I see people talking about depression as an illness. It seems very different from what I experience. I can see reasons why I am profoundly sad. It's not just something that comes upon me from nowhere. It has increased over the years.

Back in the '90s, the SSRI trend began and not only GPs but ordinary nonprofessional people would push Prozac and other meds at me. Who the heck are they to diagnose me?!? I hate the effects of meds having tried them, but the point I'm making is that this whole depression thing has permeated a large segment of society so that people are seeing it where it doesn't apply. (Again, not arguing with anyone's view of where they are at. Just wanting respect for where I am at.)

Things have gotten worse to the point where I can relate to not wanting to get out of bed, to being unmotivated, lacking in will to make the effort to create chances for good things to happen. I'm discouraged after many dark years of sorrow and watching the stupid panoply of human life pass before me as I shake my head in wonder at the choices made by the world. I know things don't work well because of so many people with conflicting interests and values, so it's not that I think I have the solution to it all. I just feel despair, because of both my failings and those of others in my life in the past.