Love you, Fred. Just 'cause.

Thanks, Peter. You do understand that’s foreign to me — I can’t internalize it at all? But thanks nevertheless.

Oh, yes, I get that completely. I hope it's helpful on an intellectual level, if nothing else.

Huh? Me? Know anything about … ah … depression? Naw. Only from the inside…

Which is why I found that passage somehow useful. It seemed to accurately put some words to a bunch of vague feelings I recognized. G*d only knows why wrapping words around something might in any way be useful, but there you go.

As a kind of sidelight…. I am less ready to own this one, but I do recognize some of our compatriots, so it at least has a kind of verisimilitude, if not actual truth, to it:

If all depressives could constantly be engaged in fighting wicked enemies, they would never suffer from depression. But, in day-to-day existence, antagonists are not wicked enough, and depressives suffer from pangs of conscience about their own hostility. (Ibid, pp.24–25.)

been there - have the t-shirt

Yeah. I figured.

The real bummer is that it’s not even that attractive a t-shirt….

You would think we would learn that and not keep getting it in different sizes and colors...

Yeah. Like that.

Signed,
Not depressed at moment, but sure can recognize it

enclosed: one hug, folded carefully, to be used if wanted

I’m shocked — shocked, I tell you — to discover that anybody else in our community might find that passage at all meaningful.

Thanks.

This post was very timely for me. I didn't have time to write back earlier, but somehow it really made me feel better as I was pulling out of two days of bad insecurity and depression. Sunday and Monday were the kind of days when I just keep my mouth shut about what I'm feeling and thinking because I don't want people to think I'm insane. Sunday we picked up a friend at the airport and went to a bar in Ypsi and she talked a lot about her master's coursework in complex systems - one of my particular areas of interest, the one I got my master's in. And rather than take an interest in what she's saying, I'm watching my husband, across the table from us, thinking "he never listened to me with such interest when I talked about my coursework." And then I thought "But I probably never talked this animatedly either, since I'm insecure about whether or not Bill is interested in me." and then I thought "But then again if he did listen this animatedly I might just as well have misinterpreted the look on his face as judgemental or we might have gotten in one of those weird discussions were I thought we were just talking animatedly about different points and he thought I was stubbornly debating something of no consequence that of course I was wrong about."

They both went off to go to the bathroom before we left and I rested my head in my arms. When Mary got back I sat up again. She was like, "Sleepy?" "Nope." I said, fairly upbeat. "Do you have a headache?" "Nope." She left it at that.

In a way I wonder if I'm not responding to suggestions from my counselor. A month ago he talked to me about ice cream addiction. The week after that I could not go two days without eating some ice cream. (this past two weeks we've had ice cream in the house but I haven't touched it. I have however eaten some Easter Candy...) Last week he said he thinks I'm depressed. And then I have three days of feeling very, very depressed. Not sure what's up with that.

I'm menstrual this week anyway so I'm bound to be feeling less than tops. and I'm down that Midfanzine is so far behind schedule. But other than that, spring seems to be here, the weather's lovely, I've started yard and garden work, the job is going well, there's a convention this weekend that should be fun, if my car stays functional long enough to get me back and forth to it. Should be is sometimes the operative term, isn't it?

Anyway, thanks for your post. It was a help.

You know, sometimes I wonder if perhaps maybe I think too much. You know, over-analyze things, see way too many possibilities, come up with far too many complex possible interpretations and explanations for what are probably very simple and straightforward actions and interactions that probably are really pretty much about what they seem to be about right there on the surface. Find it therefore all much too much to be sure I in any way understand what’s really going on and, worse still, being therefore unable to formulate anything resembling an appropriate response and being pretty convinced that whatever I do come up with will be the wrong thing and will only make things if not worse at least more confusing and incomprehensible and that not doing or saying anything will be at least as bad.

I don’t suppose you ever wonder anything like that, though….

Part of me wants to say that having weird discussions with one’s spouse beats having no discussions, but I’m probably wrong about that….

Hmmmm. I find your animatedly to be one of your most endearing attributes….

Let’s hope your counselor doesn’t make any really bad suggestions….

Glad you found my post to be a help.

*hugs*