Woke up at 7:30 a.m. By 10:30 a.m., I was what I describe as near hysterical. This is more from depression than from grief. I guess it's a highly anxious sort of depression. I got to feeling so tormented.

Now I'm reasonably calmed down. Over an hour ago, I took Vicodin (hydrocodone 10 mg) and Ritalin 20 mg. The tablets made quite a difference.

90 minutes ago, it was just horrid. This was the worst I've been, since the last time I went into the psych hospital.

I want to tell someone how I'm not improving, but getting worse. I think of writing a note to my PCP. I think of telling one of my sisters. They've already paid enough attention and keep offering support. It's not right to cause them frustration by saying I'm just getting worse. They have tried as best they know how.

Last time I was in the hospital, a counselor asked me: "What is it you want?" I took it as a sincere question. Yet, it's an unfair question. But I knew not to say that.

Where I'm at now is an outcome of years of living my life. No horrible, tragic trauma happened to me in May. No one did anything terrible to me. An elderly and terminally ill man came to the end of his life, as was fully expected to happen. Then I found myself going in and out of this awful state of mind that I can't really explain to anyone.

It's eased up, compared to what it was 2 hours ago. So now I don't have that strong drive to want to tell anyone, except here at PC. I ask myself what good would telling anyone do? It's pointless to just worry others. And even worse, people get to where they figure it's up to me to help myself. I sit around, doing nothing. Eventually that draws judgement. I judge myself. I'm not really trying.