Will Grayson, Will Grayson Mental Illness Quotes

she asks me if i took my pills before i ran off this morning and i tell her, yeah, wouldn't i be drowning myself in the bathtub if i hadn't? she doesn't like that, so i'm all like "joke, joke" and i make a mental note that moms aren't the best audience for medication humor. i decide not to get her that world's greatest mom of a depressive f***up sweatshirt for mother's day like i'd been planning. (okay, there's not really a sweatshirt like that, but if there was, it would have kittens on it, putting their paws in sockets.)

truth is, thinking about depression depresses the s*** out of me, so i go back into the den and watch some more law & order. (2.65-66)

It occurs to me that I am weirdly disappointed about how entirely un-upset Jane seems to feel, which in turn causes me to feel strangely rejected, which in turn causes me to think that perhaps a special wing at the Museum of Crazy should be erected in my honor. (3.100)

like the time [Maura] went through my bag when i was in the bathroom and found my pills—i hadn't taken them in the morning, so i brought them along with me to school. she waited a good ten minutes before asking me if i was on any medication. this seemed a little random to me, and i didn't really want to talk about it, so i told her no. and then what does she do? she reaches into my bag and pulls out the pill bottles and asks me what they're for. she got her answer, but it didn't exactly inspire trust. she kept telling me i didn't need to be ashamed of my "mental condition," and i kept telling her i wasn't ashamed—i just didn't want to talk about it with her. she couldn't understand the difference. (4.23)

i could remind her that not all guys are dickheads like my dad, but she perversely hates it when i say bad things about him. she's probably just worried about the day i'll wake up and realize half my genes are so geared toward being a bastard that i'll wish i was a bastard. well, mom, guess what—that day came a long time ago. and i wish i could say that's where the pills come in, but the pills only deal with the side effects.

god bless the mood equalizers. and all moods shall be created equal. i am the f***ing civil rights movement of moods. (4.52-53)

here's the sick, twisted thing: part of me thinks i deserve this. that maybe if i wasn't such an asshole, isaac would have been real. if i wasn't such a lame excuse for a person, something right might happen to me. it's not fair, because i didn't ask for dad to leave, and i didn't ask to be depressed, and i didn't ask for us to have no money, and i didn't ask to want to f*** boys, and i didn't ask to be so stupid , and i didn't ask to have no real friends, and i didn't ask to have half the s*** that comes out of my mouth come out of my mouth. all i wanted was one f***ing break, one idiotic good thing, and that was clearly too much to ask for, too much to want. (10.62)

mom: why don't you go sit next to tiny, and i'll get you a coke?

i took my pills this morning, i swear. but it's like they ended up in my leg instead of my brain, because i just can't get happy. i sit down on the couch, and as soon as mom is out of the room, tiny's hand is on my hand, fingers rubbing over my fingers.

tiny: it's okay, will. i love being here. (14.35-37)

me: it's a depression thing.
tiny: oh, i feel depressed, too. sometimes.

we're coming dangerously close to the conversations i'd have with maura, when she'd say she knew exactly what i was going through, and i'd have to explain that, no, she didn't, because her sadness never went as deep as mine. i had no doubt that tiny thought he got depressed, but that was probably because he had nothing to compare it to. still, what could i say? that i didn't just feel depressed—instead, it was like the depression was the core of me, of every part of me, from my mind to my bones? that if he got blue, i got black? that i hated those pills so much, because i knew how much i relied on them to live?

no, i couldn't say any of this. because, when it all comes down to it, nobody wants to hear it. no matter how much they like you or love you, they don't want to hear it. (14.91-93)

i think the idea of a "mental health day" is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying "i don't want to deal with things today" and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide. (16.3)

i get it. i understand it.

and then he loses me.

tiny: but there is the word, this word phil wrayson taught me once: weltschmerz. it's the depression you feel when the world as it is does not line up with the world as you think it should be. i live in a big goddamned weltzschermz ocean, you know? and so do you. and so does everyone. because everyone thinks it should be possible just to keep falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned smile. and that should be possible. you should be able to fall forever.

and i think: no.

seriously. no.

because i have spent my life falling. not the kind that tiny's talking about. he's talking about love. i'm talking about life. in my kind of falling, there's no landing. there's only hitting the ground. hard. dead, or wanting to be dead. so the whole time you're falling, it's the worst feeling in the world. because you feel you have no control over it. because you know how it ends. (20.52-57)