I do not know exactly how to begin except for by writing down a few things that are important to remember. The first thing is the most difficult and so I will just start with that rather than leading up to it. Plus, it is the basis for all the other important reminders.

1) Living is interesting and therefore should be continued. Convincing yourself of this is a major undertaking. Plus, if you look at it from an ethical standpoint, it seems like killing oneself is the right thing to do. It cuts down on population, one less mouth to feed, one less person to work a seemingly meaningless job, and lead a life that appears to have no point. I am not going to attempt to convince anyone that there is a meaning of life or even a point to living. However, I do know this, there is only one other alternative, and anyway you look at it it seems really much more boring than flipping burgers (I have a BA in Religion and have therefore borne in mind the theories regarding heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc. and the former both seem boring and tortuous, and the latter seems lovely, but if you aren't conscious of being changed into a new being then suicide doesn't really bring about a new reality for the same person, it brings about a totally new being that has no remembrance of sitting on the bathroom floor crying for 2 days straight). But, The fact is, if someone is very, very sad or scared, the idea of sleeping forever is comforting. That is why getting out of bed is so tasking. Or at least it is for me almost everyday. But then I think about what sounds more stimulating: lying in bed all day or leaving the house and seeing what fucked up shit gets in my way as I am trying to reach my goals of owning property, working on cars, buying groceries, making music, eating really good food, doing laundry, becoming a doctor, etc. And so I leave the house. Inevitably I begin to feel the giant monster of self doubt creeping into my brain. Self doubt is fear.

2) You need to be fearless. That doesn't happen all at once. You might want to try pretending to be fearless. My theory is that if I pretend to be fearless long enough, then my brain and soul and heart will naturally become fearless. I'm pretty sure it is slowly working. I think it takes force-feeding yourself a lot of your worst fears. The other day I played a show at the Healing Arts Center on Prince Ave. I opened for Leslie Serpentfly. After the show we were dancing in the empty room and I asked her how she learned to arch into a backbend. I have been trying to do it, and I am always scared that I'll land on my head. She said that she had the same problem and one day a man told her that the only reason she wasn't able to do it was because of fear. And she agreed and arched her back and landed inverted on all fours. And since Leslie told me that I have been feeling consistently better living and moving forward. I don't know why, but it is comforting to realize that anxiety and depression (while often chemically based) result from fear. My fear manifests in a lack of self-confidence and the belief that no one will accept my music and that I will always live in poverty, blah, blah. The fact is, if I base what happiness I derive from music on other people's acceptance of my music then I am a sham as a musician. I am a false prophet, almost. Furthermore, low self-esteem is still based externally. That is, I cannot think of any form of low self esteem that is not derived out of the desire to be accepted by other people. We all need each other for companionship, but we do not need to go around patting each other's backs. If you will look at yourself only for what you are, without regard to anyone else, you will most likely find, unless you go around violating other people's basic human rights, that you are a great person. Now, pick out your faults and consider this: Are those faults something that is bothersome to you, or something that you think is bothersome to other people. If the fault is bothersome to you, then by all means, change it. If it is based externally, then fuck it. For real. Here is a simple anecdote: I smell. Generally all the time I smell like I just did 100 push-ups in a pool of the sweat of 7 different, grown, meat-eating men. I bathe (not often), and I still smell right after I get out of the shower. I've heard this happens to other people too. I don't use deoderant or shave. People tell me I smell. All the time my friends will sniff their armpits to see if it is them who smells and I will say, "Its me", and they will smell my armpits and agree. Anyhow, so I know my smell may be unpleasant to some people, but it isn't to me. So fuck it. I know that isn't a very meaningful anecdote to someone who is seriously depressed so I will try to think of another one. In the meantime, it would behoove you to try writing down a list of things that you dislike about yourself, and then try to reckon on the basis of these dislikes.

