you burn in water - I drown in flames

The Psychology-minor part of me was interested in our own progress. And it got me thinking about situational depression as it compares to clinical depression. What we have experienced, and still are to some degree, is a situational depression. It is brought on by a specific event beyond our control which causes us to feel sad, helpless, angry, lonely. These feelings are hard to manage.

And yet, throughout the entire time, even the first few days when the despair was at its peak, there was always the knowledge that the heaviness would lighten, the grief would ease in time. We knew this. It made it possible to get through those days that were the hardest.

It made me think about what it would be like to live with chronic depression. I guess I don't understand how people even survive it. If I was caught in Day Two for a sustended length of time with no idea when the grip of grief might loosen, I would not want to live any longer. When I asked my Friend about it she said that when you live with it from childhood you don't really know there's any other way to feel. She survived twenty years of it. I don't know how she did that. It seems like a miracle and it make me respect her even more. I'm glad she survived. I know that when I'm sad she understands Sadness better than anyone. She doesn't compare my small sadnesses to her twenty years and find me silly - no - her twenty years with the Sadness make her understand mine all the better.

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