I am sympathetic to other people, sometimes too much. I'm not very good at being sympathetic with myself. It will come up usually once a month in crying fits. I usually I can't tack a reason on these fits, I just let them pass. Eventually they do and everything is fine, but this is what bottling them up will do to you.

Lisa Winebrenner {lwinebre@indiana.edu}

Another method of sorrow management is to take it out on innocent bystanders.

But my personal favorite is to withdraw a little bit more with each blow, so that what is left is a totally insecure, reclusive

gob of nerves, numbed by nightly episodes of UNSOLVED MYSTERIES and STRANGE UNIVERSE.

tmargarett

And stupid as I might be, I always manage to trick myself out of my dark hole.

Manne {magnus.hultberg@infogate.se}

I do this for the course of about an hour...and when I am spent, I go back to Magdalen's mantra: "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine..."

I am not fine.

And yet, I'm functional.

Tell me again what the difference is?

Shy {shyq@hotmail.com}

Peg

Sometimes I think it's the right thing to do, but I just can't.

p

However, total solitude and separation from almost everyone I've known until I got here somehow helps cut down on the self pity. It's probably the knowledge that I am responsible for where I am and that given the sorrow I've caused to others, I've surrendered my right to cry.

j

the truth is that i think people should be together when they're sad. i don't know why exactly, but it somehow makes things easier. as for myself, i usually don't share others in my sorrow."

(ron would probably say the same)

ron and orit

rebecca {mars@well.com}

There's no easy way to deal with sorrow. Usually I don't get much sleep, say about an hour or two, and I wake up in the morning feeling like a zombie. That floating, dreamy sensation. For the first hour I would be doing things in the subconscious state. Then I let myself sink to the lowest point I would allow myself to and I would spring back to work like a torpedo.

The hurt and whatever anger would still be there but I just suppress it. If it gets too much, close to overflowing, I fight it out, by myself.

astrolite {astrolite1@hotmail.com}

i'll sit here a while longer i think, unraveling this knot, ensconced in candlelight and Nick Cave's voice, pretending to write, hoping that tomorrow will bring that new morning.

Jim {jim@vagabondage.com}

When I got divorced my father told me I should get therapy because I was too happy, too drunk, too carefree, I quit my job and went back to school. He thought I had "problems". 6 years later I'm able to process what happened back then, when I was married, and I'm writing it down. Now I'm dealing with it. In the past six years I've simply been catching up on living.

I think we do what we have to.

susan {susan@ricommunity.com}

I smoke them to sleep.

Nobody else seems to understand?

mike {klueliss@walrus.com}

just kidding.

Several months back I was going through a two year negotiation with my *soulmate* that ended in divorce. The observation was made by many of my friends that I was in a very black, suffering place. I didn't realize it at the time. My friends didn't want to remind me, I suppose, and just drank with me and smoked with me.

My ex wife at one point, became worried about my drinking, and my health, and asked my friends if they thought I had a drinking problem. What amused me about that, was that:

1. My friends are probably the worst examples of prudence

and

2. My soulmate didn't know my life well enough to know that as well.

end of history line. (any one still there?)

I'm in a much better place now. I think. A few people have noticed an awakening in me as well, so I'm pretty sure I'm there (here).

I don't drink nearly as much, but I picked up, somewher along the way the dirtiest habit I know (scatalogical stuff not withstanding). I've been smoking. I don't want to quit. I haven't yet seen the horror it must give to my lungs. I want to quit, but it's still fun. The monkey only weighs about five pounds right now.

Not sure where I'm at right now, the other day, while I was reading a book about junkkies, hustlers, and general losers, people with no way out, I got kinda bummed. It was the fourth of July, and the sky was as grey as pollution. Went out, got a pack of smokes, and I FELT BETTER.

I don't advise drinking as a form of healing, nor smoking, but fuck if it didn't help me cope. I can quit anytime I want.

mike {mkbrooks@leapnet.com}

mike {mkbrooks@leapnet.com}

Lance {here@glassdog.com}

In college, I began avoiding my problems. I'd ditch class because I was bored, then I'd ditch class because I was ashamed to go back, then I'd ditch class because I was sleeping. I'd tell myself and everyone else that I was sick. Usually migraines, or sinus problems. I spent an entire semester alternately sleeping and crying until one day it just kind of exploded into tears that came from nowhere. The kind of hitching, sobbing tears that hurt and yet you can't stop them.

Luckily, my crying jag just happened to begin outside our student union at the beginning of our counseling center's open hours. I spent the next hour crying to the counselor about everything and nothing. I didn't havbe another episode like that for a year, when I was really worried about graduating without a job. Everyone expected me to be cheerful, so I went to the campus church and cried, not really praying although I did light a candle and asked for some help. The next day, I got a call from Saturn requesting an interview. I didn't get the job, but it was what I needed at the time.

Now, for the first time in my life, I've gotten pretty good at figuring out what's wrong and how to fix it. I just have to make sure that when I'm sick I really am sick, and not sad. It reminds me of a quote fro Wayne's World: "I thought I had mono for a year and a half. It turned out I was just really bored."

Right now, I'm really bored.

Jenna {jennifer.petroskey@sdrc.com}

People ask if you're ok. Of course I am. I'm dealing with things. In the end, you have to be ok, there's not really any other choice.

As I get older, I think I'm getting better at dealing with what life throws at you. Soured relationships, broken ties, all part of an ongoing education.

The upside. Going through such times makes me think about some of the things I've done in the past. Makes me realize that in the future, I don't want to be a part of causing someone to feel like I do now.

There's a certain beauty even in the darkest misery.

gary {garyb@sfo.com}

amanda {amanda@oregonlive.com}

I remember what he was like.

My sorrows are few, and they need no additives like booze or carelessness. But I do write. To write, I tell people, to write is to remember, is to live forever.

L. {lukeseem@stardot.com}

love wrapped in a greasy package {conman@gladstone.uoregon.edu}

And then I stopped. I opened the blinds and opened the windows and let the fresh air in.

I'd died, see. I was mourning me dying. I spent that time being dead, letting my sorrow suck all the life out of me.

And then I said to myself: "Shithead! You're alive! You're still here!"

Parts of me die. They go away with people, and I mourn their loss. But something new grows in their places, because they have to. I have to.

I'm not dead yet.

Adam {rak@openwindow.org}

Nowadays, with the responsibilities of work and friends looming over me on a daily basis, I disappear into the outside world. I am no longer important, I am forced to function so I delve into reorganising my bookmarks.Or I check up stats for my fantasy leagues. Or I watch all those movies on video I have been putting off. I will do anything that has nothing to do with myself or who I am.

I was healthier then.

Hawk

william {wabernat@inetarena.com}

I don't mean to sound cold... or stoic... but after you nearly lose your life a few times, other troubles seem tame.

michael {whitneym@mindspring.com}

Takes a while. Lately I'm trying something new; talking about it, admitting it exists, letting it be out in the open.

Helps.

Michael {funniman1@aol.com}

"I've been to every single book I've known to sooth the thoughts that plague me so..."

Life is experience. I have not holed up and dug in, I continue to run in its face. Don't ask me about my parents' divorce or my father's Vietnam problems... (including the one where he demonstrated his power as he stared at me down the barrel of a M-10 Infantry rifle)

The hell with feeling guilty, and being made the trump card of a game between two adults-with-the-minds-of-children-and-the-hearts-of-tyrants.

ooops... guess it does get older and never goes away. :-)

Scott {scott.paladino@eds.com}

Only lately, I've been talking to friends. And I don't know if that's the right thing to do, or if it's helping. But at least I know it's there.

