So you know how people are always all “would you rather be smart and unhappy or stupid and happy?” And of course you’re a genius so you’re like “I’d rather be smart and happy,” thereby answering a question that is incredibly stupid, because really, who the fuck wouldn’t take all the awesome when answering a bullshit hypothetical.

Thing is, that sometimes you really do have to choose between analytical intelligence and the alleviation of your misery. Depression hijacks critical thinking powers and uses them as a cudgel to slice and dice your psyche as well as those of other people. If you want to manage your depression and heal some of those misery wounds, there may come a time when you are truly faced with the question of whether to tune out some of your special judgmental powers. At least for a period of time. Is it worth it? And if you do relinquish some of your critical thinking, can you ever get it back or will you become one of those stupid happy people who block everything out and don’t notice the suffering of paunchy pandas or kitten genocides? Can you really give up your misery if it means sacrificing a part of your mind, and in particular, the part that makes you so critically clever?

While the easy answer is “fuck yes if it means that you aren’t in excruciating pain every fucking moment,” the less easy answer is that it really depends on what you want. There have always been people who saw pain as a necessary burden in order to see the world a certain way, and to preserve a particular viewpoint. Sometimes these people become famous authors or artists or political people or sciencey thinkers. And sometimes they just become anonymous depressed people who find value in their misery.

You may want to be like that. Or you may want to do whatever it takes to alleviate the pain. You might be willing to literally castrate your intellectual prowess for the sake of a little bit of happiness. You might think that it’s not a sacrifice at all, since you didn’t really want those judgment abilities in the first place. And of course, you might choose to experiment and just see what happens when you mellow out a bit of your mind. You may choose to intentionally ignore or accept the negative things in order to highlight the positive. And later you may choose to make yourself miserable again because you missed the pain, and the magic analytical capabilities that it encouraged. 

Regardless, there will always be parts of your mind that remain sharp whether your whetting them with pain or contentment. Critical thinking may be honed by misery, but there are other parts of you that are honed by not misery. Social skills. An ability to see the whole picture. And all the mathy, sciencey, history, arty, sexy, languagey knowledge that you’ve acquired is still up there in your head whether your miserable or not. Actually, since depression can slow you down, a bit of healing may make it easier for you to learn new concepts or for you to better recall what you already know.

So there is always a tradeoff when you become less miserable. And sometimes that means exchanging some critical thinking powers for some learning powers or something else entirely. Whether the exchange is what you want or whether it is worth the effort depends on what you value and who you hope to be. Good thing is that you can always reopen the wounds and trade back for your misery if you don’t like the outcome.

So you know how everyone else has fucked you over? Like your friends, family, society at large, and really just everyone? And it’s really not your fault, and you wish Robin Williams would come and tell you so over and over and over and over again?

Bad news. It is your fault. You deserve what you get. And if you are getting shitty things, then that’s what you deserve. Because you’re alive and you are taking away from the world just by being so.

Good news. It is not only your fault. And when you get not so shitty things, or even some cool things, you deserve them too. Because you’re alive and you are giving back to the world just by being so.

People have probably done some really fucked up stuff to you. And maybe you’ve done some really fucked up stuff to other people. Or maybe you haven’t. And maybe other people haven’t. After you’ve tallied up the score… Fuck it all. You’re fucking depressed. You’ve got negative points. How that happened is important to remember since you don’t want it to keep happening. Still, just as important is that you figure out ways to manage your misery, regardless of the fault.

Fault or blame only gets you so far. Because hating on people who harm you really just fucks you up. Not to mention most people don’t give a shit about you and won’t really care if they fucked you up. The question isn’t who has fucked you up. It’s who fucked you up that had a responsibility to not do that. And how can you convey to them that they didn’t fulfill their responsibility. And how can you make sure that you don’t fuck up your responsibilities and just start a new cycle of people fucking each other up.

So you’re at fault for your fucking mess of a life. Or more accurately, you have the primary responsibility to figure it out and clean it up. That doesn’t mean that everyone else is off the hook. There are other people who have responsibilities and promises to keep. Find those with the strongest ties and hold them accountable. And if you can’t, find people to make new ties and new responsibilities that won’t suck so much. Above all else, when you’ve got people who do recognize their impact on others: value that. It’s fucking rare, and damn precious.

