A Taxonomy of Unhappiness

    Depression comes in a lot of different forms. For most of my life it’s been a semi-regular companion, a little guy hanging around telling me that I’m boring, that I shouldn’t try to do anything today, that I’m fat and ugly, and that I probably don’t want to meet anybody because it would just a a hassle and we wouldn’t enjoy it anyway. How convincing I find that little guy’s arguments is the measure by which I can tell if I’m really depressed or not. It’s unpleasant but tolerable, and it goes on forever.

    And then there are what I have come to think of as the episodes. Sometimes these are triggered by events, but often as not they just kind of come screaming out of nowhere. The little guy is gone. Or rather, I am gone, because I’ve become that guy. I can’t move. I can barely think. Even this has degrees, though. At its very worst, it’s like I go through a looking glass and become inhuman. I learned the words psychomotor agitation from a shrink when I described the worst of the episodes. In that case, I can’t move, but I can’t sit still. I can’t think but I can’t stop. And it’s not rational. It is, sometimes, delusional. Borderline hallucinatory.

    Most of the episodes are more like what happened over the last couple of days. For no particular reason, I woke up on Sunday morning totally unmoored from anything resembling a purpose in life. There were no real thoughts in my head. Brain the size of a planet and the only think I could think was, BORING. Everything was boring, but especially me, especially being me. Getting out of bed — boring. Working on the book — boring. (And futile. I’m never gonna finish that book. I was absolutely certain of this yesterday morning.) Eating — boring. Human interaction — boring. And shitty. And . . . whatever, it’s hard to describe. You can describe most experiences because your brain is going when you experiencing them. But in this state of mind, I might as well be asleep.

    You never know how long it’s going to last. It appears to be easing now, about 36 hours in. No idea why, just as I have no idea why it started. I’m noticing the sun as it goes down. But there’s a weird hangover effect, too. It’s like when you get out of the ocean but you’re still dripping wet. You’re cold, and you might as well still be in the water.