Alex Massie {alex@afterdinner.com}

Sooner or later, however, you either die (so easy, with the blackness around you; many of us have courted the cool, soft silences of death), or you come up for air and fight for shore. I myself have dealt with grief and loss with everything from Lacan to lithium. There are two things I've learned: 1) No matter how profound or particular my sorrow may feel, it is not unique. This is a very, very hard thing to come to terms with, because as Lacan would say, loss makes us who we are. No one wants to think their pain--or their self--is common, but as a wise queer friend told me, "I'm different, but I'm not special."

The second thing I learned, which falls out from the first: sorrow is the need for connection to people. To immerse oneself in sorrow, to court our lady through long nights and blackened days, does do a kind of work; discovering the geography of one's loss teaches the borders of one's self. But there's a time when you have to let go of the autoerotic pain of this self-absorption, and turn your ego outwards to the world. This is why therapy can "cure" depression: it's not a hackneyed ritual of puerile self-centeredness, but a way of practicing connection to someone. For me, it worked. The grief is never gone, because to be human is to be lost, in many ways, but at least I've learned how to move through sorrow without getting mired in it, how to find my way out to other people, and to love.

Liz Eckhart {eckhart@www.sou.edu}

J.P. Vicente {vicente@concentric.net}

I tried to drown the pain of her by trying to forget myself in the pain of others. Ten hour days at a homeless shelter, wallowing in the addiction and poverty and just plain bad luck of fivehundred bad stories- each worse than a spoiled boy with a broken heart could claim...

they didn't help at all. Every night I couldn't sleep and every morning I didn't want to wake- and it was because of her.

and then I realized she was sleeping fine and that there were still stars in the sky and my dog still loves me... and it all clicked. I still don't know why- I just hope next time the magic comes again and comes quicker. in the mean time, I'll fall in love again, and keep listening to the stories of others. Maybe this time around- and maybe not.

Louie {vicente@concentric.net}

Lately I cry at sappy TV commercials. I guess that's "better". ...

Magdalen Powers {lolita@netcom.com}

this woman i had, we broke up; and it hurt like i thought it wouldn't end

i was always afraid to cry because i thought it'd get the best of me and that i wouldn't stop for a long while

this one time, however, i just stopped caring

and i started crying

i cried

and i cried

had to go to a doctor's appointment, and while there, i cried; the doctor was like, jesus, are you OK; and i just said "no," and cried some more

i didn't have to explain it; i just had to feel it; for the most part, people were fine just to leave me be

i realized that, like joy, grief is my right; who would tell a fallen child with a skinned knee to stop crying? too many parents; that's why a bunch of us are in here now; when i'm hurting, i'm entitled

back to the story: amid all this crying, someone wisely observed that i was still holding back -- like i was holding my breath

well, then i really let fly; i wanted someone to come rescue me from my grief; no one did, and it was a good thing; it gave us a chance to bond

tammy

it seems like whenever i try to believe that it isn't true, i get disappointed. i know that setting my expectations down to nil is probably one my problems but it's been the only way to deal with the failed friendships, loneliness, and lack of accomplishments.

at the VERY least, i have a workable, reliable logic to my life, but like many of the comments above, when I'm all alone at night trying to go to sleep, imagining someone's arms around me, holding me while i pass off to an even deeper state of loneliness, is the only thing that can get me through the night.

n

Stacie Mast {Mast@uwplatt.edu}

hybrid {hybrid@bigfoot.com}

Now I a deep rooted pain grows in my heart and shoots down my right arm and I weep silently, clutching myself until the pain subsides.....

There must be a better way....

Jenny {jmassie@toto.csustan.edu}

In this dream i was sitting on the keel of a boat on a great sea seemingly waiting for something far off in the distance. Then from the great dark depths under the boats prow a great Swordfish sprang and stung me on the hand. And it was from this small wound that a torrent of poison poured forth in an torential cascade.

Perceptive girl...

I have in the past tried to cast my sorrow in lead and cast it overboard, only to find that the chain was still attached, alas much too late to save myself.....

However, the word 'why' is teaching me to swim.....

Warren {Rawfishy@hotmail.com}

sandra {Rawfishy@hotmail.com}

beth {beth@sister.com}

alex {alex@fictional.com}

It helps, having someone hold you, to tell you everything is all right, even if they are lying. Just to know someone cares enough to let you cry on them, for them to decipher your sobbings into reason, is enough comfort for me.

I beg for pity, like a child.

For I am, and always will be, a child.

Denise

Throughout the past four years, I have survived more than I had in my lifetime..I had no choice. Sorrow was staring me in the eyes. There was no choice in the matter. I had to learn what to do with this abused child left stranded on my doorstep.

For now, I'm cuddling her, letting her cry, reminding her that she has me that she's not alone. But then I look around and realize that I'm alone with her. Yes, I am alone with my sorrow.

But I scream it to the world, whether the world likes it or not...

Can you hear me?

Angela {earthsis@spindle.net}

I am unable to cry about mostly anything. I cry about once a year, maximum. And when I do it is always over the silliest things; when my grandmother died, I was very upset, but I didn't cry. Two years later, when my grandfather died, I didn't really feel that sad. I was very close to both of them. But I cry when I have a fight with my mother, or my computer swallows an important document.

The rest of the time, I just hide everything. I sit in semi-darkness in my room. I shuffle cards endlessly. I listen to music very loudly, so that it totally surrounds and overwhelms me. I go numb.

Sometimes, if the right people are around and they are in the right mood, I will talk to someone. Then I will pour out my soul. But I've only been doing that for the past year.

I guess people think that I bounce back easily. I am always the one that never cries.

Sometimes I like the fact that I am so strong; other times I hate it. I feel as if I'm cheating myself.

As for now, I'm going to go to my bedroom and nurse my latest sorrow. Loud music sounds good. Every sorrow has it's own music that soothes the best. I think this time it will be large amounts of "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" by Warren Zevon. Maybe I'll get lucky and cry. Or not.

kris

vesna

tonight i'm facing that horrible first night alone. my partner left me today, and i'm stunned with grief and hurt. but i have something else on top of the sorrow, something strange in its newness, something that might pull me through.

hope.

could be any one of us

so, uh, i dunno. thanks for all the ideas? mike {misuba@iberia.vassar.edu}

when i was little, a lot of things went wrong. my mother died, friendships ended, awkward stages were gone through... things are much easier to handle now. they seem so much smaller when compared to the past. but when real sorrow comes up again, when i become a true orphan, who knows what i'll do with it? maybe i'll have to cultivate a belief in god? or maybe it'll jolt me out of this eye in my storm...

pamela {pdavies@bu.edu}

black wings {thomas.winther@isp.uio.no}

I have a very special person whom I can talk with and she allows me to vent all that I am feeling or thinking, I feel extremely lucky to have such a wonderful person in my life. Sorrow and sadness are best dealt with in a shared manner, this I have learned the hard way, drinking ones self into numbness is only going to help the sorrow fester and grow.

Another way I deal with pain or confusion from pain is that I write about what I think torments me.

Poetry is therapy.

Cody {cconser@terraworld.net}

Crying at bad, shallow pop tunes on the radio

I was too embarassed to say it

The songs just couldn't be that good

They never were

Forgive me Cheryl Crowe

mike # 357 {mkbrooks@leapnet.com}

I'm not dead yet. So there's still time to get my act together. I can't milk anyone else's pity after reading all these tear-jerkers. So I'll just get drunk and go to bed.

Kurt Boudreaux {kboudre@iAmerica.net}

"when everything falls apart, you just have to sift through the pieces, pick out the good stuff and throw out the bad"..."Yeah, but you've gotta sit and stare at the rubble for a while first."

