How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
Vincent Van GoghRead
I am unable to describe exactly what is the matter with me; now and then there are horrible fits of anxiety, apparently without cause, or otherwise a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the head.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the deep and often inexplicable struggles with anxiety and a feeling of emptiness that can arise unexpectedly.
Vincent Van Gogh's quote reflects on the complex and often invisible nature of mental health issues, particularly anxiety and fatigue. He articulates the frustration of being unable to precisely define one's emotional turmoil, highlighting how such feelings can sometimes emerge without any clear cause, leading to a sense of exhaustion and a struggle to find meaning or clarity.
In practice
During a mental health awareness event, this quote can be used to illustrate the complexity of anxiety disorders.
How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
Describing Starry Night: Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained.
To express a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.
Great things do not just happen by impulse, _x000D_ but as a succession of small things linked together.
The world concerns me only in so far as I have a certain debt and duty to it, because I have lived in it for thirty years and owe to it to leave behind some souvenir in the shape of drawings and paintings – not done to please any particular movement, but within which a genuine human sentiment is expressed.
To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.
It can be difficult for people to talk about it, because there still is that stigma around mental illness. But I would encourage people to do that, because they'll be surprised once they do 'come out' how many other people have had similar experiences.
I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.
I've never had a sustained period of medication for mental illness when I've not been on other drugs as well. It's just not something that I particularly feel I need. I know that I have dramatically changing moods, and I know sometimes I feel really depressed, but I think that's just life. I don't think of it as, "Ah, this is mental illness," more as, "Today, life makes me feel very sad." I know I also get unnaturally high levels of energy and quickness of thought, but I'm able to utilize that.
When you're depressed, there's no calendar. There are no dates, there's no day, there's no night, there's no seconds, there's no minutes, there's nothing. You're just existing in this cold, murky, ever-heavy atmosphere, like they put you inside a vial of mercury.
That's what stress management is about, that's what psychotherapy is about, finding religion, or finding your loved one or your hobby - any of those, they give you more outlets, more of a sense of control, more of a sense of predictability, of social support. They give you the means to psychologically finesse ambiguous outside reality.
I had a mental breakdown while doing my Ph.D. at Cambridge, soon after I cut off contact with my parents, and I started seeing the university counsellor, one of the best decisions I ever made. There's something very nourishing in setting aside an hour a week to talk.
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