So you know how that whole “moderation” thing doesn’t really catch your fancy? And what you love is the sickeningly sweet roller coaster ride of the highest highs and lowest lows? And if you find yourself trending too far in one direction, or even worse, toward the center, you need to shoot off in a new direction?

It can be so dull and “normal” to be a consistent, responsible human being. The highs and lows of depression are addicting in their own way, just like gambling, drugs, and let’s not forget the biggest bitch of them all, sweet treats. Fuck sugar is way more delicious than the finest cut of any other white powder.

And the extremes don’t stop with your behavior. You can’t just like something, you need to saturate yourself with it down to your bones. You can’t just dislike something, you need to feel that firey rage inside against it. If someone praises you, you need to beat yourself down. If someone tries to crush you, you need to topple them.

There is no center, just the frenetic richer scale of your mind’s spastic rises and falls. The fun goes on, but so does the pain. Because even when you’re on the top of the cycle, you are  on a well-defined track and you’ll be heading down soon enough.  Oh yes the fun goes on. Still, eventually the ride is bound to give you vertigo, and then motion sickness, and then you even if you want to get off, everything will be spinning too fast for you to figure out how.

Stay on the ride as long as you want though. Some people want to die an extreme death, and if that’s for you, keep going for it. On the other hand, if you’ve come to realize that the reason you’re still swinging up and down is because you can no longer figure out how to stop, consider seeking out ways of re-finding your center. Balance. That fucking word that hippies and gurus are always going on about. It turns out it is important after all.

So bounce between your extremes. It’s fun. And know that when you want to stop, you’ll need to get your bearings, regain your balance, and hop off the ride.

So you know how perfection is disgusting? Like when you see one of those special people walking around, you just want to trip them into a pile of mud? And yet there’s some part of you that desperately wants to fix every single one of your flaws and become the dream human being that you’ve always wanted to be?

Since you’ve got depression critical-thinking powers, you know that everybody does have flaws. If you see a “perfect” person, you can just hone in on those tiny little imperfections. Those freckles, moles, irritating laughs, high-pitched voices, rage issues, infidelities, appetites, and other small sins. Then you don’t have to feel inadequate by comparison.

Oh wait. Except that you still do. Even after you’ve seen every single blemish of those “perfect” people, you still see yourself as coming up short. They are just so much “better” than you. Question is: better at what? Singing? Sciencing? Sexing? All of the above?

Then again, you’ve probably got one or two aces up your sleeve. Maybe you can sit on a couch for hours on end, while they get bored at around 2? Or maybe you’re so so so good at saying the wrong thing, to the point where you can get people to fuck you up? These are special skills that you, as a depressive, may be particularly well-versed in.

And that probably doesn’t do it for you. You’d probably rather have different skills that you were good at, and different flaws that are less obvious or obnoxious. Really who wouldn’t? Everyone is inadequate in some way. Everyone is lacking. Everyone is “imperfect.” And yet because everyone has so many flaws- because everyone is so damaged in different ways, there are no two people on the planet that are exactly alike.

So each person is the fucking best at being that person by the simple fact that there are no other competitors. It’s the chips in the paint, the frayed seams, the mismatched buttons, the differently sized sleeves, and the small stains that define us, and make us perfectly imperfect.

So you know how your problems really suck? And how all you really want to do is run away from them as fast as you can and as far as you can get? And that just makes you disgusted with yourself because you’re acting like such a whiny little bitch?

It’s okay to run away from your problems. No wait. Actually, that’s bullshit. It’s not okay to run away from your problems. But, it is going to happen anyway so you might as well own up to the fact that you’re doing it.

There’s a reason why facing your fears sucks so much. It’s because you’re literally, turning to face, meaning look at, the the things that disgust and terrify you the most in the world. And at first, you’re just not going to do it. Like, you’re going to find every single fucking reason in the world, not to do it.

You’ll mess around in other people’s lives. You’ll join every organization you can. You’ll get really angry about arbitrary things and rant about how their the source of everyone’s woes. You’ll think about how awful the world is. And finally, maybe, you’ll get around to realizing that all you have been doing is running around, avoiding looking at the things that really freak you out or piss you off.

At the end though, your running away will not change a thing. Because in life, if you run in a straight line, you just complete a lap and end up back where you started. Your problems don’t go anywhere unless you choose to deal with them, and running away, though at times a lot of fun, doesn’t actually solve anything.

So you can take off if you want to. Keep running in those circles, learning as you go yet not really making much progress with the whole depression part. Or you can stop, deal with the shit in your way, and then get access to a few new paths. Break out of those well-defined grooves and tracks that you’ve been running on, and start off in a new direction.

So you know how no matter how many times you seem to whack off the limbs your depression, it just keeps growing back? Like your misery is some sort of starfish on metaphorical steroids? Or an infection that resists all efforts to cure it?

It is important to deal with your day to day misery and find ways to push back on the blah. It is also important to all the while, search for the underlying causes of your misery and upon identifying them, determine ways to handle them as well.

Because depression tends to have root causes. Often there are obvious external contributing factors, like death, poverty, disease. But then there are the cases that so often don’t make any sense. People who are well-fed, well-loved, well-taken care of, and yet still so utterly miserable.

Thing is, misery doesn’t come from nowhere. So typically in those cases, an individual has internalized damage from past external stresses. Maybe you’re well-fed now, but grew up without any food and can’t forget that fear of hunger. Maybe you’re loved now, but there were times when people close to you hurt you and never apologized or took responsibility.

You may not know or remember the reason why you’re so damaged. Still, there is one, and if you can find it, and address it, then you increase the likelihood that you can consistently treat that misery disease of yours.

So find a root solution to your depression. Determine what originally caused the fear and mistrust that persist in your heart, and seek out ways to alleviate that pain. If you don’t know how, that’s okay. There are plenty of other miserable or formerly miserable people in the world who can tell you their gory stories. String together a couple of their narratives to find one that fits you, and you’re good to go.