My son is suffering from a kind of low-level depression. He's dealing with it mostly by forcing a kind of veneer of ... happiness isn't the right word, nor is cheerfulness ... more like giddiness. Forced giddiness. When I comment that he seems happier, he'll immediately say that really he isn't.

Normally I belong to the "fake it till you make it" school. There's evidence that if we pretend to be happy - by forcing ourselves to smile, for example - we will actually start to feel happier. With my son, though, I worry that denying his basic painful feelings rather than facing and dealing with them was what lead him into psychosis in the first place. I'm thinking it would be more useful for him to admit to himself how he's feeling and try to find ways of managing it. Depression is such a yucky feeling, though. It drags down your energy. Nothing looks good. You can't remember ever having felt good before in your whole, and you can't imagine ever feeling good again. Frankly I'd rather feel fear or anger or even guilt than depression. It robs you of your ability to take positive action to change your circumstances and your mood.

I wonder if the medication itself is contributing to the doldrums he's in.