Down in the Dumps

I rarely get depressed -- depressed as in clinically depressed. I have noticed the signs lately though. Getting a shower and a shave is a major ordeal. I rarely go out of the house. I wear the same clothes for days on end. I am eating comfort foods that are easy to fix, fatty, full of salt, and unhealthy. I rolled over in the bed this morning at daybreak and cursed the day in that I couldn't sleep any longer. I didn't want to get up. I realized this was normal though -- normal to be depressed about my predicament. I don't have any money. All my friends have gone and moved on. Rosa and I continue to grow apart. The Internet is my only social outlet these days and I spend much of days glued in front of this computer monitor.

"It is the negative symptoms of schizophrenia," my father told me last night.

"I am not schizophrenic," I told him tersely, and then told him to drop the whole subject.

You could see him bite his tongue about my remark about not being schizophrenic. It is as if the whole world is against me and actually wants me to be sick. It is easy to explain my oftentimes aberrant behavior when labeled as schizophrenic. Potent drugs are prescribed that dope me up and keep me depressed and complacent -- malleable. I want just one morning to feel the real me, mental illness and all. If I even have a mental illness. I am starting to wonder these days. I blithely say the rest of this crazy world is mentally ill and I am the only sane one left.

On the good news front, my Christmas tree will be delivered next weekend. I am so excited and can't wait to smell that evergreen tree in my den. It is going to take a family effort to get up the lights and the ornaments. I will say it again, but I haven't been this excited about Christmas in years. Christmas was always a dark and dour time for me -- a time when at least one family member would attempt suicide. It never failed to happen.