Please don't take this too seriously.

[Lorizael]

Hrm, I'm guessing you don't think I betrayed Jesus, but that's all I really know about Judas. /me does some googling. Oh, is it that I despair and have no hope? Yeah, that's true. It's very easy for me to rationalize away the positives in my life by claiming they are a result of luck or forces outside of my control, or by noting that they've all been short-lived, which leads me to conclude that I never really made progress at all. So I intrinsically believe that I'm going to be this way forever.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Yeah, you got it in one.

That belief is the depression talking of course. Depression is reinforcing cycles all over the place.

Y'know, the stuff Molly keeps going on about exercise is absolutely true - I've been told the same thing over and over by more than one person in more than one depression thread. I'm not rude about it, but they. will. not. step. off. -And the thing is, I already knew I needed more exercise, that it would make me feel better. But I'm gonna hit the weights when I'm ready, which is not while I'm having a depression spell. It just doesn't work that way with depression.

Siigh. I just have to keep telling myself that I've survived worse. -Because I have, these last 20-30 years. Honestly, that kind of black thinking, remembering when I was so nerve-wrecked in college that I lost 30 pounds in a semester (she was mean to me), helps when I look at it from the right angle. I'm lonely and bored, but this ain't so bad, really. I remember both the times I stopped eating for months. I lived through it, and have slowly trended better over the years. This ain't so bad.

[Lorizael]

Yeah, who needs to exercise when you can just stop eating! Hm, that wasn't what you were saying? Poppycock.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

No.

I've lived through times where I wasn't even safe from violence at church. I've lived among drug-soaked hippies in a tent in freezing weather, on nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for weeks at a time. I've been told what a piece of crap I was far too many times in my 49 years, to the extent that I have a kind of psychological deafness to hearing anything shouted or just said with a distinct edge in someone's voice. (I had to find some way not to believe them, after all.)

I been through some bad times- there was a lot throwing up involved in that especially bad spell in college; nothing was worth the suffering I went through, at least not unless the weight loss had been permanent -and while these here ain't exactly great times, this ain't so bad.

My feet are dry, you see. I don't even have to explain that one to guys who've been through basic training. Warm, dry, feet are wonderful.

[Lorizael]

(Watch this trick.) Sigh, I hate how mundane my life is. As bad as I feel right now, my life is pretty okay. I have a job, a place to live, a car, a couple friends, all that jazz. When I hear about people who are in worse straits than me, or have been, I feel ashamed and guilty about feeling depressed. I mean, what right do I have to feel this way, when objectively speaking I could be doing so, so much worse? But beyond feeling guilty, I actually feel jealous. I wish my life were truly, brain-rapingly ****ty, because then my depression would be justified. I wish I had been through the **** you've been through. Or I wish I'd grown up with an absent, drug-addled mother and no father the way one friend of mine did. Or I wish I were going through what my incarcerated friend was going through right now. Just so that I could have some reason to feel as ****ty as I do.

[Lorizael]

Anyway, my therapist really thinks I should try to get more than 4 hours of sleep a night, so I'm signing off for now.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

...Now I feel like a creep for out-crapulanting you...

[molly bloom]

There's a distinct possibility that the best I'll ever be able to do is manage it, diabetes-style, and that I can't actually "cure" my depression.

I haven't 'cured' mine. I live with the possibility that some random metabolic flicker or devastating personal event (such as the sudden unexplained death of a friend which began one cycle) may trigger a prolonged bout.

Do you think I haven't wasted time compiling the music I wanted played at my funeral ? Or considered the ways to end my life ? I haven't always been the little sunbeam that Jesus wanted...

However, I do what I know helps to stave off or alleviate the prodroma- and as I keep telling you, exercise is a valuable asset. Do you like feeling high ?

You will love endorphins and exercise. Get started, the sooner the better for you.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I actually figured out how to make it look not like a suicide, hurting my loved ones being a thing that had held me back...

[Sava]

yay?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Well, it been decades, and I haven't done it anyway...

[Sava]

yay!

[pchang]

Stay away from MASH reruns....

[Lorizael]

If it's not on Netflix I'm not watching it.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

It doesn't hold up that well, anyway.