I got that from a comic strip. Hey, It's applicable...

. . .

I'm too scared to let it out now. It may not stop.

Travis {kody@earthling.net}

Something changed after a while, I began talking to people, mostly girls, they seemed to understand me better. About a year ago I became less selective, I'll tell almost anyone. If I'm sad I'll let everyone know, either by telling them, or by moping around so obviously depressed that someone asks me what my problem is, then I'll tell them.

Sometimes
when there is nobody around
I'll lie in bed

as I focus my thoughts
I can feel a wave of sorrow
building
in me.
when the torrent hits

I cry

softly

then
I sleep

brian {bdelsalv@toto.sustan.edu}

I'm going to try to do it differently this time.

Juliette

"how you doing, Nic?"

"Okay."

"really?"

"no, not really...but I'll live. I always do."

"You gonna be alright?"

"i'll be fine."

stupidity. pride. rather hurt myself than cry in front of someone.

And people are surprised that the muscles in my neck are constantly rock hard. it manifests itself in different ways.

nicole {noizangl@cycor.ca}

pretentious

line

spacing

and whatnot.

Fish {fish3@sirius-software.com}

Oh shit.....here I go again.

Alex {jethro@waonline.com}

Someone once told me "We are not humans looking for a spiritual experience, we are spirits looking for a human experience".

danusia

Daydreaming is a drug to me, like smoking and alcohol.

When I dream myself out of my pain I usually dream myself into a better happier time, or into a continuation of happier times. In my dreams I surround myself with the friends I love and haven't seen. And which I'll probably never see again.

I spend hours doing nothing, dreaming my life away, wishing it into oblivion. If I'm in pain I can't read or write.

I just can't... I skip lines, I can't concentrate. I can't place words on a page.

Caroline

Physically.

Mentally.

I take it out on others:

Pretentiously and cruelly.

I hate myself for it but it defines the only art in what I am. I live for my sorrow, live to propagate and understand it.

Kate {a.northern.soul@mcmail.com}

annie

I am
I am alone
I am with me, me only,
me forever
I will not question
A question cannot be answered
Not the way I want
Why question?
What is this nothing that I feel?
What will I become?
What was I?
Fear
Fear
Fear
Do I fear what is?
I feel emotion, pure, burning with intensity
It beats at my chest from within
I can't let it out
I dont know what it is
I cant know
Unless I become it
Will I become emotion?
Having what I do not want wanting what I do not have
Do I have anyting?
What is having?
I have hands.
Do I have what they hold?
If I cut them off and hold them do I still have them?
I want to break free
I want to be
An infinity of thought flows through me
unrecognised
unacknowledged
I am a torrent
I am alive
Alive
Opposition turns to water as I speak
Water turns to ice as I
breathe
Life dies
What is evil?
Is evil?
All is one as nothing is
all
All that can be, is
There is nothing
I want to cry
I cannot
I want to laugh
I cannot
I want to love
I cannot
I want to kill
I cannot
I am a song

I float through reality
As wood floats on water
Not breaking the surface
Not seeing, not being enveloped by all that makes me what I am
That takes me where I go
Or do I go?
Maybe
Maybe
I bow my head to all that I can never know
I shed a tear for a dying insect
I slit the throat of a young child
The blood pours over my disbelieving hands
Why have I done this?
Why did I cry?
Why does life take life?
Is life?
I cannot question
I can only
float
Questions cannot be thought Questions cannot be
I can only float
Float across reality
Float across water

Lappy {bwo1@cornell.edu}

I see sorrow as a big chocolate cookie. Fortunately I don't eat in order to deal with stress. So, you could put this whole cookie in your mouth at once, but it would be overwhelming. You would probably end up choking. So you'd spew it out across the room and end up with a worse mess.

The best way to consume this cookie is to take very small bites every now and then. I used to get this far, but take hundreds of small bites in a short period of time. You have to breath in between bites. Breathing may take days, or months.

You might not be able to eat the whole thing. Everything might not be fine in the end. However, things change over time.

78-Byron

albert green {agreen@hotmai.com}

Historically, emotional trauma has always been followed by a return to my "normal" self (the afore-mentioned bitter cynical paradigm). However, such events do always seem to indelibly etch themselves upon me.... I have flashbacks and uncontrolled fits of crying and/or semi-manic behaviour from time to time. The past is the present. The end.

Brokenwindow {marionette_virus@hotmail.com}

But sometimes they just fall and fall and fall at the most inopportune times, when I'm serving coffee or in line at the bank. And I just wipe and wipe, and go right on with work or whatever. Because I'm not really sobbing, gasping--crying. These stupid tears just keep coming out. Then I know I am just so sad, and I don't like this- but it gets worse before it gets better.

But it always does.

kari {yyy@telepath.com}

luv

luv {smashinglysweet@hotmail.com}

Somedays I stand in front of a mirror with a fake smile on my face, until the smile suddenly becomes real. That lasts for a little while.

I've started listening to country music - I have three stations now. They help. I'd never really related to music - just enjoyed it - until the things that have happened in the past three months happened. Country music makes me feel like there are others in my boat. It's a community of pain and grief.

I read Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged always makes me feel that somewhere, even if only in fiction, there are people I can respect and relate to and understand and want to know. Hard-assed, money-making people who have some principles and know the value of being genuine.

I drink, even alone - not to the point of drunkeness. Just try to relax and and step away from the sorrow. Find some dissociation from it. I tried being social about it, to distract myself with conversation and friends, but ended up being picked up by the police. Now things are worse.

I write poetry, which I've been doing for six years now.

And, yes, I cry at random. In the car, at home, watching a movie. I suddenly started crying today when Karl said "That boy, Frank, he lives inside of his own heart. That's an awful big place to live in" in Slingblade.

I don't sleep well. I think of her and the man who was my friend and who is now with her in my place. I regret. I talk to myself. I think about suicide, and every time I think about it, it seems like a more possible, viable option. Then I sneer at myself.

And every day I get up and do the things that I do so well. And then I go home, alone, to walk Kismet - my dog. And I keep thinking, two more months and I'll be okay. Three more months and I'll be okay. Half a year and I can move to Seattle. Two more years and I'll be a new man.

Yeah.

steve {phitz@mindspring.com}

I think i am alice in wonderland stuck inside the rabbit hole, not being able to fly or fall. I float and watch my reflection in the mirrors that pass by my face.

Simon {sthibault@ustanne.ednet.ns.ca}

for good?

No!!!!, only to fetch even more garish and ghoulish abominations from the Nether Regions of my past...

...and sometimes my future.

I have been a lost wanderer in this great Travel we call Life;

Never knowing where to go, What to do, What I want. Sometimes, the greatest consolation I have is just to be alone with Myself. I can't help but wonder if ever the fathoms of my sorrow are finite...

...Someday, I might find the answer. There's always this sick voice in my head that tells me to jump...

...It's a fine day for a swim anyway...

The Main Man {rmacutay@hotmail.com}

...err...and I miss you and I owe you a big Kit-Kat.

cole {cole@vivid.com}

nathanel

Learn About Sorrow

Manda Peters {conner@sanasys.com}

I feel like I'm always waiting for grief's call. I try to pay attention to the times when grief wants my full attention. Often, no doubt because I live in California, it happens in my car. A sobfest on 101! And sometimes when it's quiet and dark outside I hear it calling.

Attention must be paid, Arthur Miller wrote. Without grief, without sorrow, the warrior isn't whole. Buddhists speak of the tender heart of sadness -- how important it is to cultivate that heart. I try to accommodate grief -- make room for it, in fact. It's a better companion than anger or fear, after all.

