So imagine Eeyore and Tigger had a kid

The fruit of their (probably nonexistent) loins would be, well, me. Without a tail. Even one that is taped on. Poor me! My point is this: I am an ostentatiously ebullient person (I believe at least one of my college essays was a fake dictionary entry for “loquacious”). So much so that people less enthused than I am – hipsters, potheads, some Big Ten cheerleaders – love to disdain my bubbly personality (god. You’re so… perky. Ugh).

If only they knew.

That underneath the super duper UBER cheery outside, there is a pit of despair so deep… no, just kidding. Mostly that there’s a chemical imbalance in my brain that makes it very very difficult sometimes to deal with tragic events (9/11), terrible circumstances (homelessness), normal hygiene (brushing my teeth at night) and basic life actions (getting out of bed).

Lucky for me there are MEDS!!!!!!

I (currently) take 150mg a day of the generic form of Zoloft, which is a SSRI type of antidepressant (SSRI stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and I majored in poli sci and have a masters in public policy, so ima just leave that here). It has been a game changer. I’m not going to go through my whole sorry tale because:

1. It’s not that sorry 
2. It’s really not that interesting 
3. I’ll nevertheless almost DEFINITELY tell it at some point later 

but for now let’s just say I started taking it in June 2010 and never looked back. Seriously. I know lots of people who have real doubts about taking a pill every day for the rest of their lives (including some of my favoritest people in the whole wide world) but for me, it’s necessary. I know this because if I miss a dose by more than 12 hours, I start to withdraw from myself. I get irrationally upset about, well, anything. I start trying to feed every shabbily dressed person on the street.

And worse – I become less and less likely to catch up on my meds.

Luckily! This doesn’t happen often because I have an amazing therapist, an even BETTER support group who has been there for me since before this all began, and somehow sticks around despite the fits of hopelessness, the why me?!s, the occasional (or not so occasional) burst of tears, the self-loathing, and worse – the self-not-giving-a-shit.

But.

I can happily say that while each day isn’t better than the last, on the whole I am more BUBBLY than TRAGIC these days. That doesn’t mean that I can’t be both at the same time – in fact, I’m almost always a little of both. I plan a happy hour at work with lots of exclamation points in the invite, then go sit in the bathroom in the dark for 5 minutes cause I need some alone time. In short, I’m bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy fun fun fun fun anguished. But the most wonderful thing is?

I’m definitely not the only one.

If this sounds at all familiar, guess what, you're not alone! And if it doesn't, that's fine too. I'm pretty sure that in this third time I'm "kicking off" the blog (the charming one?!) we won't discuss the big D too too much. Humanity, yes. Pizzerias, probably. But no matter what, I promise to be entertaining occasionally, and honest almost always.