10 million strong

Forgive me father, for it's been 1 year, 2 months, and 2 days since my last depression and here are my sins. My passion is gone, I dream all day about dying in my sleep, and I no longer care about the feelings of my fellow man.

Reading is my only escape and writing is my only reprieve. Too bad I do most of my writing in my head at work when I don't have access to my laptop. I'm stuck listening to old people go on tirades about expired coupons while I eloquently hash out my depression in my head, lamenting over my sadness in between nods of false sympathy over replaced hips and flaccid dicks. I try to remember the sentences I write in my head while arthritic hands with swollen knobs for knuckles peck away at smart phones, trying to wrestle proof of a discount out of their electronic mail accounts. "You should see my grandson with this thing! He would know exactly where to find the coupon!"

It's the only part of my day I actually get enjoyment out of, even if it's a tiny tick of the smallest amount of serotonin, it's still something.

I enjoy it when the dustier generations get angry at the card machine, screaming at it when it's time to insert a chip instead of swipe or sign instead of entering a pin. They'll yell about how each machine is different and there should be a universal machine that every establishment uses. I want to question how that fits into their over patriotic sense of capitalism and see them squirm, a generation scarred by the cold war with boogie men in the form of words like "socialism," but that wouldn't be a decent thing to do. I don't want to actively cause frustration for these people, I just want to enjoy the scenarios that they create for themselves.

This used to annoy me, older people yelling at me for discounts and not understanding how technology works, just as recently as two weeks ago, but in my depression I delight in the small discomforts of others. It means they're just as miserable as I am but the difference is that I have a chemical imbalance and they're just afraid of change and refuse to adapt. I'll come out of this, they'll be miserable until the day they die.

I've made up my mind that when I'm 65 years old and my credit card number is circulating through my blood stream in the form of some kind of nano bot, I'll gladly figure out the best way to lay my skull on the counter in order for the sales person to scan my retinas to pay for my vitamins.

My depression doesn't care what I say to people and it's a nice vacation from the obligation of caring about everything. I'm a victim of too much empathy most of the time so walking around with nothing to offer but apathy is relaxing. When asked whether I like someone's new shirt or their new makeup I would normally try hard to come up with a compliment I truly mean, even if I have to dig around for it. It's a good way to rewrite my brain to seek positive pathways instead of the negative ones it's original programming was designed for. But now I don't care. Ask me how I feel about anything and I wont have any negative or positive brain responses, I'll just look at you like I'm waiting for you to leave the room or for you to stop breathing. You could wear a trash bag and paint your ass hole with a half gallon of glitter and I would feel the same way about that as I would if you had a heart attack and dropped dead on the spot.

I wouldn't feel anything. I don't wish heart attacks or glittery ass holes on anyone but if they happened I'm sad to say I wouldn't feel one way or the other about it in my current state.

My apathy is like a poison and not only am I affected but it spreads to those around me. I don't have to say or do anything to bring my darkness into a room or conversation. So naturally I avoid people in this state but that isn't so easy when you're usually a highly social person who works retail and talks to just about everyone. My mom used to tell me that when I was a kid I would run around and tell strangers, "Hi! I'm a Flintstone's kid!" because of the vitamin commercials in the 80's. Anyone and everyone, my mom tells me. I would run my mouth and befriend any adult, kid, or dog that would let me talk at them for more than a couple of seconds. I grew up to still be that Flintstone's kid, social and always willing to make a new friend, but when the depression gets a hold of me I leave everyone on read and don't have the energy to even decline generous offers like people coming over to keep me company, clean, or cook me a decent meal instead of eating the dried out protein bars I cry into at night.

I may have been a Flintstone's kid but I grew up to be bipolar's adult. There's no catchy advertisement for that.

Hopefully this bout won't last long. The previous episode was about 3 months in length with me waking up one day finally deciding to kill myself and the next hour being just fine. Instead of planning to kill myself this time I'll just revel in the small discomforts of a generation of technology illiterate mummies, while selling them vitamins.

I guess in a strange way I still am the Flintstone's kid, the only difference is there's paycheck in it for me now.

28 days later

It's been 28 days since my husband confessed to me that he never loved me.

It's the dead of winter so none of the ceiling fans are on in the house and they so desperately need to be cleaned. The one in the kitchen especially, it's caked with months of cold dust from an old house with too many pets that shed generously, on old vents that don't understand that they're part of an outdated respiratory system. My husband walked in and noted that he needed to turn the fan on, as to not see the months of grime that's collected. If it stays in motion, the problem no longer exists and you don't have to do the dirty work of soiling up your hands to wash it. You can just yank the chain and the problem goes away.

And here I was looking like an idiot, thinking I was going to have to clean the damn thing.


It's been a year and a half of marriage before my husband confessed he has never loved me.

I didn't look at that dirt and for one second think I could just turn the fan on. I saw my options were to either clean it or to live with the grime, come to terms with it. Until I got a wild hair up my ass, that dirt was now a part of the fixture. Part of my life. I would become comfortable knowing that all of the filth was a product of a loving house hold. My children's dead skin cells, our many dogs skin cells, his dead cells, my dead cells, whatever other wretched creatures I dragged through the house. It was all our mess together up there. It was our house, that we created. It was our accumulative lives clinging to the fan and I could come to live with it.

It's been almost 4 years together before my husband confessed he has never loved me.

A few paper towels, some simple sink water, 10 minutes and I could have cleaned all of the dirt off. I wouldn't have to look at that kind of mess for another few months at least. But the effort just hasn't seemed worth it lately. I use to keep the place spotless but over the months the buildup doesn't bother me like it use to. Climbing up on a chair seemed like too much work. If the mess is still up there then I guess it can't be bothering him that much either, right? If it really bothered either one of us I guess the grime would get cleaned off.

Eventually.


It's been 28 days since my husband confessed he never loved me, it's been almost 4 years since I knew.

How many times had I looked at that fan in the past and only saw 2 options? It either gets cleaned or it doesn't. I had never thought about putting the fan into motion and absolving my consciousness of the whole burned itself. Was he aware that turning the fan on just means that the whole mess just becomes mobile?

He was already gone from the room before I had a chance to ask him.