When I was about twelve or so I started feeling very isolated from the people around me and I began to loathe myself.  Granted, this coincided with the start of yet another new school and I was in the midst of growing fuzz on my nuts.  This actually set a pattern for the sort of depression that I have experienced ever since.  In addition to chronic, never-ending low self-esteem, certain events, be they big or trivial, can bring waves of self hate that even the Big Kahuna would fear riding.  I remember being in sixth grade and wanting to kill myself.  I remembered trying to fashion a noose out of a coathanger, but my decision to avoid the Boy Scouts finally caught up with me and I proved to be no budding Jack Kevorkian.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I've basically hated myself ever since.  I generally feel as if I'm the worst person in the world and deserve all the bad things that happen to me.  I shun compliments and discount positive occurrences so subconsciously that had it not been for the help of friends, I never would have even noticed.  Why should I deserve anything good?  I'm a born loser.  Some people are born with all the luck, most are born with a mixture of good and bad fortune, and the law of averages leaves a shmoe like me with none of the luck and all the misery.

That's how I feel normally.  When my depression cycles into its most intense phase, which like I mentioned is always triggered by an event, which leads me to have a realization, which then starts a torrent of negative thoughts so intense I find it nearly impossible to concentrate on anything else.  I make the analogy that at these times the depression are like the darkest clouds that roll in over me, and send sheets of hard rain on me.  I have no where to hide from the clouds, they'll follow me everywhere until they disperse.  It's nearly always worse at night, too, probably because I'm less active and not around as many people, so I have more time to think and get myself into trouble.  My mind creates new ways to beat myself up, and those mental blows are directed at how I look, how I act, what I do or haven't done, what I say...basically everything and anything that is associated with myself and my spirit.

I can't avoid it.  Everything I do feels like the wrong move, so I try to isolate myself, which just reinforces how lonely I am and causes me to become even more depressed.  It really sucks, if you haven't figured that out yet.  I'll feel totally disconnected from everyone, and I'm more prone to become annoyed with people because I'm angry at myself for being me, and that anger can bubble over and I'll lash out at those who don't deserve it.  All that remains inside me is a tremendous emptiness, and I'll feel like there is nothing worthwhile in me at all.

The cycles generally last six months or so.  My latest period of intense self hate started around late October or early November of last year (1998).  During the other times, I'll feel relatively OK -- I'm not constantly loathing life and myself, and I'll feel <gasp> optimistic at times.  Yeah, I don't know what I'm thinking, either.

I've been in and out of therapy a couple of times since 1993.  As of this writing in mid-May, I'm not in therapy but am on two anti-depressants: Paxil and Wellbutrin.  They elevate my valleys so that I don't feel shitty for long periods of time, and make me more likely to want to enjoy things or make it easier for me to laugh.  I don't know where I'm headed with my life, and where my depression may lead me and if I'll ever have the energy or self love to make a sustained fight against it.  I tried to off myself around Thanksgiving of last year, which is what forced me to take a look at myself and try to get some professional help, which is what has led me to be on medication.  I'm scared to think of the future, and the present is exactly a fucking rose garden, either.  I just take things one day at a time.