In depression veritas

I have recently discovered that misery is a lot like alcohol.

This isn't entirely surprising, since alcohol is a known depressent, and though I know that one can rather easily lead to the other, I find it interesting that they also have similar side effects. In this case, the total inability to keep one's mouth shut. Just as it takes only minor prompting to get a drunk to spill his or her emotional guts on to the pavement with the kebab and reveal the innermost secrets of his or her heart to anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot, the same also appears to be true of anyone sufficiently depressed to no longer give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks. The chemical properties of personal inhibitions vary from one individual to another. Properties like melting and boiling point run the gamut, but all inhibitions are alcohol soluble. (It is worth noting that unlike most people, rowers' inhibitions are also water soluble. Get us wet enough and we'll do fucking anything. Or anything fucking. Your pick.) When sober, it is our fear of social consequences which prevents us from comitting the faux pas of saying what we really think or feel. Add one heaping dose of depression, a pinch of self-absorbedness, and a dash of seriously crappy luck, beat well until smooth, bake at 350 for one hour, and watch as aforementioned fears of social consequences desolve before your eyes.

This is the state in which I presently find myself. No longer caring what others think or how they respond, I've begun blurting things out in response to questions that I would never normally say. It's a bit like a cross between Liar, Liar and Truth in Advertising. My absolute least favourite question in the entire world has become "How are you today?" I never realized just how many times a day I heard that question until I began answering it with things like "Absolutely fucking awful, thaks. You?" or "Teetering between suicidal and homicidal. What do you recommend?" That last one was greeted with rather nervous looks from the cashier at Home Despot, who, after glancing agitatedly about her for a manager, finally settled on offering me a 10% discount on my potted plant. It would seem that depression, at least, has a financial upshot. Another good one is "Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order?" "Probably not," I reply. "If you were capable of paying attention, remembering information, coveying that information accurately to the appropriate people, totalling my purchase and counting back correct change you wouldn't be working in this cockroach love canal, would you? But I suppose you can try."

If I sound like the chemically unbalanced love child of Eyeore and Marvin, it's only because I feel trapped in a lifeless, mindless, cultural black hole which I loathe with every mitochondria in my quadruceps (there are a lot of them, believe you me), and every day I stay here I hate myself more and more for not having the cohones to chew off my own foot, which is apparently the only way out. There is a breaking point, and it's coming soon. Very shortly I'll either bust out of here with all the energy of a galaxy being born, or I'll resign myself to an eternal existence of cave-dwelling, fish-eating, self-loathing, schizofrenic misery. Don't worry - you'll be the first to know.