Karen Wickre {karen@nerak.com}

missy {mouse@cinti.net}

The desperation- uncontrolled thoughts,

are they not buried in the dull roar of rush hour?

My eyes barely open,

shest deep and staring out to sea,

the questions seem not so urgent, my wild appetites sated.

Could she have been carrying my child?

It seems to be a world of senseless possibilities.

D {dowen@SLAC.Stanford.edu}

jack {pjacke@concentric.net}

had cut down several giant old

maple trees that were "in the way" of the powerlines. As I drove slowly past the scene, which was littered with sawdust and fresh, torn leaves, my throat swelled, my eyes began to burn and I cried for those innocent old spirits killed as they stood there loving their lives.

A briefly observed scene in the street- he reaches out and caresses her cheek- and I struggle to maintain composure.I

long ago gave up trying to stifle my feelings even though a bout of tears leaves me looking like the great pumpkin. I think I have cried over everything at least once. I sleep deeply when ever I am tired and my dreams are like anyone elses. There is a large continent of peace inside of me

surrounded by stormy seas. ~d

deborah {duchessa@hotmail.com}

My wife had a miscarriage several months ago. She was nearly 5 months pregnant and she was in a lot of pain.

I cried.

I felt helpless.

I tried to rationalize.

I try to convince myself that it is for the best.

I looked for a reason,

and then I cried again, and again, and again.

Eventually I got through it (or so I thought) by talking to people, reading books about grief and sharing with my wife.

I became mostly happy again but now my wife wants to try again.

I am terrified of the possibility of going through another miscarriage. My wife doesn't seem to be. All I can think about was my fear pulling up to my house with an anambulance out front. Or how horrifying those hours in the hospital were trying to save the baby and watching my wife screaming in pain, bleeding. I tried so hard to have hope that we would stop the contractions and that we would be able to have this child. And then its little heart stopped. I never felt so much sadness and I am so afraid of of it happening again.

I am not sure what to do with my sorrow. I still feel like crying.

Rich

tom {patntom@prodigy.net}

Help comes in unexpected ways. A suicide support group - to share the pain and realize you're not alone. One day in May walking on a busy street a friend goes by in a passing car & yells my name. It seemed to come out of nowhere, no source,like a Zen gong, waking me up, calling me back to life. I started doing strange things at work, like when the guy is standing up at the dessert case, asking which one is to die for, I say none of them are to die for, but there are several you might enjoy.

Choose wisely who you confide in. Some people are not helpful & make it worse burdening you with their problems & not helping to lighten yours. But do confide...

Choose wisely the music you listen to, something that uplifts and soothes, not mires. Bach Mass in B Minor - no words to trigger memories. But do listen...

Move your body. I bought a bike and tackled some hills. The mental and physical concentration kept me focussed in the here & now and helped with the anger. As stuck as I felt, I was physically moving forward, a needed metaphor. Breathing loosens up & moves those held places. Dance, run, swim. The sorrow is their in your body, give it expression. Write, draw, put it on a page or canvas. It stops feeling so overwhelming, it's contained, it's smaller than me. I can own it; instead of it owning me. In July the blackest time, I spent a night at work thinking I go home & blow my head off just to stop the pain. But I knew what that would do to my family & there was no gun. Just lots of body-wracking tears, and a good friend who listened the next day. Enough to carry me one step further. I used geranium aroma-therapy oil and Ignatia, a homeopathic remedy for grief - gentle, subtle allies. Magdalen, you've suffered an incredible number of losses in close proximity of each other. Over-whelming is to small a word. Thanks for opening up and trusting.

Let your tears carry you

have faith in them

after a time you'll wake up on the beach by the ocean

warmed by the sun

it's a strange wonderful journey of our own making

We have our sorrow because we are capable of loving

Be gentle with yourself

and my heart goes out to all of you

Lisa {lkennedy@efn.org}

annette {shething@rocketmail.com}

I've had plenty of sorrow to deal with this last year. I lost a family member I was close to, and was diagnosed with cancer; with that situation, I've had to help people deal with the sorrow they feel for me, also.

Don't forget to count your blessings.

Kari

Unfortuantly I don't have such a tree where I live now, and there have been a couple of time when it would have been nice to have been able to climb up it, but I seem to have coped OK without it ;)

Tim {EnglishTim@hotmail.com}

We call ourselves the physco bitches from hell. And for an hour and a half every Thursday we laugh until we cry. We don't spend much time "working" on our problems, but again they do say that laughter is the best medicine. I just wish when they choose to put me on the "hot" seat I wouldn't cry. It is such a sign of weakness. I guess I am just lonely and don't like myself every much. More therapy? It is so great for the ego.

But the best thing for me to do when I do feel sad is to play with my son. There is no sweeter sound than the laughter of a 3 year old.

MDG {SplendRed@aol.com}

vee

without judging them good or bad man is that tought sometimes

and

most importantly

take deep slow belly breaths

wait for the sun to burn a whole in the clouds

sameet {sameet@earthlink.net}

Anything.

I went to what one

former friend

calls

The Dark Place.

The place in my soul

Where I was alone.

It was my shell

My armor

My only protection

from Them.

I became consumed with it

I spent two years

not coming out

I had defended myself

from Them

but also

from myself.

I stopped feeling

Anything.

Truth to be told I was almost happier there. In the last three years I forced myself to feel. I made myself open up to other people. And I realized why I wanted to be alone. Instead of becoming free, I was just in another sort of trap. I found that the one experience of sorrow that drove me into my armor anlo permeated my whole life. It was easier when I could just feel nothing. But I've stuck it out. I've made myself feel things, because even though most of it hurts, the spots of joy will usually make it worth it.

Tom {scy_fy@hotmail.com}

my bottle is filling, and it will overflow soon--and i will be the only one there to catch me.

cathi {GalaxieKat@juno.com}

not a very healthy habit, it know.

jennifer {hipswervy1@hotmail.com}

a tear is an experience i treasure.

ophelia {brokenmirror@hotmail.com}

K {cde5kam@titan.vcu.edu}

Rachel {editor@3-am.com}

Cuts, bruises, burns. If it is physically painful, it is an outgrowth of my sorrow.

r. lacher

So I've been playing my cello a lot...

jz

The two times in my life when I was the most promiscious were after I was raped and after my father died. Go figure.

Amy

"I am not FINE!" and many times I wonder who is...

who is...

i lie awake at night and dream. but in the morning it's all the same. and that night i'll cry, listen to sad songs, and fade away even more.

Candi {cmclevy@hotmail.com}

i steeled myself against it for over 20 years and then went into therapy and cried. i think it'll take me my whole life to wash it all away. i'm grateful for the chance to get a good cry.

that feels good!

aporup {aporup@hotmail.com}

I am so thankful that I am "normal" now.

Being a mom will do it.

Kristen {kristen@austintx.net}

I take many walks.

kiki

Later I will wake and stand and walk and smile.

Life will keep moving on and over me.

ginger

-E-

Erik Michel McCarthy {gremlin77@hotmail.com}

Justin Parker {wolfssin@hotmail.com}

I was the most prolific when I teetered between faint optimism and consuming melancholia; when I had just enough energy to produce yet still be "transfixed with a rapture of the deep"( -Liz Eckhart, see above). But now that happens very rarely, and when it does it's so brief that I can barely get out a sketchpad or onto a piano bench before the feeling dissipates. The possibility of making something beautiful cheers me up just enough that I'm no longer "transfixed" with sorrow. It's really pathetic. (But not depressing, unfortunately.)

So I watch TV. I watch a lot of TV. I keep my sorrow next to me on the couch. We channel surf, looking for things to remind us of the sad ol' days.

