What have I become?

Question: How do you know if you're depressed?
Answer: NIN's "Hurt" sounds like an ANTHEM. And you're not a teenager.

Which is completely ridiculous. And that's the point. It's a great song, a perfectly emo 1990s gem. But when you find yourself actually identifying with it, and you're 40...well. You can try to fool yourself by thinking "Well, it's really Johnny Cash's cover I can relate to," but ultimately it's the same thing.

The problem is that depression doesn't hit me like a sledgehammer. If it did, it would be easy to recognize it. But it's sneaky, stealthy, and pernicious, and it creeps up, over weeks or months, until one day I finally realize I'm not just moody or grumpy. And I think, "Oh, this again." (That's actually an improvement. In my younger days, I would think, "Oh, it's ME again.")

So after a disastrous couple of weeks, I go to see my psychiatrist yesterday, and I tell her how fucked up my life is, how fucked up I am, how fucked up everything is. And how I'm a total train wreck, a disaster, a menace to myself and everyone around me. (This is not typical. Usually I go see the psychiatrist to chat about how well things are going, I get my prescriptions refilled, and that's that.)

And at the end of the session, when I am wondering aloud if I am, in fact, just a nutcase, she says, "Everything you've told me is in line with a depressive epsiode. Let's list the symptoms: fatigue, anhedonia, trouble concentrating, irritability, memory problems, feeling sad, thinking about death, intense guilt, anxiety, hopelessness, helplessness, sleeping changes, appetite changes..."

And I'm, like, "Oh. DUH."