Wow, they really have NO idea? Wow.

Dick Cavett wrote a follow-up to his earlier column about depression this week. The story about his exchange with Marlon Brando over a segment Cavett taped with Laurence Olivier while feeling horrible surprised the hell out of me, but was a bit of a relief, too.

For a long time, I have wondered why no one has ever said anything to me about any of this. How could everyone at work be so callous? Can't anyone see how much pain I am in? Don't they understand that it feels like my life has fallen apart, that there's a bottomless pit inside me? And on top of that, nobody seems to care?

Finding out that I seem perfectly fine to these people has helped me twice over. First, I am much less angry with them for not caring, although I'm still somewhat upset over them not noticing, but focusing on that will probably lead me into a spiral of sadness that I don't want to deal with today. (If that doesn't make sense to you, it goes something like this: they don't notice that there's anything wrong because they pay no attention to me because I'm not worth such attention ... That's how your mind works when you're in the midst of this.) Second, I don't have to worry nearly as much as I thought I did about someone finding out, unless of course they read this blog. (Side note on readership: I have no data on how many people read, who they are, or anything else about them. Occasionally (OK, rarely), people might mention something about it to me, and of course there are the comments, but that's all I've got.)

It's a conundrum for me: in some way, people knowing what I'm going through is important to me (or I wouldn't bother to write about it at such length), but at the same time, I am afraid what will happen if they do find out. And that's part of what makes this so hard for me: what I need is support from people, but I cannot even begin to imagine actually sitting down with someone and talking about this. To some extent, I am not even entirely open with my therapist about how I am doing. Yes, this prolongs my suffering, but at some point you start to forget who you are without it, and begin to question whether you even deserve a life without it.

As a child, my parents never ever discussed sex, drug use, drinking, smoking or even dating with me. I'm sure this was because they were uncomfortable discussing it and because they figured I would be fine on my own. When I told Laura about this, she said that not discussing something can imply it's unacceptable. So, for most of the things above, this strategy was successful. I've never even smoked a cigarette, let alone tried drugs. I didn't have more than a sip of alcohol until I moved to Japan, at age 23. I've had an extremely limited number of sexual partners.

As far as an actual relationship with a member of the opposite sex, which I shall define as: committed and caring with both parties interested in a future together, I have had exactly zero. Both Maureen Dowd and Ben Stein have offered advice about this on NYTimes.com this week. (I suspect Stein wrote his column after Dowd's became the number-one-most-emailed and stayed at the top for several days.) My depression-infused brain reads these and assumes the state of my personal life is due to the fact that I am not a "high-quality" person. People don't want me because there is something inherently wrong with me and I am undesirable. Recognize the spiral? Now imagine living your life this way for months or even years at a time.

Sometimes, I feel immense anger at things that are not worthy of such a response. For instance, my neighbor feels free to move things around on my side of our shared balcony, and even tried to throw one item away. The rage I felt over this lasted for at least two days. Part of the reason it lasts so long is because it reminds me of other things I'm angry about, but I think part of it might be because it's a bit of a break from the sadness, which is always waiting for me once I calm down. Sometimes, I even find myself fighting to prolong the anger, just so I can feel something else for a while.

Every once in a while, though (and I hope to God it isn't just wishful thinking or that writing it down won't jinx it), it feels like the pit does have a bottom and that I've probably hit it. This might not sound like good news to you, but for me, it's the best thing ever.