Depression can be utterly ridiculous at times. Today is one of those days. If you have trouble with depression, check to see if you are doing this weird shit to yourself. 

Every year my neighbors have a block party. Today is that day. The DJ is set up across the street, and though the walls of our building filter out any sounds that make the music understandable, they do absolutely nothing to stop the incessant 120 beats per minute thump.

There are kids in the street, which is blocked off by vans that I would normally not want to see near children. Card tables are set up on the sidewalk,  everyone’s dog is out, and adults are on their way to the happy buzz which will make them slowly turn up the music over the course of the day. By the time they shut it down, around 11:00, it will be competition between the music and the shouting to be heard over the music. 

Here’s the deal. They are having a blast. The kids are having a great time, the dogs are playing, the gang bangers are having a beer with the hipsters down the street, and it’s a lovely community. It’s worth noting that we have never had a shooting on block party day.

I sit in my house, and here is the ridiculous part… I am annoyed. How dare these people have fun. Don’t they know I’m miserable? I am trying to have a bad time with my demons in here! What are you laughing about?

And that’s part of the insulating,  isolating nature of depression. There is a tendency to resent others having fun. I have walked by couples laughing in the street and had to fight the urge to bark at them. 
I could just go out and have a good time with them. But I don’t. 

It doesn’t last long, and once I started to recognize what I was doing I realized just how utterly absurd the whole idea was. I began to argue with it, mentally, but it still happens. It’s an ingrained depressive reflex; one that, over time, can be eroded and turned into a marvelous opportunity to take myself less seriously.