I've made no secret of the fact that I've been suffering from depression for around the past two months, and that I've also sought professional help for it, but I had a bit of an epiphany today - one that was a shock even to me. I'd just finished worked this morning and my mother was driving me to McDonald's. For some reason, I thought of the oft-repeated sentiment my mother used to tell me: "It doesn't matter what you do with your life, as long as you're happy and have a reason to get up in the morning". It seems like a fairly essential truism that as long as you're happy, and you're not hurting others, you're leading a decent life. And up until now it made sense to me and I was fairly confident in its universality. Given my upbringing and supportive friends, why shouldn't I be happy with my life? But I realised I'm not. It kind of hit me like a brick wall; I thought about my mother saying that to me and after being introspective I didn't find happiness - I didn't really find anything. I just immediately had a feeling of numbness all over me. But it doesn't feel like sadness, or unhappiness; it's a lack of happiness - there's nothing active to temporarily take its place. It just isn't there. The only reason I do get up in the morning is because it's pretty much automatic now, and there have been morning where I haven't got up. My life seems to lack meaning or worth, in a much more real sense than I've experience before. It feels as if I'm watching my life crumble around me, and no point of reference with which to organise myself. /blogpost