Ok. So lets start with the immediate problem. I currently find myself fighting with depression for about the hundredth time in my life. This is a struggle I have fought since even before puberty - the tendency to just sink down into the mire of my unhappiness and stay there. It manifests differently. When I was younger, it came out as anger. I was angry at the world for making me unhappy and angry at those whom I thought were supposed to fix it (my parents) and instead often made it worse (and were part of the cause). I can't even count the number of times I tried to commit suicide. Those were shows though - always attempts done for the show, to get someone to pay attention to what was going on with me. I wanted help. When that didn't work, I changed to the other form of depression - the shut down. Sleeping, or not sleeping, for days, going through life like a zombie with all emotion shut off or hiding away in my room or my bed, because I have given up or just can't deal with the ugliness of reality. This is where I am at now. This dark place where I stay in bed for days - not able to sleep when I need to, then sleeping off and on all day to make up for lack of sleep at night, constantly tired, not eating at all, then pigging out on candy and soda. When I do have to go out into the real world, I am a zombie - on automatic pilot. I pretend to be myself, but really I am an empty shell... my feelings, my heart have been boxed up and left at home to hide away in darkness and safety. My body feels gross. My skin looks awful. I have been nauseous for two weeks straight. I ache all over. I literally feel sick from it. And yet I can't seem to pull out of it. The current cause? I have lost the dearest thing to my heart, the only thing I had left in the world, the only unconditional love I have ever really gotten - my little dog. He was all I really had left at this point - I have lost a lot in the past few years. He was like my child, the way I loved him so much, but also like my best friend and my only family here. He was the thing that needed me, depended on me, but also kept me going. He helped keep these dark depressions at bay - I couldn't really sink into the nothingness and retreat, because he needed me. I had to walk him, love him, care for him, feed him. When I would start to slip away, he was there with his cute little look, wanting to play and cheer me up, or wanting to cuddle and be petted, or needing to go out - and hence forcing me to get out into the world for fresh air and a change of mind. Now this loss of the last thing I had to cling to, when so much else has been taken from me and I have been through so much (more on that at a later time)... well I just feel like it is more than I can bear. I have handled a lot. I have been KO'd by life so many times its not funny, and yet somehow I always got back up. This time it feels like I can't. I don't know how I can get through this all alone.

I know blogs are used for many purposes... some people think their opinions are so important or vital that the whole world should know, some want to complain or say nasty things about others from behind the seemingly sterile, anonymous safety of a computer screen, some share interesting anecdotes or recipes or other things they find incredibly interesting about their lives. I, on the other hand, don't find my life so interesting. On the surface, sure - I moved from my small-minded southern town to the excitement and bustle of the Big Apple, then to one of the most romantic, culture capitals in the world - lets call it the Big Baguette. Those are just details. To outsiders I seem like an exciting adventurer. In truth, I am just running scared. I fake this grandiose life, but in truth I feel small and insignificant. I pretend to be cultured and interesting and have an indomitable spirit, but inside I am the least confident, most unhappy and miserable mess. So, I created a blog so I could share that side of me - the side I usually hide from the world - so I could finally get it out in the open and maybe, by pulling out my disgusting innards and laying them out for everyone to see and dissect, I can start to cut out the dark tumors and eventually what goes back in can be as clean and healthy as the image I attempt to project on the outside. If you haven't already guessed, this will not be pretty. It will be dark and ugly and self loathing at times, twisted and knotted possibly beyond repair. I do have hope though. In that "Yes We Can" spirit Americans have had long before it was coined into a campaign phrase, I do think that somehow by sharing this, by maybe finding others who deal with the same, by not feeling so alone and allowing these dark thoughts to fester, just maybe they will shrivel away to more manageable size or even cease to be altogether. So here it goes. I am a blogger. Hello World, this is my ugliness, can you handle it?