" It is the worst of days. "

Every few years, I have a day of grace. "It is the best of times."

I try to write about these days and put the notes here. There are maybe 3 of these since I began writing 18 years back.

Every few months however, " It is the worst of times, " like the last 36 hours.

Some shrinks suggest there are triggers for these. Of course this is just another guess in their HUGE arsenal of guesses. If only they KNEW.

The bad days often take me by surprise. Slowly I sink deeper into depression, slowly.

For those of you who read my notes here, I will add that I am a drunk now. Only the last 6 years of the 48 I have had this syndrome. I DKN, do not know, how these are related.

Anyway. I either begin to feel worse and worse by the hour OR I might just have the whole shebang when I wake up. Both are nasty.

Today I woke up with a gorilla on my back. Everything hurt. LIGHTS hurt. SOUND hurt. I was constipated. I was cold. I was groggy from only 3 hours of sleep but I could not get back to sleep.

A few hours later I kept falling asleep for a half hour or so the rest of the day.

I wanted to shoot something, maybe the moon, maybe a helpless tree, some building. I wanted to shout at the world, which I did several times. I wonder what the neighbors think?

I could not watch TV, access the Internet or think.

Mostly I just lay in the dark of my room dozing and crying and dozing and shouting. Insanity. Insanity.

I was starving and could not eat. My stomach hurt.

I finally did eat some cottage cheese and fell asleep again and was cold.

My eyes hurt and were dry. Drops don't help during this time.

Finally after 34 or so hours, this insanity fever of deep depression began to lift. I had lots of coffee which didn't help earlier. I finally had a bathroom experience dripping from both ends. I had a shower and am here writing in my journal.

If you are a psychiatrist or therapist who only reads about depression or observes your customers, here is how to experience this directly. You will NEVER again think the same way about your clients, I guarantee this.

The next time you have the flu, or a VERY bad cold, start drinking alcohol till you are drunker than you usually get or have ever gotten. Do be careful not to poison yourself however.

Set your alarm for less than half your normal sleep period before you fall asleep.

Get up. Set a LOUD alarm for 15 minutes and let it ring a bit. Do this 3 more times.

While you are awake, turn all the lights on, open the curtains etc. Turn up the radio with blaring punk junk or rap crap, make sure you are pretty cold and sit there suffering. Its not fair to take anything just yet, not even water.

At the end of an hour, begin taking notes on how you feel and write your report.

SAVE this report. Refer to it before you see your next client with depression.

That experience is pretty close to how we feel. But NONE of your clients will be better in a few days like you will.

They will have this sort of really bad day many times a year and lesser versions weekly or daily.

Reading about depression and observing it is NOT enough for you people and you usually think it is.

It is not.