That's what it's like in my head all the time, constant snow, constant weather patterns of all sorts - blizzards, cyclones.

Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a Prozac nation. The United States of Depression.

My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.

So many more cycles of elation of the first kiss, and devastation when it's over.

Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life give you so much to work with, but by the time you've got all this great wisdom, you don't get to be young anymore.

The brief relief of seeing other people when I leave my room turns into a desperate need to be alone, and then being alone turns into a terrible fear that I will have no friends, I will be alone in this world and in my life. I will eventually be so crazy from this black wave, which seems to be taking over my head with increasing frequency, that one day I will just kill myself, not for any great, thoughtful existential reasons, but because I need immediate relief.

Years of depression have robbed me of that—well, that give, that elasticity that everyone else calls perspective.