wake-up call

so, i came to a conclusion this morning after my world got a little ugly and i realized that i was the reason for the ugliness. or, i suppose it wasn't so much a conclusion as it was a moment of clarity that i managed to distill into a nice, neat trio of sentences.

when you're unhappy with yourself, it's pretty easy to be unhappy with your life. when you're unhappy with your life, it's pretty easy to convince yourself you don't want your life. when you don't want your life, it's pretty easy to convince yourself it didn't want you first. that makes you unhappier, and the cycle continues. this is what we call depression.

now, there are usually a lot of variables in play, too. i'm not discounting that fact. lord knows that i, in my own life and fight with depression, have more than my share of variables, many of which i have - knowingly or unwittingly - created of my own idiot accord. anything that has kicked off this latest round has unquestionably been my own doing. i can see some of them, and i know they are mine. but that fact doesn't actually matter.

the time has come once again to see someone. i have held my own psyche together for my entire adult life with nothing more than the psychological equivalents of duct tape and bailing wire. i have a southern-engineered mental state. and i have finally come up against the big bump in the road that knocks the coat hanger off the muffler. i wasn't ready for it, i didn't see it coming, and in fact i never thought it would. but it did, and now, this morning, i know it's time to take this thing into the shop. i can't fix it anymore.