So you know how sometimes you try to tell someone that you feel guilty because you’re a bad person. And they’re like, “No you’re just depressed!” Fuck that. You are a bad person, it’s just that not everyone knows it.

Sometimes you’re only so bad of a person. Like you enjoy eating the last snack or drink the last can of soda and refusing to refill it. Sometimes you’re an even worse person, like using up the critical resources of your friends, family, or community and not paying anyone back. And sometimes you’re less passive and you proactively go around fucking people over on purpose and/or accidentally.

The important thing here is that in certain cases guilt makes perfect sense. And when people tell you not to feel guilty, they’re just not framing your behavior in a way that helps them understand what you’re doing wrong.

And then again, sometimes people are telling you to feel guilty, and you’re not sure if you should. The answer is: why not? Meaning that literally. Think about the reasons you have to feel guilty and to not feel guilty and then decide for yourself what is morally acceptable. Remember though, you typically have to fit in with a society so understanding the standards of the people around you is important too.

The other thing is that sometimes you’re a good person too. And like how you feel guilty for being a bad person, you can feel happy when you are generous, or kind, or helpful, or actually anything you want to feel good about. The point is that you decide what is acceptable for your feelings. Although again, paying attention to the people around you is probably still important.

So you’re a bad person! And you knew it all along, didn’t you? Still, you are also a good person! And that’s less obvious when you’re depressed. If you want to change your actions to be more bad or good, that’s your decision. It’s complicated and personal. Yet it can come across simply too.

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So you know how you are doing your best to survive the present moment and yet your mind keeps thinking about what is coming up days to weeks to months to years in the future?

It’s important to remember that the future is ambiguous and doesn’t exist yet. While you can prepare for the future by looking at what needs to be addressed in the present, this ultimately means you need to be paying more attention to the present in general.

When you imagine the future as being better or worse than the current moment, that’s a reflection on what you’re focused on right now. If you think about how sad it will be after people have passed on, then spend that time paying attention to those people in the current moment. If you’re scared about how many resources you’ll have in the future, then focus on saving resources in the current moment.

The important thing is to remember that current life enjoyment is worth prioritizing to some extent. Without caring about what is happening in the current moment, you can get depressed because you didn’t make sure to enjoy the moments that you had in the present.

And it is important to remember that thinking about the future isn’t just damaging to the present. You can reassure your current self that you’ve thought about what’s coming up and then you can have a greater sense of security in planning.

So it does make sense to think about the future, it’s just that remembering the current moment is important to maintaining positive self-image and emotional well-being. You can plan for the future, and yet also stay grounded in the present moment.

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So you know how talking about your “problems” is a challenge? And sometimes you do not know what to say or to who?

Table that idea. Sometimes it is okay to use tactics that involve sharing yourself privately. You can do writing exercises or make videos or voice memos to yourself. Then you can hold onto them so that later you can observe your progress. In particular, writing can mean that you use a different part of your mind so you can learn more about another part of yourself.

Recording parts of yourself for your own evaluation means that you get to control the criticism. It can be a little too much sometimes to expose your thoughts and feelings to another person, so you can judge yourself to start.

Then again, it can be important to determine where your issues leave you in relation to fitting in with society. In these circumstances, finding the pre-approved of people to share with might be a good idea. In America, that would be counselors and therapists, yet trusted friends, family, or acquaintances can also have useful opinions.

It can be okay to seek out counsel from other people. Learning how to communicate with others can change the communication in your own mind and vice versa. That being said, you need to know who to trust to make sure that you’re not at risk of receiving harmful criticism or even worse repercussions.

So you can talk it out, or you can talk it in. Relying on yourself can be a useful way to know what you want to focus on in your personal development. Maybe someday you’ll communicate with other people, or even maybe right now. The important thing is that you decide who to share with and what to say.

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So you know how sometimes getting better can feel great, and yet it can come with changes in behavior that are less predictable?

If you need to stay depressed to function, should you? Sometimes people have conditions where getting better can cause them to transform into entirely different people, so what does that mean for their social life?

When having to make these decisions sometimes it is important to pay attention to how much misery you can take because remember kids, the world is awful, and even when you feel better there will still be miserable parts that suck.

And yet it’s not always safe to stay depressed just to maintain consistency. It can decrease your ability to handle stress or be resilient in difficult situations which puts you at risk.

Then again when you are getting better, the habits you use can still be risky or controversial. What is important is to pay attention to your development and make conscious decisions of whether you can afford to change and if those changes are consistently beneficial. It is frustrating sometimes to be self-aware, and yet that insight is needed to make sure that you stay healthy and responsible while you move through different statuses of depression.

So you can feel worse if that makes you feel better, and you can feel better if that’s what you need to survive. Everything can be a trade-off and yet it is possible to have improved feelings about life as long as you make sure to stay safe and observe the changes in your development.

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So you know how it sucks to be victimized? Like made to feel awful and hurt? And yet sometimes saturating yourself in that feeling like someone caused you pain and you were innocent can also have catharsis.

It can be intoxicating to feel victimized, and yet it can also create cycles where you take that feeling out on other people. The question then becomes: did you really want to hurt someone else the way you had been hurt?

Because sometimes we seek out similarities in other people and try to create mutual understanding through shared experience. Still, it’s painful to cause other people pain and it makes you feel like a bad person. Are you actually a bad person? Do you deserve to feel guilt? That depends on the circumstances and yet being the victim can make it possible for you to victimize other people who truly weren’t the ones responsible for your initial pain.