3) You will need to be able to fight. Also, you might try inflicting pain on yourself as a reminder that you are still alive, etc. I am not talking here about self mutilation, I am talking about punching things & dancing until it hurts.

4) You need to eat. I lost a lot of weight during my downward spiraling days. Some people gain a lot, some lose a lot. Your weight will depend on many things. I get anxious and depressed and do not sleep for several days in a row. Because of anxiety I am an insomniac. I will get to that next. Anyhow, consequently I get very tired and do not have the energy to do any thing. This includes working (which mine is the semi-manual labor of packing boxes, loading kilns and managing a pottery business), exercising, bathing, putting on shoes, washing dishes, etc. So, when I don't do anything but sit around all day and inwardly freak out, I have not burned any calories, and I'm not hungry, so I don't eat. And pretty soon, the pounds start to come off and before I know it I'm 5'8" at 103 lbs. I don't believe in an "ideal" weight based on a person's height. That is just a bunch of conformist medical bullshit. However, I do believe in a non-ideal weight for myself, and that is when I can see those bones on the tops of my shoulders start to become more prominent than normal. When I first started seeing Beth, my counselor, she would always ask me if I was thinking about harming myself. I think about death a lot (mine and other peoples') and about being dead, but I don't think I have ever actually wanted to take all the sleeping pills I have (and boy do I have an arsenal of sleeping pills). And I would answer "No". But I realized something, if I continued to eat only rarely, I would eventually get sick and/or die. And isn't that, in itself, a slow suicide? So, I started forcing myself to eat. And fuck my veganism, I ate anything I wanted to because at that point it was Darwinian survival, and my species figured out how to make a cows milk become icey and chocolate flavored and I felt like I needed to put as much fat and protein into my body as I could, as fast as possible. And so I ate lotsa dairy products and fish. And still do and will eventually get back to a holistic diet, but right now I gotta get strong again. As I write this I am eating a salad with Annie's Goddess Dressing and vegan vanialla mashed potatoes (sucks when you forget to buy plain soymilk). Earlier I ate pasta w/ soysage and marinara sauce and raisins, and before that I ate a bagel and a bunch of Dunkin Donut holes. And lotsa juice and water. An aside: If you are depressed, you should kick drinking. Alcohol is a well known depressant and will counter act any good that a change in lifestyle/diet/medicine might be doing. If you suffer from anxiety, quit excessive suger/caffeine/smoking. While smoking is initially relaxing it contains brain stimulants that can increase your freaking out. And with regard to slow suicide, I feel it is only justified that I point out that smoking cigarettes, drinking excessively, and doing coke and opiates is also slow suicide. And smoking in public is slow murder, fuckers. And don't smoke at my shows because it pisses me off. However, I love music and will suffer through smoke to play with or hear a badass band. Tonight I am going to the Tasty World to hear Trances Arc.

5) You need to sleep. Remember this: warm milk = tryptophan. Try that first. Next try melatonin. Then try valerian. (Obviously don't try all these on the first night). Then you need to get thee to a doctor to get some Sonata or Ambein. And if it is really bad just get some of the old shit they don't much prescribe anymore because it makes you fall over. And exercise, which I'll get to next.

