And I am not talking about the kind you use to get out of work for the day or explain the lipstick on your collar.

“Remember those people who used to spritz you perfume? They sell lipstick now. :

No, I am talking about the excuses we depressives cling to in order to avoid facing the real issue. We clutch them like talismans, and on each is written “get out of this free”.

Because that’s all these excuses really boil down to. Permission to quit.  To give up, back down. play dead like a possum, or otherwise jettison all your hopes and dreams and self-worth like drugs thrown overboard when the Coast Guard shows up.

Without these excuses, we would have to face the facts head on : we give up on things because we get scared when things get hard.

So we need these excuses in order to save our fragile selves from having to really try. We go into anything even remotely difficult for us with our excuses held out in from of us like they will ward off Dracula, ready to hit the eject button at any second.

The the brutal truth is that we want to press that button. We can’t wait to press that button. We’re looking forward to it.

Because when we do, the sudden relief of tension and fear feels marvelous. Marvelous enough to mask the fact that we just fucked ourselves over rather than endure one more second of emotional discomfort. Marvelous enough to keep us ignorant of all long term goals and all enlightened self-interest and all trust and belief in ourselves because phew, at least we didn’t have to endure emotional discomfort.

I mean, nobody does that…. right?

In the past, I have phrased it, quite cynically, as “Hey, you know that thing you do where you get freaked out and give up and run away? Don’t do that. ”

That’s all it really boils down to. Stay in the game. Don’t press the button. Don’t listen to the voice of panic that tells you that if you don’t escape RIGHT NOW, you will DIE!

Obviously not, unless you have some kind of serious health issue. You won’t die. And once panic realizes it’s not going to win, it goes away. And then you realize that it was the panic that was the problem in the first place.

Now that you’re past it, you realize that whatever triggered it is no big deal. It is totally handleable. You will wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place.

The fuss came from depression/anxiety doing what it does best : lying to you.

The disease loves to make you freak out over nothing.  That’s how it exerts its power over you. That’s how it enforces its will.

It knows that, any time it wants to, it can punish you with depression and/or anxiety and keep you totally subservient to it like it’s an abusive relative.

Try this : imagine what you would do if the depression/anxiety was not there to punish you for violating its rules.

Are you imagining it? Good. Now how does it feel?

Is it an awesome, liberating feeling that makes you want to rush out into the world and take on all comers in order to get the life you deserve?

Or does it scare you? Make you feel exposed? Fill you with a terrible dread? Maybe make you want to run away and hide?

But why? What’s WITH that? Depression and anxiety are bad. You know they are the reason you life has not turned out how you wanted it to. It’s clearly the worst thing to ever happen to you and it’s the thing that makes everyday life such a struggle.

So it going away should be a good thing. Right? Best thing ever, even. So why the hesitation? Why the fear? Why the reluctance?

Could it be that there is more going on here that you know?

Could it be that your mind has an elaborate smoke and mirrors routine designed to keep you exactly where you are?

Could it be that depression is the biggest excuse of them all?

That the real function of your depression is to protect you from the real world putting up barriers between you and it that keep the real world, the one in which you are expected to grow up, safely away from you?

Why, that would mean that you are willing (on some level) to endure all the hells of depression and anxiety as long as it keeps that barrier up between you and life.

And these barriers have to come in the form of pain because that’s what convinces you that they are real.

There are happier ones as well that circulate in your mind like bad influences just waiting to put their arm around your shoulders and gently and compassionately cheer you up by convincing you to go with your worst, most destructive habits.

They too work for your disease. They are the good cops to depression/anxiety’s bad cop. Depression/anxiety beats you up and shoves you arund and the the bad influence shows up to lead you astray.

And you can spend your whole life bouncing between those two motherfuckers.

Or you can face the truth, no matter how painful, because you know that on the other side of that pain is a stronger, healthier, happier you.

The first step is to imagine a differe way to be. Imagine yourself looking at the good and bad cops and saying “Fuck you. I’m not playing this game any more. ”

You have the power to stop the film and step out of the frame. To imagine an entirely new context for your life and then hold on to that image no matter how hard your depression/anxiety tries to rip it away from you.

Because in the end, it is your mind, your soul, and your mental real estate.

Depression and anxiety are just squatters on your land.

And you have the power to evict them.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.