I know you're not looking for advice, so I'm not going to preach too hard at you, except to say that I recognize the somber lucidity of your tone, and I've been

I know you're not looking for advice, so I'm not going to preach too hard at you, except to say that I recognize the somber lucidity of your tone, and I've been there. Depression's heaviest weapon is that it feels like the heaviest truth. It's a bit like being in a room within a room. If nothing outside can be perceived from within the walls, does it matter that it exists? I was surprised when I got out – I was sure it couldn't happen to me either. I didn't even realize it was happening to me until months in. Lots of things that I thought were concrete facts about myself and the world turned out to be configurable in ways I was ill equipped to predict until they happened. There was no secret or epiphany or "one weird trick". I mostly did this by pretending as if being were worthwhile. I wasn't interested in anything that happy, normal people were interested in, like meeting new people or wearing clean clothes. But my crude mental model of those people had enough fidelity to imitate them, at least somewhat. So I did, in earnest. Eventually the mask became the face. We are what we repeatedly do. I lost about 6 years before I started doing that, and it took about another 6 to 9 months before I noticed that anything had changed. I have to give a lot of credit to a lecture series I was recommended on HN as well: Maps of Meaning, from Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PL22J3VaeABQAT-0aSPq-OKOpQlHyR4k5h https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PL22J3VaeAB... It's weird stuff. Took some getting through. I don't remember what the first guy said that made me stick with it, but I'm glad I did. Email's in the profile if you want to chat about whatever. Doesn't have to be serious. It's never too late. Tonight, it is a fact that at least one person in the world gives a fuck about you.