Sometimes we feel guilty because we keep trying to feel like something wasn’t our fault. And this can sometimes be remedied with tricking our brain into thinking we were responsible for something that we weren’t responsible for. However, it is usually best not to just accept a lie because it makes you feel better. Rather delineating how responsible you were for something, and then examining why you took the action that caused further victimization will probably provide better clarity.

When you need to feel like you were the victim, that is important to note. It’s just that this requires balance with other people around you and their perception on whether you too have been an aggressor. It’s hard sometimes to acknowledge that people can be more than just the one who was hurt. They can also cause hurt to happen.

So can you feel okay feeling victimized? Or do you need to reframe and decide that you were sometimes responsible or the aggressor? Or do you need to blame the party or parties responsible for victimizing you? It takes critical thinking to navigate, so if you want to be more or less the victim, then that’s possible. And Linkin Park!

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So you know how nostalgia can be so much fun to experience even if the moments you revisit are miserable or sadness inducing? This makes one wonder, is it really okay to feel nostalgia, or is it really “pain from an old wound” as some have posited.

Well revisiting the past can be appealing because it can seem better than the present reality, or even perfect. Sometimes you long for things because they no longer exist in the present, but what’s interesting is that what you long for can be related to the present.

It might not be as obvious as missing your friends from the past because you’re lonely in the current moment, because sometimes you can literally be having fun with friends and reminiscing over good times. And it’s not as clear as missing being really fit when you were a teenager because you have developed a chronic ailment, because you may have been depressed as a teenager too and having really challenging experiences. Basically, nostalgia isn’t just reflecting on past moments because of a miserable present. You might be happy in the past and present, and you might be sad in the past and present, which is weirder because why do you miss being sad in the past if you have current misery to deal with?

What’s sometimes the more relevant question about nostalgia is do you have the luxury to experience these feelings, or do you have to stay obsessively focused on the present? Maybe luxury isn’t the right word, but sometimes the time and attention we spend on the past can serve as an exercise in reflection that removes us from contemporary consciousness. And are the thoughts you’re reflecting on helping you heal and grow, or are they keeping you mired in a negative state of mind?

Then again reflection on negative thoughts can inspire that very growth because they can teach you what to avoid or how to improve for the future. And fuck it who says everything has to be about “getting better” it should be okay to think about the past when you were sad, and say, “that was so sad.” What about catharsis? What about emotional experience?

So is nostalgia worth it? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel bad? And is that the point? Ultimately, if you like the feeling, then you should do it. It’s not as though it could be hurting you or anything just to think about stuff. Oh it can? Well you have your answer then. Have fun!

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So you know how having a mental health condition like depression, or at least the symptoms of it, can come to be a defining characteristic of your personal identity? And this results in the dilemma of whether to wear your “illness” with pride, letting your neurodivergence flag fly, or to strive to conform and mask your way into normalcy? Or some combination.

That’s really a debate that everyone has to have for themselves, because it not only depends on what your internal motivation is, but also what response you might encounter from your environment. Questions can arise when weighing how expressive to be like: Is it safe? Do you want to be the same as others or different from them? Do you think there is something wrong with you? Do you think there is something better about you that makes you superior to other people?

And when the answer seems obvious to you, whatever that answer is, just recall that you live with how you represent yourself in the moment, and you also live with that representation throughout time. Make sure you have the stamina for whatever you decide.

Contemporarily, or as of February 2025, depression is often discussed as a mental illness and in American society, and perhaps other parts of the world, there is a great emphasis placed on becoming less depressed as though it is the cause of undue misery for individuals who have the condition, and sometimes those around them. However, this is only one perspective, and it sometimes is incomplete because the possible “positive effects of depression” are being overlooked, like an increase in creative potential.

With so much emphasis on seeing misery as a burden, it can sometimes be a challenge to celebrate depression, in fact the idea is sometimes too controversial to be taken seriously. And maybe that’s okay because maybe the goal to typically reduce symptoms is better for “sick” individuals and those who know them. And yet this is the decision a depressed person gets to make for themselves, even if attention to the surrounding environment is often required.

So there’s no answer here on how to define yourself with your condition in mind. There’s food for thought, and with that mind nourishment, you can continue to craft your own personal identity.

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So you know how you’ve heard of the term high functioning depression? And this implies the frustrating concept of low functioning depression?

Fuck that shit. High functioning is a label that people slap on individuals who are depressed, yet still can conform well enough to pass as a “normal” or even an “extraordinary” individual. So in order to be considered well-adjusted enough to have this sticker of societal approval, you need to fall in line with markers of what other people think is successful. If these markers meet your definitions of success, great! Who gives a fuck if they say that makes you high functioning, the important thing is you have met your criteria for excellence. Remember special is boring.

And if you don’t meet the expectations required for a positive sticker of societal approval, also great! Because you can instead focus on whatever the fuck you want and not have to give a shit about impressing fascistic assholes dedicated to making you fit narrowly pre-defined conventions of behavior.

Then there’s the flip-side which is the low functioning depression. These are the patterns of interaction that are not approved of or considered helpful by the people who serve as the normalcy police. And you might sometimes agree with those decisions, because you like fitting the high functioning label, or even because you feel you can’t dispute that the low functioning behaviors are negative.

But it’s a trap. It reinforces seeking external approval to define what is “well” and denigrates self-reliance that doesn’t conform to expectations of what is “functional.” And it causes people who are “high-functioning” to see this as a status symbol that they might be afraid to lose, creating pressure to conform even when it comes at a cost.

So you know high or low functioning, you decide how much to care about the label, and you choose whether or not to fake it forever.

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