Pete {petercardillo@hotmail.com}

Sometimes I go to my friends, tell them then quickly dismiss it to help them with their problems. I pretend that their sorrow is so much worse than mine and I have to help them. Their's isn't.

But it at least puts off my tears for quiet nights alone.

I save it up and store it in this place in my mind.

For a time when I'm inspired. Then it's put into a poem that no one will see til I die.

It works, except I always feel sad til it is written. But no one else can tell, and that's the important thing. Right?

Laura

icicle {maliced@usa.net}

my sorrow goes somewhere, actually it goes everywhere, I package it up and pass it off as a rainy day, as somebody else's problem, as waking up on the wrong side of the bed. sometime it takes time, sometimes I forget it

all the time

it hurts

and I never, ever

tell anyone

J {heydicky@hotmail.com}

but when i get home and am alone and staring at my ceiling i cry, and curl up, and remember. all the good things. and all the remarks i made turn into hot air and fizzle away, and i am left with a sense of overwhelming emptiness.

maura {maura@maura.com}

I haven't had to deal with death yet - but each night as I lie in bed listening to the distant clatter of the trains, I feel I am experiencing the pain of death.

The silence- marred only by the distant murmour of the night life, creates an ethereal atmosphere. Oh well - c'est la vie I guess.

Jamie Frater {wraith@ihug.co.nz}

richard

Wiley

say that I have

indulged in it.

I don't mean to the point of

addiction or craving -- just

to the point of thinking hey

there's

something to this, this is just

a natural response to seeing the

world more clearly.

But now I've been clean for

months.

Bonjour Mesamis

It's not so much destroying other people's property; it's my way of telling myself, my brother, and anyone and everyone else, LOOK. LISTEN. I DO EXIST.

In the beginning, I saw tagging as a substantial thrill. Fuck, I'll always be a teenage thrill-tagger. But the more I tagged, the more of a release I got from years of all those words beating my brain black and blue. I saw it as a kind of salvation.

It's not suprising, then, that my tag is ANGEL.

Angel {poppinjay@hotmail.com}

I tried to hold it in when my friend died in a freak car crash. Didn't work. You have to get it out.

Life doesn't come with a happiness guarantee. Sorrow is natural. It's necessary, it's absolutely necessary to living. To not have sorrow is to live a lie. To deny your sorrow is to hobble yourself.

Because the yin has to balance out the yang. It's just the way (no pun intended). It's not a matter of "knowing the bad so you can appreciate the good." The bad is just as valuable as the good.

Life is a sine wave. Life is a throbbing manic-depressive pulse that you have to ride to its fullest. Life is pain, and pleasure, and everything in between. Life is love and death, truth and beauty, lies and hatred.

To deny any aspect of it is to deny who you are.

Scott {garbanzo666@yahoo.com}

l.a. enoaraf {faraone@erols.com}

I think too much at night, and that is when the pain appears again. It is like it´s been sitting in a corner of the room..waiting. Probably smiling too..knowing that I will let it come out soon. Come out to play..

Feeling lonely, unloved, ugly, unwanted.

Sometimes I feel better the morning after..sometimes that day just passes in a haze..and the evening is just like the one before.

But weeks pass by when I feel ok. Almost content with myself and life. I can´t help but to wonder if that is all an act that one side of me is putting up. I don´t seek help, I rarely talk to anyone about my darkest moments. And when I try....I can´t explain it. How can you put words to those emotions. I know I can´t..even though I am writing about it now. Writing has become some sort of therapy for me during the last year. Sometimes all the therapy I need is to hear that I am loved or liked, at the right moment. And then I settle down with a nice cup of tea and a good movie and like life again..for a while.

Rainy

I've read nearly the whole list of posts about this memoir, and the common theme seems to be an inability to express emotions in front of others, or at all.

I am envious, really, as I seem to be totally incapable of supressing my emotions. I am powerless to control or change them -- they happen, and I experience them, and when they're done happening, they go away.

I have spent most of my life struggling to change and control how I feel about everything, from my self-esteem to my hypersensitivity and irrationality. I would (and sometimes still will) lay in bed and shake with the effort of controlling my emotions.

It never worked.

Now I'm just trying to accept that what I feel is what I feel. I'm trying to let it run its course through me without blaming myself for feeling what I feel.

Every once in a while, I succeed.

Jen {orion13@ultranet.com}

Anna {sea_siren@hotmail.com}

i let it hide my eyes from those that should cause my misfortune and those who would only love me. i let my sorrow become me.

abraham {abraham@anti-social.com}

That lead me to self-destructive behaviour and a complete lack of regard for my own self in any way. Over the years, I've learnt that when things get too hard to deal with, it's only a temporary mood, and I'll pull out of it within a day or two.

But still it's hard. Once you've crossed the line and tried to destroy the thing you hate the most, suicide will always suggest itself as an answer. You take a journey one step at a time. Try dealing with life the same way.

Jos

Any outward sign of sorrow,like at funerals,seemed shocking;that people could lose control to that extent was ghastly, unnatural.Knowing the damage it could cause,I locked it up tight, pushed every single bit that ever came my way deep in me so I could never be touched by it.As was my way,then;tormented, repressed,distancing myself from the world and the people in it who bullied me and laughed as I ran away crying.

"Don't let them have the satisfaction of seeing you cry and they'll stop",but they didn't,not for years,whilst I was getting better at burying the hurt and not letting it show.

Emotionally disabled, automatically burying everything that could hurt me,I was alone in my own world,wondering how I could grieve for my granda,granmas or dog,only feel brief pain over the loss.

When I finally emerged from my shell,I looked at all the years of pain I had stored and knew that to release it would destroy me,blast my psyche to bits,but that I would never really FEEL if I didn't,only mind-numbing depression.

Now I'm at uni.,I'm getting help to get my head sorted out,trying to find an outlet which will let me drain this abcess safely.I can only hope that I will still be myself without it and that I will be all right.

Wish me luck(please).

Colin {Mc_Cacky@hotmail.com}

But this is sorrow.

I feel the sting of tears in my nose, my mouth turns down, I exhale and see the tears waver in my eyes... refusing to fall.

I used to embrace my sorrow. Roll it around in my mouth like a butterscotch. It would make me...creative. I'm never so prolific as when I'm wallowing in misery and sorrow.

Now, I just switch it off. Lately, I've turned off so many switches that I'm running solely on impulse power at this point.

To tell the truth, I don't think I feel anything anymore.

Except, sometimes I feel the sting of tears in my nose, my mouth turns down, I exhale and see the tears waver in my eyes... refusing to fall.

Jolene {oldhamedia@earthlink.net}

Heather {redheath99@yahoo.com}

I'm fine... I'm fine...

Andriel {zaddi6@hotmail.com}

... and even if we move on, I think that we hold onto a little piece of that sarrow, maybe to remind ourselves that we can feel, that we are human, and that if we can hurt, maybe we can also love....

Christi

This may sound silly to some of you, but I put my tust in God that he will make everything right. I pray everyday for the strength to get through one more day. I've live lately taking each day as it comes, and not planning to much the future.

These past couple of years have strained me and my family. I've relyed alot on my friends to help me through it, and I wish to thank them for the love and support they have given me lately.

Love,

Elizabeth {sweetQT@webtv.net}

andrea

Go figur.

C.

J9

Onye {tigra17@hotmail.com}

I am not sure how to feel my sorrow. I haven't been able to feel at peace with myself (or much anything else for that matter) since my mothers suicide. I think of her that instant before the bullet enters her brain and she dies suddenly. I wonder if there were thoughts of me and my little sister in that fragmentary moment, just before.