So you know how human beings are just kind of disgusting?

Yes. Because they are all of these beings made out of human flesh. They come in different shapes and sizes. And they are all just… gross.

They talk in gross ways. They eat, sleep, interact in gross ways. They do mean things, or nice things, or things, in general. They exist for a while. Sometimes all this disgusting grossness may make you want to get rid of human beings. Some of them. All of them. A select few of them. A particular type of them.

And then again, you too are a human being. And you too are disgustingly gross because of that. In fact, since you hate everyone else so much, you may be a “sociopath,” therefore at times doing, or wanting to do, particularly disgusting things because humanity is so awful, that there’s no reason not to.

Yet because everyone is so gross, and disgusting, and awful, there’s hope! Because that’s just true! And the disgustingness of humanity is something that you can count on and feel comforted by. Because it exists. Whether you want it to or not. And the rest of existence, though boring, exists as well.

So yeah. Be all the disgusted you can be. Then realize, that it’s okay, since it’s true that the world is awful.

(My ghost writer assisted with this one!)

If a doctor says it… Then a doctor said it.

So you know how a person writes this blog? And she’s being a bit of a hypocrite because she’s telling everyone to cuddle with their depression and simultaneously shrink it to a manageable size?

Well whether you want to do it or not, I wanted to and I have. I knew this before a doctor said it, but it’s still so nice and toasty when society affirms things that you’ve known all along anyway. Partly because you get to feel legitimate. Mainly because you feel smart for knowing things first.

I’m sharing this in part because a little bit of bragging never hurt anybody. Except all those people it did hurt. And because this blog is as much meant to be my selfish manifesto of partial truths as it is meant to be… well anything else.

I’m not “cured.” There’s no guarantee “I’ll never be depressed again.” Still, right now, at this point in time, I have found ways of managing my depression to the point that I can pursue my goals and live my life without being dragged down into the depths of my personal misery pit.

And I want to take a moment to commemorate that, in this place, where I set down the arguments that have facilitated my “recovery.” If I fall back down, and everything gets fucked, that won’t change the fact that this happened. Nothing will change the fact that this happened.

Cheers to me. Cheers to you. Hoping that you get whatever you’re aiming for. Sooner or later. And for however long it lasts.

So you know how you’re not really depressed, you’re just pretending? Really you could snap out of your depression at any time, you just want to keep doing it because it’s…

Wait why the fuck would you do that? What on earth is worth pretending to be depressed for? Avoiding responsibilities? You can do that just as well when not depressed and be a lot happier about it. Self-control? You can do that by just leveraging the pain without any of the lethargy and anhedonia. Social isolation? That’s really easy to manage, just be a complete asshole to everybody and they’ll leave you alone sooner or later. Or you could be intentionally maintaining a depressive state of mind in order to write a blog… but that would be crazy. Ha ha. Crazy.

Yeah no really, pretending to be depressed is just being depressed. It’s comforting to think that you’re in control of your depression and could just end it at any time by “stopping pretending,” but in all likelihood if you really tried it out, it’d be more challenging than just ripping off the sad face.

Never fear. You are in control of your depression. And you could end it at any time. Or at least manage its effects. It’s just likely to be more of a process than a quick fix solution. You may need to experiment to find that special cocktail of techniques to soothe your misery wounds.

Pretending to be in pain is being in pain. Pretending to be depressed is being depressed. And just in case this hasn’t been said before: depression is real. It’s not just being sad for a while. Or intentionally self-sabotaging, though that can be part of it. It’s not a mythical mind frame that you created just because you felt like it. It’s an altered state of thinking, feeling, and being. It’s a “condition” or “status.” And it can fucking suck. It can also be fucking awesome. Just depends on what you’re looking to learn in life and what kinds of perspectives will help you see the world in a fascinating way.

