[mudman]

I should probably mention at this point that a turning point for me was a violent outburst last summer. I was having a bad day, a random person did something that I disapproved of and I went into crazy-animal-attack mode. Caught a car speeding down my road and f-ed up the car and driver. Expensive mistake. Cornpanzer's comment about restaraunts really hit home, I have trouble around people. I absolutely can not go to Walmart, I start sweating and have an elevated heart rate, my vocabulary shrinks, and I give every person that looks my way the death stare. Library is a little different, I go during the day while my son is at school so it is empty, and the librarians are really nice to me. It really sucks though when my wife and son go somewhere and she suggest I stay home because she knows how I dislike being out. It is harder when it is more than just me, I don't know why though. The worst part is that I'm a business owner, and I have to sell my stuff to people. People who I don't really want to talk to. I've gotten really good at putting on the game face, only a few times have I had a bad client meeting because of not feeling well. But it is hard trusting my acting skills to cover.

Mark, I feel that you really can't relate to this situation. Much like my wife, you think you know, but you have no idea. Maybe you were just a drunk, a loser drunk at that. And then you realized that you suck, and your life sucked because you suck. So you are sad for a time about your sucking, but then you have a revelation: you don't want to suck. So you stop sucking. Life is good and now you are free to give advice about depression. Some people have really related to the comments in this thread, some have not.

Where you stand depends on where you sit.

-Jeremy