrong title as I went and double checked that it is the same song that Irene Cara sang in the movie 'Fame'. 

Rock On!

~Maynard