will I lose my dignity?

I am perpetually ridiculous. Everything stresses me out. Everything freaks me out. Everything worries me. Everything seems like a big deal. Everything hurts my feelings. And everyone is patient and understanding about this, and I should be thankful for that. I am thankful... and yet, I'm not. In a way, I appreciate it, and I probably need it. But in another way, it seems like a slap in the face--an insult to my pride, my dignity. I don't want everyone having to take everything I say with a grain of salt. I don't like this underlying, understood, idea that you don't really mean that...that's just the depression talking...under normal circumstances, you wouldn't say that. Maybe it's true, but what if it's not? What if I say something that may be surprising, but that I do really mean? What if it isn't just the depression talking, and even under normal circumstances, I would say it? I have no way of communicating that, no way of convincing people that what I'm saying is not a product of my illness, but of my real self. Is it even possible that anyone--including myself--could differentiate between what comes from ridiculous me and what comes from actual me? Do I have to avoid saying anything real or meaningful until I'm better, because right now no one will believe it anyway? I guess the Lord is the only one who knows which is which, so maybe He's the only one I can really talk to right now. And maybe that's best, since no one else knows when to take me seriously. And I guess I can't blame them. And yet I do, because I'm ridiculous.

Joe introduced me to this very exciting website, Future Me, to which I have promptly become addicted. If you're not familiar with it, you need to be. It's a simple, yet profound, concept. You write a letter to your future self, tell future me when you want to receive it, and it emails it to you on the specified date (the default is one year from the current date.) If you wish, you can make your message public (but anonymous) so that it will show up on the website. I've spent lots of time just hitting "random" and reading through what people have written to their future selves, and it's fascinating. I love it almost as much as I love Post Secret, and in the same way. And I can spend more time with it, because there are virtually infinite messages to read (with Post Secret, I get a terrible feeling when I get to the bottom of the page and realize I have to wait until the next Sunday for more secrets.) So today I decided to send a message to my future self. It was odd. And yet exciting. But strangely difficult. It was hard to know what to say to my future self from the perspective of my present self. What I ended up saying was something to the effect of, "I hope you aren't like me. I hope you're like I used to be. Or maybe even better than that. But not like this." I'm looking forward to getting my letter to myself on this day one year from now. And I think I might even send some more. Getting mail from this particular time in my life could be quite interesting and perhaps even enlightening.

That's all for now. I'm tired. In every way possible.