6) You need to move around some. If you have researched depression and anxiety at all you already know that exercise is a saviour. Aerobic exercise produces good brain chemicals like serotonin. It also wears you out. In my case that decreases my anxiety and makes me fall asleep more smoothly. I know it is difficult to consider exercise when you tried to fold the basket of laundry that has been sitting for 2 weeks and you keep walking by it but for some reason folding laundry seems akin to climbing Mt. Everest. Depression is a strange bird that is best understood by other strange birds. People who have never been depressed cannot be entrusted with the task of understanding a sad person. It is just the truth. Before I went through it I used to always think that people who had to take drugs for being sad were weak. And then one day I couldn't do the dishes. And it wasn't like I was lazy, I just looked at the dishes and couldn't do them. And people wanted to know why, and I couldn't come up with a plausible explanation. There is just no way to make someone understand what a deep, intense, and often unprovoked sorrow emerges from a depressed person. So, back to exercise. Exercise is like any other antidepressant, it takes time to kick in. Also, if you haven't exercised in a while (or ever), don't be surprised at your lack of strength and stamina. Expect it. Be pleasantly surprised if you are strong, and patient if you are not. I try to work out 3-4 days a week. I drive out to the UGA Intramural Fields. I start with Ashtanga Yoga, then I run up and down this huge hill 32 times. This was Matt Lucas' idea. First I run up the hill forwards and run down it backwards. Then I run up backwards, and down forwards. Then I run up sideways with my left leg leading, and down with my right leg leading. And then reverse that for the last 8 times up and down. In between every 8, I do 8 regular pushups and 8 funky really hard pushups which I can't explain but which certainly involve many muscle groups because they hurt. Then I drink lotsa water and go home. When I first started YOGA I couldn't touch my ankles, no I can touch my nose to my knees. That took about 3 months. That may seem like a long time, but time, my dear, is all we've got.

7) You need to talk to some folks. Sometimes the folks you want to talk to might not be around, or else might not be as much help as you thought they'd be. When I got depressed real bad, some of the key people I thought would latch themselves to my waist until I got better totally disappeared. These people most likely didn't hate me or think I was crazy. Most likely they felt completely helpless because they had never been through it, or, if they had been through it, they knew there is nothing they can really say or do that would magically make me happy. Honestly, what will make you better ("better" being a term I use loosely to encompass whatever it is that seems like the ideal way to be per person) is YOU becoming fearless and maybe some drugs or herbs to help get the party started. Also, you should get a counselor or headshrink depending on whether or not you think you are in the market for some drugs. If you think you will pull out of it w/o drugs, then get a counselor because they are cheaper. And then just do some research about changing your diet. Lotsa books can tell you what foods contain the nutrients necessary for the production of good brain chemicals. If you cannot fall asleep, if you've lost a lot of weight, if you want to die and think you might find a way to die, or if you feel like you are TRULY LOSING YOUR MIND, then you will probably need to see someone who can prescribe some meds or get you set up with an herbal plan. Again, I used to think people who saw shrinks were just rich, white women who couldn't get their shit together so they paid someone to do it for them. Turns out that I was right, but those people are called "personal assistants". Shrinks and counselors, on the other hand, play a very vital role in keeping people's guns out of their mouths. My counselor's name is Beth. I saw her every week when I was really bad. Now I am past the part where I really need her help. I know that because at our last session we had to find things to talk about, whereas before I was a crying, blubbering mess. Now, I am to the point where I know that Beth got me to where I needed to be in order to see things more clearly. Now I know the rest is just about fearlessness. My shrink is basically a pharmacist. She asks me questions from a typed out form. Generally she wants to know if I feel better and if I am thinking about harming myself or someone else. And she weighs me. Then she "tweaks" my meds. I am on Remeron and Effexor. I'll get to that next. So, asking for this kind of stranger-giving help is a big step emotionally and economically. This shit ain't cheep. I am lucky enough to be sponsored by a musicians resource center called Nuci's Space. -explain what shrink and counseling visits are like -explain that you sould not be afraid or surprised to find that your shrink is on antidepressants, or was.

8) You may need to put some new and interesting chemicals in your body, or not. Nutrition, herbs, meds. Don't be afraid of these changes, but be prepared to wait. My friend Matt Lucas said to me, "Claire, there is nothing to be afraid of. You have eaten acid and mushrooms. You've smoked a lot of pot. This is just some prescription medication that might make you better. Trust me, you'll be fine." He was right. And, he was also correct to say it MIGHT make me better. It is different for everyone. Patience is truly a virtue here. Now, medicine costs money and so do shrinks. I am going to try and get ahold of a list of organizations that can GIVE (as in FREE, like Nuci's Space) the help you need and the medicine you might need to eat.

