I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories...

"And yet I can recall in great detail all of the really
embarrassing things that happened to me in the same time period. Not just the things, but the awful feelings that caused or were caused by those embarrassing things." -me, last night

I realized just now that this is a very good description of depression, at least the kind that I have. I haven't talked much here about why I am depressed, only that I am.

My secondary depression-- that is, the one that is relatively new-- is because of the medical issues my siblings have been suffering through in the past several months. In addition to me not being able to cope with my grief (which I seem unable to handle. I have unresolved grief issues from 1982), I also feel helpless. Helpless and useless. Both siblings have been diagnosed recently with serious conditions. Life-threatening conditions. And here I am with my nebulous sadness and intermittent back pain, and I feel like everything I think or write or feel is either petty or inappropriately self-centered.

You know, like that last paragraph.

My overlying depression, the one I think I've had since forever, is the one where I can't stop thinking about stupid things in my past. Any stupid thing-- it's not limited to stupid things I've done or stupid things I've said. Just stupid things. All of them. I think of stupid questions I've asked help desk people. I remember all the stupid things I've thought about people. I focus on stupid things I've written and stupid things I've sung. Stupid places I've gone and the stupid things I've done there. There are so many that I don't have room in my head for good things. I have to be prompted to think about times where I've done things right or I've done things I liked.

Is this a poem?

A haiku (or an haiku?)

Or just some complaints?

OK, that's enough of that. I'm getting depressed talking about depressed I am.