I force the tears when I can. I smoke a lot of grass and try not to think about things in detrimental ways. But the self hatred is unrelentless and I stare into the faces of my shadow beast - la otra, la loca - until I am blind from missing her and from trying to make sense of my grief.

I love deeply, with abandon, in the paranoid perception that love is not limitless. That there are changes within me quick, snakeline movements of the beast as she grows older and wraps herself more and more tighly around my brain stem. I lust.I crave

body,sweat,fingers,tears,hot,humid,love,fucking,kisses deep enough to me you scream,moan,kick,grin,sigh.

Adriana G.L. {oggoun@hotmail.com}

when i feel like the tide is too high, i just dive in and swim and let the anger be a second skin.

*

i blame things. the sour feeling in my stomach i blame on too many cheerios. the spinning in my head i blame on standing up too fast. the tears i blame on myself and scotch broom.

*

when my sorrow becomes too great and i feel like i'm going to jump, i grab it around the neck and i throttle it--then i stand back, watch myself strangling a state of mind and laugh until i'm crying from happiness instead of sadness--and i never, never take the time to try to locate where one became the other.

moxie {circe@coolmail.net}

Rowen {rowena_morgane@hotmail.com}

sadeyesangel {waste_ed@hotmail.com}

turn on, turn off the television and internet in a cyclical manner--

circles...and the news is my life -- i fight causes and wars in my head...look for signs of the apocalypse even though i don't believe in it anymore...it's because of people like me that this world is going to shit??? yeah, i guess...i let the guilt in, but i soon forget in order to remember the ones who made me this way --- i'm an angry one -- they always said i'd be a ghost...i walk around and no one sees me -- i think of her but she doesn't feel me...i don't believe in lying -- i'm not fine...i feel stupid because i keep learning that reality is what we percieve it to be -- why is it so hard for me to take advantage of that?

Cristina {csm87@webtv.net}

Andrea {Hikahi@hotmail.com}

i keep it in me until i finally break down

why? {komuro_chan@yahoo.com}

So I still have plenty of things to fret about and mourn...read all of these sad messages above mine, who doesn't? But for 25 minutes or so, I rode my wave and it was good.

Namaste

Stephanie {geyercats@aol.com}

Thats why i drink myself stupid all the time so i can achieve happines because i don't have any of these thoughts eating away at me.

useless {bjf95r@madmail.com}

ZOMBIE

anger, ect. Pushed down

deep inside until I just

explode !!! The last

time I "exploded" I beat

the (heck) out of my

sister`s boyfriend ...

When I feel my self

getting to that point I

tell every one to leave

me alone and stay

away..He wouldn`t leave

me alone ... So I

unleashed my Rage on

him... I know it`s a

bad thing ... But thats

what happen`s :+(

click here to visit my page!

God drifts in and out of my life. I wish I could keep him wihout letting stupid issues block him out. But when he's there, I realize that there isn't very many things that I should allow to change my life for the worse.

And I allow the depression to lift.

It's hard sometimes to let it go. It only takes so long before you take comfort in your depression.

James {s2jmbeck@titan.vcu.edu}

Make Believe

Pretend

I can do that.

We’ll all forget about it all

and pretend

and then

it’s ok

I’m ok

it’s ok.

Pretending won’t make it go away

but pretending will get me through this day

and tomorrow

tomorrow I’ll probably forget today.

So

it’s ok

I’m ok

it’s ok.

i guess.. i cry. and write. a lot. a quote by sabrina ward harrison:

"I have learned that trying again is important, and decisivness is good. I have laearned that silence hurts. I have learned about starting over and releasing pride. I have learned that frustration is allowed and talking it through is necessary."

everyone run out and get her book *spilling open*. it helps you heal.

Ange {turtlesrok@juno.com}

Kate {9kep@qlink.queensu.ca}

john sperling {jes2871@hotmail.com}

robert ketchman {piratetwins@hotmail.com}

then i get over it.

reed

The other thing that comforts me is that one day that person will get back every nasty little thing he's done to cause me sorrow and misery. He knows who "he" is.

Annie {adeleon@nb.com}

Then, I miss it.

michigan

i never cry. i don't know--tears seem futile for some reason. i find myself -wanting- to cry sometimes and i don't. so i have to channel that energy elsewhere. again, nothing creative--coffee, alcohol maybe, godawful poetry that never says what i want it to, heavy doses of the Red House Painters, etc. for some reason cooking occasionally helps.

but when all else fails, and i have no channels left,

i

go

here. {moriarty6@juno.com}

Then, inevitably, blessedly, I catch a glimpse at someone else’s bundle and compare. “Say! My baggage is not so great after all.” “I can make it.” “It’s going to be all right.” Because… “I have a place to sleep.” “I have something to eat.” “I have my freedom.” “I have my health.” “I have a job.”

But gradually the glad buzz fades over time and once again I’m holding tightly to my little bag of sorrows looking greedily for something more to put in it. “What else will go wrong?” “What else will get in my way?” “What else…..?”

William Hill {billhill@internetcds.com}

This can go on for months.

Finaly, when all my sorrow is sucked up and my emotions are frozen, I'm supprised at myself, and reblossem.

wolf {l_breeder}

peace

lynn {15star69m@hotmail.com}

I remember a friend once told me that she wished she had the courage to let her emotion out like I do, and I laughed grimly. For me it simply isn't a choice, it just happens, and I have no control over it.

I actually enjoy feeling my emotions, no matter how unpleasant... if I had a choice, I wouldn't choose to suppress... I just wish that I had the ability to chose where I lose myself. My soul is not something that I trust everyone with.

Blueshoe {blueshoe@start.com.au}

Write back-look up-wear black!

WYM

Smurf Goddess {Picklee@hotmail.com}

There is a time when you are past numb. When the sex doesn't do it anymore, when the drugs don't let you forget. There comes a bottom beyond oblivion, a glass floor over a thousand glass floors, and you crash with freakish slowness through them one by one.

Pain is not an option sometimes. The sorrow eats through you, its acid touch eroding what little that it has not corrupted away.

Then there are the special moments that catch me off guard, grasping at me as I tumble. Sometimes the barest hint of a smile can draw you back from the nothingness that dares to engulf you -- that small, usually meaningless gesture becomes a center. A focus.

You climb out of the hole you made when you fall, the glass edges cutting your hands. You know that you will fall again. And after that time, once more as well, ad infinitum. What can you do when your own mind betrays you? Sometimes the worth is embedded in the fight, the virtue, the honor.

The shame. Shame -- that you can't lay down and die when you want to so badly. That you feel compelled to live on despite the melancholic aura that seems to drown you every day. There is a spark inside that refuses to die (even though sometimes you die once a day at least inside). It will not be denied.

For me, it is one day at a time. The drugs keep the worst at bay, most of the time. There are ways I can at least forget the edge of the sorrow. When I make it through a day, and I see the sun setting, I know that it has been one more day I have kept death away from me. Life is that for me; one day at a time.

Drugs, sex, music, violence, pain, blood -- nothing works as well as his rare and precious smile. It does not destroy the melancholy, but it makes it bearable, at least.

For that smile I would do anything.

Donna {meritheka@aol.com}

For starters this is my life and I am damned if I am going to spend it feeling sorry for all the shit that goes on, I'm not trying to say that my life is a bunch of roses but please!!!!!!

There are very hard things in life most of them take a while to get over, look at the big picture.

So what do I do with my sorrow, well I certianly don't sit around saying how bad it was, I turn it into something that I can use.

meshell

.

