I want to thank everyone who commented and emailed yesterday. I'm so glad I have y'all as friends. I'm not embarrassed about being depressed, but it's certainly not the kind of thing that I advertise. People don't really seem to look at you the same once they think you are a few turnip sacks short of a full load. As a result, I never seem to be able to vent. I should have known I could count on all of you.

Depression is not new to me or my family. Thankfully, I do not get as severely depressed as the rest of them. I've never needed the happy pills before (although I am considering it now), and I have never been suicidal. My family (and I mean EVERYONE in my family) gets pretty crazy once in a while. A lot of them are on pills and it's not all that much of a surprise anymore to hear of a botched suicide attempt. It's pretty tiring, actually, but I'm glad most of them are so bad at it. So far, only my grandmother and a bottle of Tylenol 3 were successful (that was about 22 or so years ago).

Anyway, I'm not that bad. And I wouldn't let myself get that bad. If the worst part of my depression is a messy house and some pretty crappy feelings, I won't stress too much about that. But, it is hard to tell people in your life about it.

I've discussed it with my husband, but it tends to freak him out. Like a typical male, he wants to FIX things. Like I'm broken, or something. He immediately assumed that I was unhappy with my life, blamed himself, then started making plans to quit the army, move out west and be a cop (so I could be closer to my family). I told him HE was nuts. I don't want to move. I'm not unhappy.

I think that's the hardest part to explain to the non-depressable people. There is a HUGE difference between sad and unhappy. They want to pin the sad feelings to something. Some event or person. They are just random feelings, though. The only difference is that once the depression is there, little events DO make you sad or angry when they normally wouldn't.

For instance, we have no brakes on our van. I've already missed one shift and will have issues getting to work tonight. It's stressful. So I stayed in bed until almost noon.

Also, the dinosaur diorama was actually fun to make yesterday. It even has a few play-doh blobs that slightly resemble dinosaurs. And a volcano. And rocks. And, because five-year-olds always want to contribute their favorite play-doh masterpieces, the diorama has a few pre-historic play-doh snakes. And worms. And purple logs for the triceratops to eat. Unfortunately, I woke this morning (afternoon) to find that the pterodactyl has vanished. I strongly suspect the cat, since he was trying to play with it last night as it lay drying, but it could have been the dog, too. Lucky for both of them that I don't know who did it. Usually the thought of making a new play-doh dinosaur would perk me up. Not today. I don't really feel like it.

So, I guess I will spend the rest of the day trying to clean the kitchen and hoping I get a way to go to work.

Thanks again, everyone. Y'all are like my own little happy pills.