Depression

It sucks. My first experience with depression was my freshman year of college. I'm not sure if it was clinical depression (you know, the whole chemical imbalance or what have you) or just being really, really lonely. Whatever brand it was, it still sucked. I remember sitting in a class of about 300, mostly freshman. It was one of those intro classes where the professor was really cool and cracked jokes and the whole class laughed and it was alright to talk a little during lecture because it was just that kind of course. I knew people in it, so it's not that I felt really alienated or anything, but one day it just really struck a chord. I was feeling horribly lonely and felt like my chest was going to cave in. Thank god I had an aisle seat, and I got up and left the room just in time to start crying. I sat outside on the cold cement bench and just cried with my head down. I don't think I had spoken to anyone that day; literally, I had not heard my own voice. So when I heard myself crying, I guess I was startled by my own sound.

It's never really been my style to 'talk' about my feelings. I tried that when I trained for the Listening Ear crisis center my freshman year. (Coincidence that I didn't end up volunteering there? Who says the blind can't lead the blind anyway?) It's just sad that the topic is still so taboo, or at least seems so. Real depression, the kind that is life-threatening and can cause people to die, is just as much a disease as heart disease or cancer or anything else. I know someone who, if not for medication and electric shock therapy and hospitalization, would be dead. This isn't about someone being dramatic or wanting attention. It's a real fucking thing.

And that's why I'm so thankful that my experiences with depression have been mild. I'm so thankful for my own health, both physical and mental. When I think about the latter, I usually think about my freshman year experience, and the few other times since then that I've felt that way. And when I think back on my college experience (I know, it's been so long since I was there!) I shy away from the whole "Oh, I came out a better person" blah blah bullshit, because I don't know if that's true. I just came out a person having experienced more, not just the relationships and living on my own and moving away and coming back and having my heart broken and sometimes depression and sometimes having an absolute grand fucking time. I had good times, I had bad times, and I can just add them to my bucket of experiences.

Okay. Enough of that already.

For fear of being Dooced, I won't elaborate too much. But. This whole nine-to-five thing just doesn't seem like it's going to do it for me. Yes, the one about which i said "I had better fucking get that job". And I am grateful to have a job. This is true. But still. I can bitch. This is my website, after all.

Alright, I'm fresh out of incoherent sentences and incomplete thoughts. I want to stay up and watch a movie or something, because how awesome is HBO In Demand!?!? But that part today? when people were trying to explain to me my job and my eyes were starting to roll back in my head and all I could to was try and pinch myself to stay awake? all because I only got about 2 hours of sleep last night? Yeah, that's probably not a good way to start my career. I'm not even kidding is the funny part.

Bah humbug.