I stand outside khaki brick walls

contemplating my reliance of the

faith that lives on their inner

side. Watching the slowly marching

procession in black, lining

themselves forward stepping in

tune with their tears. My own eyes

gripped tight as I cross the

threshold, bringing the bittersweet

taste of the death of love fresh

into my lungs, flooding their

passages with the shock of every

previous attempt of my many days

spent inside these parlors.

.

Inviting the feel of your eyes

that locked sunlight in ocean

blue. Bringing the memorabelia

that makes me stagger, sweating

through a system still unhealed

from the last gaze, the one

that couldn't hold the light any

longer.

.

The hands of my mind reach for

another you, one who died proud

in lifes dusted years with a head

of white and a face showing heritage

never to be forgotten by any who

saw it. Warrior chief with stories

still intact to be passed along

for many generations beyond my own.

.

Fading within, now for you, whom

I called mother, father, the special

teacher. Laying silent with praying

hands that wrap your faith around

them, even in death. Hands that

could cure any illness and warm

a heart with one touch.

.

Bring me back.....bring them back

from the abyss too inviting, stop

my hands from shaking away another

recollection. For my peace, let

these tired walls that capture

sorrow fall. Shatter through

the outside air of spring to

stop my lungs from flooding in

this mourning.

.

End

.

Malakai 4.3.00

Just a little poem on how I handle death, loss, and the other obligatory rations life feeds daily through crooked straws.

I don't handle sorrow, I embrace it, use it for primal fuel, creative leverages against the blocks all writers face. So I guess my answer would be that I don't deal with sorrow, I become it.

erased...over...out...

Malakai {burn@thefragile.com}

Franseca {franseca@hotmail.com}

it makes the days go by slower.

melissa {melissa@coranspunx.zzn.com}

tom {paraffin@htc.net}

dont judge it

just accept the way you feel

lose yourself in it

because thats the only way out of it

another one

Sometimes a long walk will give me insight. Not really an answer. I dont think life really gives us an answer. There are just insights.

Sometimes I will call on my friends for support. Sometimes I try and write things down, it usually doesnt work well, but I still try.

Im just like you though. I hurt, I heal, I cope, I deal. I try and learn from sorrow I caused myself. The things that I cant control, I accept. Thats life....for me at least.

-Isaac

isaac {isaac@funkywhiteboy.com}

the world to drowned it .

Its some thing that is with me

in degrees every day ....

it used to be drink and drugs ...

now it is just drink ..

But that has gotten better in the last few years ...now instead of

scotch and beer ...sometimes just

beer....i work out now....i go

to the gym....it helps.....

in the last few years i have had friends die .....

One friend went down on his

motercycle doing 90mph ...

He had just gotten through some

bad times ,health wise ,money wise,girlfriend wise.The next to last time i seen him we were

watching the fireworks at coney

island.He was saying he was ready for some positive change

in his life....The last time i seen him ,which was a few days later..I was on the corner getting a beer ...he rode up

i said ..lets go check out a movie ....he said no i wanna ride

thats what i do... im a biker.

last few years friends dying

women troubles ....trying to stay

healthy ......and just that feeling.....that its always 3am

in some dimmly lit shithole and its last call

billy {exbillx@yahoo.com}

I hide

I distance important people from me.

I ignore all

I contemplate

Then I realize:

the only answer is to betray the one who betrayed me.

Revenge? No!

I call it even

I call it fair

I call it closure

But I should call it

REVENGE!

Bob {Bebbeka@graphicsplusne.com}

Christina

My ex-girlfriend deals with it by pretending that it doesn't exist. She sticks her head into books, goes drinking and ignores the issues and my feelings. My need for closure and a reason.

Me, I've had plenty of sorrow to deal with. I've tried it all.. I've tried being despondent, tried drinking so heavily it made me sick, tried praying, tried talking, tried even writing about it all like I am here. None have given me much of what I need.

In my eventful, yet, short lifetime. Three of my closes friends have passed on. My childhood friend Lily.. She lived next door and I probably loved her but never had the balls to say it. She was struck by a car two weeks before our fourteenth birthday. My high school friend Roberta.. She moved to Montreal to go to school. She died about 6 months ago of cancer. My university friend Patty.. She died three weeks ago of sorrow.

I've dealt with sorrow because I made them all promises. Promises that I have every intention to keep. Large and encompassing promises like living and full and complete life. To be happy and to follow my dreams. Small promises like driving cross-country and visiting foreign lands.

The problem now lies in the fact that no matter how hard it is that I try I can't find happiness. I've stopped dreaming and I don't have the energy to visit foreign lands and drive cross-country and fulfill the countless other promises I've made. It's defeating. It's sorrow. I don't know how to deal with it anymore

Simon

Of course, I'm only seventeen, and what does seventeen know.

Hark Templeton {writer@repairman.com}

Joev

Aaron {aaron@ktheory.com}

Janna Yates {smurfgoddess13@hotmail.com}

Antoine Harris {ccstronger@yahoo.com}

Nowadays I can rationalise with grief and go hopping from one friend to another. I've realised by placing my faith in friends, and also had a lot of knockbacks I know who are my real friends. The people who understand my sorrow.
I do the same for anyone, at least that's become a friendship value for me.

But I wanna stop grieving and being so down... try to put a smile on someones face instead of grimacing for sympathy but only sometimes people get me down.
At least today I'm grieving.... grieving about how I can be so trusting and innocent... *sob* downright innocent, I just cant put a hardened blanket over my head and forget the pain so easily

I am reading poetry and idealising more images of a perfect world and reminding myself how universal love is a fundamental law which can still take the softest of mind, feintest of heart through a perilous world full of fearful people

The gentle warrior can smile in the face of regret, sadness and his enemies...

cause he lives in his own world which is constructed by nothing more than the convictions of his own compassion

panda

panda {pandainlaputa@yahoo.com}

Then when i make sure no one is around i just let it out, i cry and cry and cry.

i cry like once a week..or maybe more..

i think i need help, i am just scared to get it or tell anyone my problem.

Sara {luvmealways64@hotmail.com}

If it's sorrow from disappointment, I focus much more on recovering, grieving the loss and figuring out why things happened the way they did.

In between those times, I run or go on walks and pray for understanding, mercy, or sometimes just plain freedom from the pain and torture of it all. Lately, I've found that talking to close friends helps -- not because they have the answers, but because, if you let them, they can help bear your sorrows.

Drinking, lashing out, etc only helps momentarily; until you engage with the pain, it won't leave.

Alex

goldilocks {goldilocks@stillblond.com}

Through the way that I grew up, I am, for the most part, devoid of feeling now.

Most people think I'm just bottling it up and pushing it down whenever something happens.

The truth is that there isn't anything there to bottle up or push down. I feel "sympathy pain" for other people's problems (as in "That must be terrible"), but I feel nothing.

It's good and it's bad. But, right now, it's me.

Stone {flamebox@email.com}

School, school, school. Money, money, money.

New city. New people. New place. (Dumbass dorm regulations.) No car, very isolated.

Never being kissed even and never knowing if a man will ever be attracted to me.

Spending Saturday nights alone and bored and going to bed early because there is nothing else to do.

Except bitch, bitch, bitch. All I seem to do these days.

How do I cope? I get drunk a lot. (That's not the way to solve your problems.) I'm young and I haven't learned how to not be self-destructive yet.

I did cry once recently. I hadn't cried in about a year at all and I didn't know why. This time I cried because I bought shampoo instead of conditioner. (Obviously not the real reason.) It didn't offer any kind of release though. I just felt dumb for crying, because my life could be so much worse. So I don't know what I'm going to do with my sorrows.

