Haha, I think I am addicted to this site. I think you mean facebook and the like where all you see is happy happy. There is one friend I have on there who posts her misery but that is rare. People only want to post how great their life is and give off this false impression.

I think you are right and that our culture has this unrealistic expectation of happy. And that makes it all that much harder for us.

With Meth use when you are high you are a 9 or 10 unless you have gotten to the psychotic part of it from a lot of use. But the comes downs are a .5. So you experience both extremes. You keep chasing the high one. That is why it mimics bi polar and so does the withdrawal.

They have never been asked me the 1 to 10 scale. They do have tests you take though and answer a bunch of questions. When I am depressed I score an 85 which is right below needing hospitalization. Over all my whole life it is really hard to put it on a scale. I would give you different answers depending on what phase I am in or what year we are talking about. I have told Michanne that on a scale of 1 - 100. 100 being the worse that overall I am probably a 75 or 80. On the 1 to 10 scale I am an overall 4. That is mainly because inbetween severe depressions I am still moderately to mildly depressed. I have learned to live with this.

So if you mean by 70% a 7 and a 10 being the best then hell no I wouldn't change a thing. My expectations are not even that high. I would love a 7 for the rest of my life. Hell yeah I would be "happy" with that.