I am not exactly sure where to put this…I am not depressed…it is more about a desire to be just a little happy or satisfied with life.

I am young, healthy, sober, educated, employed…I have overcome much and succeeded when many would have fallen. I truly am grateful for all the gifts in my life, but I have this nagging desire to feel just a little bit of happiness. At least, at the moment, I am not whacked out delusional. I am doing everything I can possibly do to get better--therapy, shrink, meds, reaching out, journaling, volunteering, being there for others in my support group…but, I still feel like I have a wet blanket over my life. I don't feel happy or joyful…I have very few good feelings. Eating is about the only thing that seems to be pleasurable. Life seems like a task I have to get done.

I keep pushing myself and keep doing things, but in some ways none of it really seems to matter. I paint because it occupies my mind, I can't say it really feels good. It just feels better to paint than to sit around doing nothing. There was a time, I really did enjoy painting. Now, I am not so sure. I keep turning the radio on because I know I should like music, but really, it does not matter. It is just noise--none of the music makes me feel good.

Sometimes it is difficult to be with my boyfriend because I have to talk--I have to interact with him. I really have to push myself to do that. It is not because I don't love him. It is because my world is this gray nothingness. I know I should be having feelings when I am with him, but they just are not there. It is like there is this big void inside of me. I want to get better because I know what it is like to feel that joyful love I have for him. I want to feel that, but it seems buried inside of me. It is difficult to know you love somebody, but to not be able to really feel it.

All this frustrates me. I think part of the not feeling is the meds. The meds keep me sane, but they also flatten out all my emotions. Things just don't matter. It is weird to not be real depressed, but to not really care about anything. Of course, I am just talking about feelings.

My mind goes a million miles an hour. Sometimes, it is like a runaway train. I can't sit and watch a movie because I can't turn off my brain. I can't lie next to my boyfriend and relax because my thoughts just churn inside of my head. Even sleep does not stop my brain--my sleep is filled with dreams and often nightmares. That is where the painting is so useful--it requires me to focus enough that it distracts me from my thoughts. Painting may not feel real good, but it is an escape from the constant bombardment of thoughts. It does not matter if I produce any art. What matters is that it gives me a break. That is why I sometimes just have to take a night and paint. I have to shut off my brain.

I just don't give a crap about life. I am not suicidal, but it does not really matter to me if I live to see tomorrow. I don't know if there is an answer to all this. I know I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this. I just can't imagine what else I could possibly do to make it better. I guess I will just keep doing what I am doing…just keep getting up every morning and trying to make things better. Surely this can't last forever.

From Sartre’s novel Nausea:
And I—soft, weak, obscene, digesting, juggling with dismal thoughts—I, too, was In the way…. But even my death would have been In the way. In the way, my corpse, my blood on these stones, between these plants, at the back of this smiling garden. And the decomposed flesh would have been In the way in the earth which would receive my bones, at last, cleaned, stripped, peeled, proper and clean as teeth, it would have been In the way: I was In the way for eternity.