9) You need to recognize your attitudes: jealousy, anger, asshole-ness. The other day I realized that jealousy also stems from fear, and since we have already established that fear is perpetuated by outside forces, then we can root out the source of jealousy. For instance, my band broke up and my former bandmate was excelling in the music business at a rate faster than myself, and I was jealous and my heart hurt. But, I did not want to be jealous, because he and I are friends and love each other, and I wanted to , instead, be genuinely happy for his success and hopeful for my own. So I marinated and contemplated and realized that my jealousy stemmed from fear of people not loving my music enough to buy it and come to my shows. Plain and simple, I was afraid that I would not be recognized for my art. So I thought, what gives art value and worth. Is it other peoples' recognition. Nope. What gives art the most value, is when someone creates, regardless and without regard for, how other humans will respond to the art. That is what separates art from entertainment. Aretha Franklin has a gorgeous voice, but she does not create, she duplicates and entertains. Neil Young has a cranky, twangy voice, but he creates and composes, and people hear beyond his voice and listen for meaning and profundity and description of the human experience written by someone who knows the depths of loss and love… and fear.

10) Set goals: ha ha. That is tough to do when you don't know how you are going to cook your next meal or change clothes. So, set small goals, really, tiny goals. And ask for help from random people.

11) Accept that this is where you are in life and you are not wasting time, your are living and this happens to be how you are living. There are a million ways to live. Some people parachute out of planes, clean up crime scenes, flip burgers, sit at desks, play basketball. You can do all those things too, if you want. I think it only costs about $150 bucks to jump out of an airplane (tandem, that is). If you are poor, like myself, this is about a weeks worth of work. And if you are very sad, you are probably not working and can't afford much at all. But, if you really want to jump out of an airplane, you need $150 bucks. So, you may have to flip burgers for 2 weeks. And, if you are already flipping burgers, you may want to consider selling something you own in order to get enough money to do what you really want to do. It happens all the time. There are pawn shops and yard sales. I'm just throwing out ideas. I plan to jump from a plane fairly soon. If you want to jump, too, we can all make a day of it. And after we untangle ourselves from the limbs of trees we can go clean up some crime scenes.

12) There is a fine line between hope and desperation. It is advisable to remain on the side of hope. Someone once composed a song with the line "Most people lead lives of silent desperation". That line makes my heart ache because I know it is true and I know it can be different. And the way it can be different is by becoming fearless of failure by recognizing that there is no such thing as failure. A door closing creates a pull of air which throws open another door. And a door slamming shut shakes the whole foundation and rattles windows and un-levels old paintings that had been hanging for years, unnoticed or taken for granted. Behold the house metaphor. Apply it or substitute whatever. Damn, I am begining to sound like a charismatic self-help doctor.

13) Here are some politics that go side by side with depression. If you live in the US you live in a system that you think is beyond your control. You are wrong. If you want to be happy, you will have to work and fight for yourself and other people. Watch where your money goes. This country is fast becoming a service country. In essence, we are ceasing to produce raw materials and instead are importing them, and more so importing finished products. Where there is factory labor, it is specialized so that no one person knows how to create the final product, they just know how to make a part of it. Unless you are buying a product that is culturally specific (i.e. if you wanted a bolt of Indian style fabric you'd buy it from India, direct if possible), buy USA made. Buy Organic, and specifically from local farmers, direct if possible. You buy organic because that way you are not eating pesticide, and you know thaht no migrant farm worker was subjected to picking your food that was covered in pesticide day in and day out for years. Also, you know that your veggies were not Genetically Modified. Aside form being bad for your health, GMO crops pollute heirloom crops and can cause problems. Stop eating products that come form animals. Fish are going extinct. Farmed fish water pollutes the land and water around it. Unless you hunt and kill it yourself, you don't know how it lived and how it died. If you refuse to give up animal products, at least buy organic animal products which come form animals raised untreated with hormones and more humane life/death.