03.14.03 - 10:48 a.m.

So this is how it goes. There are good days and bad days, and a good day can quickly turn into a bad one, like it did yesterday, but a bad day is tough to turn around.

I feel continually empty and unfulfilled, and I thought the feeling would finally go away. I always blamed it on something: I had a shitty boyfriend, I didn't have a boyfriend, I didn't have real friends, I was far away from my real friends, I had a shitty job, I needed a permanent address, I'm moody, my pills are doing this to me, my family messed me up, blah blah blah.

Now that I know even the best guy in the world, a relatively good job and a spacious (if somewhat annoying) apartment filled with clothes and kitchen gadgets aren't going to keep me on the "happy" side of the equation, I'm scared. Scared I should be doing something professionally about this, that there really is an imbalance. I've taken online tests, looked through some books, hell, I even wrote a sidebar on depression a few months ago. I know what to look for. I know that I could clinically be termed 'moderately depressed.' I just feel like so many others feel about therapy, that it's a copout and I should be able to fix this on my own. That if I alter my chemical makeup through Prozac or whatever wonder drug they've got on the market these days, I won't be the real me anymore. I don't want to experiment and deal with the side effects. I'm afraid of Claritin - why would I be comfortable with antidepressants?

I know not all those fears are logical. Acire has been in therapy and on medication for a while now and it has improved her life immensely. I've always been higher-functioning than Acire, but the methods that helped her also might work for me.

But to put it frankly, I don't have the money. No money to give to a therapist, no money to play around with mood-boosters. I tried going once in college, back when psychological counseling was free. All it did was make me feel self-conscious and uncomfortable.

There are so many other worries that bounce around in my head every day that may or may not have anything to do with the way I'm feeling. I'm worried about what we're going to do in November, whether we want to stay in the apartment or find a new one. If we find a new one, where? Should we look into buying? How in the hell would we even have money to buy anything? Do I want to stay in this job past November? If not, do I want to look in the city or do we want to look in another town entirely? If THAT'S the case, your job is also a question. And a whole 'nother round of living-related questioning starts. Not to mention my financial and emotional issues with anything we might attempt marriage-wise. So with all these neuroses, I'm not really sure I have time to deal with my mental hiccups. Maybe one causes the other. I don't know.

See? It's not really you. It's inside me. It always has been.