So you are pretending to be depressed, and you are actually depressed. The pretending is the being. Because in case you haven’t noticed, non-depressed people don’t really invest that much time in perpetuating their unhappiness. That’s a fun little game for us miserables to play at. If you want to keep playing, do. And if you want to make believe something else, do.

So you know how fun it is to imagine scary, dangerous things happening to you? As in, how many fun ways can you imagine yourself dying today? Electrocution. Vehicular collision. Lightning. Terrorist joy. Falling on a treadmill. Choking. And so on and so forth?

Well the bad news is you could die anytime or anywhere. There are genocides and plagues and bad television programs lurking around every corner. Or at least some corners somewhere. The good news is that means that you can leave your house without fear! Or at least without any more fear than you should feel inside your house.

Since you could really die under any circumstances, it’s not so much that this or that place is a death trap, it’s a matter of trading risks. Afraid of planes? Don’t forget to be afraid of cars as well! Afraid of poisonous spiders? Why not try parasites on for size?

Ultimately, what makes you safe isn’t thinking about all of the awful things that could happen to you. Rather, it’s determining what you can prepare for versus what you can’t. And it’s knowing that you can handle this or that situation, and what steps you’d need to take in order to do so. Safety is a state of mind. Because theoretically all of existence could change dramatically tomorrow.

The goal is to find ways of reframing and alleviating each fear that occurs to you. Electrocution? Good thing you always keep appliances away from water. Vehicular collision? Jump out of the cars then watch them crash and burn! Lightning? Just keep your iPod close and let those headphones ground you. Of course you can always imagine ways that everything goes wrong despite your best efforts. The point is: keep imagining. Try to continue your nightmare narratives to a slightly less awful conclusion. For instance, instead of your story ending with you choking to death, perhaps someone notices you struggling, helps you out, and then steals your wallet. A happy ending.

So really everywhere is safe. In that theoretically things could go awfully and yet you’d be able to imagine some way to come out of it alive. It’s your fear, and your negativity, and your narratives. Even if you can’t control the outside world, you can redirect the impressions you carry of it within your own mind.

So you know how good you are at coming up with solutions to things? And you know just how to fix your depression, and then everything you need to do to become a fire-baller… something or the other? And if you could just figure out how to start in on your plans, you’d be good to go?

Planning is procrastinating solving. And sometimes, it’s very useful or important to do. Because that way you take the time to fully weigh and consider your options, and determine the best course of action. Yet while it is certainly beneficial to do some thinking before acting, when you do some preliminary thinking, and then some more thinking, and then just keep doing some thinking instead of acting, that can be a bit less productive.

But it’s so fun. To come up with awesome plans and awesome stories about how everything will be awesome. And it’s hard then, when you realize that the world is awful, and will never be as awesome as all the things you thought and planned in your head. Thing about high expectations is that you’re really just setting yourself up for a bit of a dive. And all those plans you make, can become a prison when you’re afraid to take action because it might not fit into the grand scheme. Or you realize that reality just doesn’t measure up to how you thought everything would go.

And those plans become shackles, when you can’t deviate from them. Or when the guidelines you set for yourself become the measure of your success, and those guidelines just keep shifting so that success is just out of reach. Resetting your base zero helps. Still, those plans… sticky things those plans.

When the plans conflict, or when reality sucks, your plans get derailed. Then the process could start all over again with some new plans, or you could figure out a first step and try that. Then you could figure out a second step and try that after. Not to mention you could take a look at all those things you know you’ve secretly been putting off, and either put them off less secretly, or attempt to deal with some of that shit. It is useful to have goals, and a destination in mind for where you’ll end up after managing your depression. Still, it’s helpful to recognize that the path you take to get there is not likely to be as linear as you expected from the outset.

So you can go ahead and plan and plan away. Make all the plans. Make amazing plans. And when they get all fucked because of the bullshit life likes to surprise you with, that’ll be okay. Because you’ll make new plans. And because as long as you can figure out one next step, you can keep moving forward. Anything beyond that is bonus.

So you know how being depressed sucks and yet you still want to maintain it anyway? Because you’re a pain hoarder, you fear change, or just fucking feel like it? Well you can! You can have your misery and eat it too.

