"Months oozed by"

Several years ago one of my favorite things on the internet was the blog Hyperbole and a Half, by the wonderful Allie Brosh.  It was primarily the sensibility that attracted me: dark humor edging toward twisted, unflinching honesty, and all this wrapped around a generous core. By generous I mean: the most generous humor is often at one's own expense rather than at the expense of others. It was one of the most delightful things on the internet.

I lost track of Hyperbole as I descended deeper into my own depression. As it turns out,  Allie Brosh also lost track of Hyperbole as she descended into her own depression. She is back now, after a very long absence, and her latest and long-awaited post may be one of the better descriptions of depression we will ever see.

The post has too many important things to say, and I won't quote extensively. But she is quite good on the difficulty of dealing with people who don't understand your depression:

But people want to help. So they try harder to make you feel hopeful and positive about the situation. You explain it again, hoping they'll try a less hope-centric approach, but re-explaining your total inability to experience joy inevitably sounds kind of negative; like maybe you WANT to be depressed. The positivity starts coming out in a spray — a giant, desperate happiness sprinkler pointed directly at your face. And it keeps going like that until you're having this weird argument where you're trying to convince the person that you are far too hopeless for hope just so they'll give up on their optimism crusade and let you go back to feeling bored and lonely by yourself.

And the part that rings truest for me, given my own complicated relationship with the possibility/promise of death:

No, see,  I don't necessarily want to KILL myself. . . I just want to become dead somehow.

That is the thought I went to bed with every night for a year and half. I didn't want to kill  myself; I just wanted to never wake up again. Assuming I could get to sleep. . . .

I'm in a position now to appreciate some of the wonderful things in the world, and Hyperbole and a Half is certainly among them. Head on over and look around; her Best Of listing on the right should keep you out of trouble for a few hours. If you like velociraptors, pirates, sharks and boats, you will like what you find.