How does «The Perks of Being a Wallflower» speak to a Black Sheep?

This film will resound differently for everyone.
     For some, it will be the confirmation that everybody around them are really loosers, freaks ... and their conclusion will be that they've been right since the beginning! Or, some may recognize themselves in some characters or a specific scene and that's it ... like being that student who knows all the answers in the english class but stay quite ... the one that nobody wants to be seen with or eating with ... the guffy one because he's trying to hide a storm of feelings, of pain ... and the list can keep going like that forever!!
 

     And for some, it will be a reflection of their own life, or their past. This whole stage of feelings, it's more than being a teenager, more than hormones, there's always something deeper, sort of an ill-being hidden somewhere. 

     Reasons for it's existence? ... many, but the undeniable result is a fall, day after day, in a world where sadness and melancholy are your only friends (or so you think!). I think it coexists well inside you, quietly, almost forgotten for a while until something change and creates a shake, big enough to start to put you down.

     No, before you weren't down, no, you think you've touched down but you didn't. It's when you start to miss the condition of happyness and joy - what you were before - that «sadness-melancholy» are pairing more than ever to fight for their existence. You must understand that this pair will do anything to convince you that you'll be worst trying to get better!?! Yes ... it's vicious but usually effective! When you start to believe that, it will be at this very moment that you'll gonna feel yourself on a slidding plank. Then you'll start wondering why do you keep slidding down?... unfortunately, i don't know!? It's different for everyone. But i do know how it feels when the floor crumbles all around you.
     At first, you don't really realize what's going on, you don't get the whole picture. Then, you'll feel the fall, kind of a slow motion picture effect and as light as the weight of the air ... you can't catch or grab anything ... you just fall ... until this big, but soundless, Boom just like a big bag of dirty clothes hit the floor. You touched ground. It takes you some time to catch your breath, open your eyes, have a look around and, even before trying to get on your feet, you wonder if it's over or just past one floor ?! and how many more to come ... ?

 

     Usually it's true that once you've reach the floor, you can only climb again the mountain or the wall, or whatever you wanna name it! Nobody wants the other way around ... at least at the beginning, that's why we start to find a way (usually it's more than one!) to feel better. But to do so, the understanding is the key or the first step.

     During this phase, which can last differently for everyone, it's important, no it's crucial and vital to have loving and caring people around. Familly, friends ... it doesn't really matter, we just want to see someone, a friendly face, being able to touch a hand or just being hold for a booster hug. And it's often at this stage that people around, want you to apply the «get-back-on-your-feet-quickly-by-yourself» rule, which on different occasion or event, will be wise (falling from a bike, being heart broken, losing a job etc.).

     When we're talking about depression - and keep in mind that there's different level inside depression - doing anything too fast is the only way to keep falling, guarantee! Not a good idea, take it from someone who knows!
 

     People don't like being too much close to depressed ones. I don't know if they're afraid of being contaminated or is it because they just can't fight their own demons, so we're becoming too dangerous for their false balance. Don't forget that in our society, nowadays, there's more white and dusty sheeps surviving rather than black ones choosing to live - but there's a price to pay for this freedom!
 

     Even if it's true that it's up to each of us to ask for help, to reach for a way to heal ... to realize what's wrong and to decide to find the way to balance everything together, never ever forget that holding the hand as long as necessary will make the difference! I know that some disagree but allow me to disagree.
     Only someone who never experimented the deep fall, the serious depression, doesn't understand ... at all.  Not that i wish to anyone to experience it but, it's like night and day and you can't advice them to use their imagination. Doesn't work this way!
     It's not because you're holding a hand that we're not gonna try to get on our feet, even doing some small steps without keeping contact with you! But knowing that there's concretely someone, another human being really here for us, it's way more comforting than anything else! It's the feeling of love, caring and ... i don't know how to say it differently, but the simple warmth of another body that matter. It doesn't make us weak, it makes us human. Sometimes, it's the only way to recharge or just to charge a battery that never got full of these positives and strong emotions. Is it so difficult to understand?!

 

     If you open your eyes, you'll realize that you'll have around you people with the same feeling of ill-being but it's not all of them who will accept to talk about it, to stay close to you or even to admit their own ill-being. Unfortunately, when we are confused or depressed, we need someone who can understand what we're living. A specialist, true, but another black sheep can help to stay alive sometimes more efficiently. It's a way to feed and to support each other, i guess, but most of all, it's THE way to say and/or recognize that we're not alone in this deep-dark-cold place of life.

     According to one sentence from «The Perks of Being a Wallflower», you only got the love that you think you deserve! Somehow, it's true, at least this is something which pollued the mind of a depressed person ... finishing by applying and believing what everybody else are saying. And that's usually why your relationships ends the same way or why you're attracted by the same kind of guy (girl). Same old same old but, there's a reason for everything! If you've been told over and over again that you're not good enough, tough enough, smart enough, lovable enough (is that even possible?!), at the end you believe so. Then, unconsciously, you'll be surrounded by people who will make you feel ... basically like crap just because it's the only thing you know. It's an unconscious pattern.

 

     Coming back from a place like that and without love but loneliness, rejection, trust me, you need to hold someone's hand. It's sad if you keep living your life - or what looks like a life - without meeting anyone who'll make you feel different, better, more beautiful (actually to release your inside beauty out), stronger ... someone to teach you that there's a bright side.

 

     A depressed person will need to be with others just like him (her) because he (she) won't feel rejected. Inside the movie (story), there's this «cat fight» on the way Charlie (the main character) broke-up with his girlfriend basically because he loves another one (blablabla...), bottom line, everybody stopped talking to him and seeing him (except maybe the character of Patrick) and then you can see how much it affected Charlie. Nobody's perfect, we all do mistakes, but when your black sheeps friends or community push you away ... that's the most terrible thing ever, no matter what your age is. You get the mistake part but why the banishment? And then, when you thought you stopped falling, here we go again ... another fall ... a deeper one.

     The thing is, nobody knows what's inside a depressed person's mind, so somehow it's understandable that people won't get how much pain and damages they're about to cause. But you have to realize that if your only safety place has been taken away from you ... how would you feel? Through into confusion ... wondering more than ever if there's someone who really care for you out there, who'll get how much in pain you are?! And it's so easy to question because we're living in a world which rejects ill-being, depression, because this world is centered on itself:

 

ME ME ME and maybe others if it's not too demanding or too exausting.

 

     Is it a vicious circle? Is it even possible one day to stop the pattern and, not only feel but see a bright light ahead of us? Not without suitable help and the total love and support from familly, friends or your black sheeps community. Some of you will say that it's too draining for the helpers, this community ... and it is! But let me tell you something, because i understand so well that stage of emotions, even fragile myself (we all are!), i will never let another black sheep keep falling down for my own sake!

 

That's what makes us who we are: true or fake!

I've chosen long time ago to be true to my feelings, my ideals, no matter what the cost is.

Can you?!