Hm. That isn’t quite right. Regardless, you can keep on being miserable, and try to become not so miserable at the exact same time. This is possible because people can be more than one thing at a time, and also because misery is one of those wonderful chronic conditions that can co-exist with just about any other feeling.

You can be angry and miserable. Or happy and miserable. Or amused and miserable. There are so many mixes and matches! There is no need to get rid of your depression in order to be able to experience other conditions at the same time.

Likely you’ve already realized this. Because you’re probably dragging yourself through the motions of life, and find that you’re fully capable of experiencing other arbitrary feelings while you do so.

And even if you stop feeling miserable for a while and your depression abates, there’s no need to miss it. You can just go mess up your life and make yourself miserable all over again. Even if you were to eliminate your depression, you could always find a way to make some more of it. Undoubtedly, it would be fun to try.

So you can go ahead and grow or change or develop or do stuff ever so slightly differently. Because there’s no reason to sacrifice your pain in the process. Keep your pain. And then do whatever you want with it and everything else.

(My ghost writer’s helping me out with this one! Ha ha!)

So you know how people are always saying not to throw babies out with bathwater? As in, when you’re done with the bath, keep the baby.

When you’re having fun in your depression bath, keep having fun. When you’re done with the depression bath, try to avoid committing suicide. Because you’re the baby in this idiom.

Sometimes it’s tempting to give up. To feel like you’ve made no progress. And because it’s fun to say “FUCK IT.”

“FUCK IT. AGAIN.” And when you’re done, fucking it, go back to bathing. Since baths are so fun. And clean! Mostly. When done for that purpose. Like with normal water. Not other liquids. You get it.

Giving up is pointless. Anyone whose into existential nihilism knows that everything is pointless. Including giving up. Try everything while you’re giving up. Being bored means that there’s plenty of time to do so.

So babies… keep them in the bathwater. Until you want to take them out, dry them off, and just cuddle. BABIES!

So you know how sometimes you feel so dirty and like your entire life is a fucked up, grimy mirror that you will never be able to get clean? And you stare at your distorted image and want to break it to smithereens and buy a new one that will shine, gleam, and give you that beautiful fresh start that you’ve always dreamed of?

Prepare yourself for some really unsettling news: there’s no such thing as a fresh start. It’s a fucking myth. Your life is the sum of all the actions you have taken until now, and nothing you do will ever erase the past, leaving behind a brand new life for you to redraw.

And every time you face a reset, and you think “Ah a brand new start,” you’re setting yourself up for failure. Because inevitably your depression will kick into gear and start tearing up all the beautiful progress you’ve made on that blank slate. Then you’ll turn around and see all the blood-stained slates that you’ve already fucked up, and you’ll be overcome with the realization that you cannot escape what you’ve done.  So you’ll sink back down into that sickening pool of misery that you’ve become so used to, and are so desperate to escape.

Yeah… You will never get to start over. And really, you know that. You may hold on to that hope every single time you purge and the misery cycle restarts, but you know, you really know that it’s not going to work out. Still, that’s actually okay. Because while you can never get a fresh easel and paint yourself the perfect life, you can take the fucked up picture you have, and draw in a different direction.

You will probably need to address the stains, marks, and spatters from your past artistic pursuits. You will need to account for the mistakes you’ve made and see how you want to handle them as you attempt to paint a different picture, overlaying it on top of parts of the old one. And your canvas may be so covered in colors, that it seems impossible for you to create anything beautiful. It may seem like your life will be a mess no matter what you do. Still, it’s not about fulfilling some random ideal of what it means to have a beautiful life. It’s about taking a shitty awful life that was born from a shitty awful world, and getting it to look a little less fucked up. And honestly, if you can even just get yourself to stop painting everything the bleak black of your depression, that’s a win right there.

So you can never get a fresh start. And even if you make your life portrait look slightly less fucked up, you may never even get an attractive end product. Still, you have nothing better to do with your time than seek out ways to clean off your dirty mirror. Make the most of your misery while you can, and just keep painting. Because colors are the fucking best.