I'm So Happy I Could Just DIE!

Elizabeth Wurtzel, fucked up and bitchy though she may be, nailed us just a bit too soon.

But nail us, she did.

According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), anti-depressants are the most prescribed drugs in the US.

Yay! Happy, happy, happy!

Maybe it's just that day-after-vacation blues, but since I'm already depressed, this just sounds like further evidence of the imminent apocalypse.

And you know what? You're not supposed to be happy all the time! Because then you wouldn't have any idea what life is really like. You'd be trapped in an infantile world of complete acceptance, indulgence and immediate satisfaction...

kind of like every bourgeois, middle-class US citizen!

I mean, really, since when has being unhappy been a "disease"? At around the same time that choosing to drink or fuck or eat too much became a disease, too?! Or maybe those diseased souls who don't like to read, or prefer to beat people up, or are bored in school...

I'm in a bad mood today, and it's for a damn good reason. A couple damn good reasons, and I don't want to pretend it's not there, because I can honor that emotional state and not ACT it OUT because I am an accountable human being, and I don't want to blame anyone else for my displeasure.

I'm sure that there are humans that are, in fact, so lacking in the natural hormones and chemicals that help to balance their emotional and psychological states that they may be unable to objectively consider their behavior. I'll give you that.

And I'm sure that prescription drugs exist to help rectify that imbalance, as do other chemical agents and certain types of physical activity. Great.

At what point does something over which we, as individuals, have the only accurate perspective and the only consistent ability to control... When does this become a disease?

Because I think I might be coming down with something...

N.P.M.T.A - short for "NeverPaying MyTax esAgain" disease
or
Paisiak Miodwt - aka "People Are Idiots So I Am Killing Myself Instead Of Dealing With Them"
or
Iify - an up-til-now-undiscovered epidemic, also known as "Isn't It Friday Yet?!"

I don't mean to make light of other people's depression [Yes I do, how else are they supposed to 'lighten up'? Ha ha! Get it?] but I do think that categorizing depression as a disease is like the best possible way to convince someone that they will never free themselves of this perspective, never find their own way of dealing with it, and continue living in the reality that most people are unhappy at least some of the time.

Because sometimes life sucks, even when you wake up smart, rich, honest, compassionate and beautiful.