Jenna

that was (and is, still, to an extent) me. i used to imagine a small glass bottle in my heart... whenever anything went wrong, i was the strong one, the pillar everybody leaned on, and an ounce or so of pain was emptied into the bottle, for another day.

once in a while, the bottle would become full, and i'd try to squeeze more into it, and it would break. and i would break down. i would cry, contemplate suicide, write depressing poetry, compose music in minor keys, and hole up and become a hermit to the world for a few days. then my bottle was empty, and ready to be filled again and again.

now? i drink.

i know it's not the smartest route to take- its the road to becoming an alcoholic. but as a freshman in college, and with alcohol so readily available, and large parties with lots of shiny happy people, it seems a, as homer simpson puts it, "temporary solution." i drink and forget my problems for the few hours, then go home, cook, sober up, and cry. i write in my journal. i play music. and i never tell anybody.

not a word spoken... nobody knows. for if people know i cry and worry, people know i am weak.

victoria {vah87424@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu}

Jeffrey {jeffgroves33@mac.com}

I feel ashamed when I feel sorrow.

I think it's from never having anybody care that I feel my sorrow is never important enough to make an issue of. Or maybe from being told so many times that I what I feel isn't real, that I doubt myself to the pointwhere I don't know what I'm feeling at all. Just kind of tell mysef that it's not bad at all....

Therefore I end up burying it deep with false feelings, or numbing it with a temporary fix, only to numb it again when that temporary fix wares off.

Vicouse cycle....

Leah {mellow_d@inthemix.com.au}

Laura {studnilc@notes.udayton.edu}

sorrow breeds in me

I lock myself in my room, turn off the lights and find my way around the room by feel. I'll cry hysterically until I can find what I consider my sweetest friend - my razor.

The few people that know tell me it's a stupid thing to do; surprisingly, my closest friends are the ones that tell me to do whatever.

And I do.

When I cut, I know it isn't going to soften the blow; I know that it isn't going to fix my problems... it just feels damn good.

There are those times where I wonder if, maybe, it's better if I don't feel at all. What if it's better to feel numb? Maybe I cut because I'm bleeding myself empty of emotion.

Then again, I want to feel and maybe thats why I do it; because I like to feel that familiar sting everytime I do it.

In the end, whatever the reason, it doesn't matter to me. When I cut, I cut and it feels good.

What more reason do I need?

When I'm done, I cry a little more, and walk out of my room with long sleeves. It's so much easier to put on the happy act once I'm done with my little ritual.

When I open my bedroom door, I walk out with a smile and long sleeves.

I'm not happy, I'm not feeling any better, I'm not eased at all. It's just a little easier to put on an act.

If anyone heard my sobs and they ask how I am feeling, I give them the usual response.

"I'm fine. Peachy-fucking-keen."

And they believe it.

Ayesha {ayesha001@hotmail.com}

Kevin Holzer {uberelite@adelphia.net}

So I learned to hold everything in.

THen I found that it didn't work anymore. Shoving things away doesn't solve anything because it always comes back.

Now that I am over 30, I have found a way to deal...I let myself feel what I feel, and then after a little while, I let it go. I read, or sit in a quiet place by myself.

THen I'm ok again. Music helps too.

Kim

Sure, I acted well enough in drama club, but when it comes to my own words, they rarely escape my mouth without being marinated in a smothering mix of thought and apprehension.

I don't like to talk about my feelings. It's as if I ignore them, just hoping that they'll get tired of knocking on the door for attention and go away. I wish they would.

I didn't cry much the night my father was killed in a car accident. I think the only time I really cried was when the doctor first told me and what was left of my family. I sobbed. I screamed into my tears, I railed against whatever unfortunate gods happened to hear my wrath, I yelled and convulsed and writhed in such absolute agony and devestation that I swear I honestly could have murdered the darkness surrounding me with the choking seizures I uttered. I cried so hard that I felt like vomiting, and you know, it really wouldn't have bothered me. All this came from someone who was so determined not to show pain that she danced on a bone-bruised foot for hours, firmly resolved not to show "weakness" by seeking medical attention.

It's been a few months since the world shattered, and I am content to just pick up the shards and watch the blood flow from the cuts they make.

No, I'm not sad, happy, nauseated, hurt, tired, drained, in love, stressed out, enraged, miserable, ecstatic, proud, troubled, busy, bored, concerned, bleeding, dizzy, amused, creative, dead, or alive, but I just might be if you have enough patience to drag the truth out of me.

Julia {juledorange@cs.com}

madison

The way people attack dishwashing tells you everything you need to know about 1) how they deal with the messes in their life and 2) how often they have visitors. Almost never is my answer (a somewhat troubling and liberating phenomenon in both respects). It begins as a few dishes- the dearly departed remains of a some thoughtless but transitorily satisfying meal. I bother to rinse the dishes- more for olfactory damage control than guilt, but this only lasts until the dog starts sniffing around in a panicky way and I drop everything to take him outside. As the days rifle past, a steadily growing pile of dishes and cutlery arrange themselves in relatively tidy piles; these are remnants of unabashedly decadent snacks (bananas foster pound cake) and vapid meals (frozen microwaveable hamburgers). By Friday the leaning tower of Piza resides in my sink. Luckily, I have a maid that smiles almost convincingly at my habits- a smile that seems to say, “you know you shouldn’t do this, but you are human, and if you didn’t fuck up like this you wouldn’t need me.”

I can’t help but dread the idea of a Jesus when I think about dishes.

Nico {pcc143@hotmail.com}

Jon A. {attacca1@netscape.net}

(* insured condition of existence where nothing bad ever happens to yourself or anyone who matters to you, offer limited to participating dementias)

So anywho you are always better off than someone else aren't you it doesn't take a Tsunami to prove that!

Dasein? Parralax View, it is all in the perspective. Use the word Metacognitive if you must, but the way you consider your own thinking pattern is the only thing that seperates you from any other reactionary mammal. <:~|

Roger Lindsley {rlindsl@msn.com}

not here

I do try to fight it whenever I'm in public, of course. Doesn't help my admitted "geek" reputation much.

It depends. Some things, I can just put on (what feels like) a blank face. Other times, no. When you've had to sit through eight hours inside a brick-and-mortar school, surrounded by green-and-white hallways, chilly rooms (or sweltering hot, depending on the season), and a lot of people who hate you with all their cold hearts simply because they see you as someone "different," where if you try to find a place to go to calm down when you need it the most you're liable to get suspended...as soon as you get home, you just break down and cry for minutes until it all subsides enough to get up again, until you can find sleep, the cure for all miseries. This result worst if taken with an "I-can't-stand-it-anymore" screaming breakdown in front of all the 5-days-a-week-and-sometimes-weekends idiots....

School is nice. The people in it often aren't. And with no real hope for high school (900 more people than usual, all male, probably all crude and carbon-copied trendy, save for a few geeks who make even myself cringe), I have at least four more years of this torture to go through, beginning next fall (plus the remaining two months in 8th grade), to work on my fearful, psuedo-protective introversion.

Jon A.

But most of all, I Pray. Nothing and no-one lets me understand and handle sorrow like The Lord does. He shows you the why of it and the how-to-get-out-of-it of it.

Most of the time, there's a reason it's happening. And so I can take it. And anyway, He wouldn't let anything too bad happen without His knowledge... so it's ok.

It hurts. But it's ok.

Rose

when i realise it doesnt, i crawl deeper into my own shell, and make an origami out of it.

then i immerse myself in my sorrow, till all my energy is spent and all my hopes are gone.

after tat i walk out from my grave, and start smelling the air and start a whole new day again.

in another word, i immerse myself in my problems so much, i kinda grow numb at it.

A

A

When i do get into such state, I go very silent. I draw back and enter a world of my own, a place where i shut off everyone.

ishu