“Too soon to give up hope,” he says.

“Hope is a lie,” I say.

What I want is hard figures, I guess: I have a 95% chance, say, of never being cured of depression, and for the rest of my life I can look forward to being normally functional, say, 50% of the time. So what I can do with that other 50%? I’m tired of using half my life to catch up with the other half.

But mostly, I’m just TIRED.

Last week, once again, I heard from my gynecologist that exercise would make me a new person. I am famously sedentary, but this time I was so sick of hearing about the wonders of exercise that I vowed that I would take his advice seriously and exercise my butt off from here on out. Apparently medical science has discovered that exercise cures all ills, and I will be cured! So I went out the very next day and plunked down $800 for a treadmill.

Here’s the funny thing: I’m enjoying it. I set up a magazine or a recorded book, put in a load of laundry (my treadmill is in the basement), turn on my Healthrider, and walk my heart out for 30 minutes. I thought it would be boring (my husband doesn’t understand why I don’t do all my walking outside), but the dullness is part of its appeal. It’s mindless, like brushing my teeth. I can just stare into space and think, or I can read (not with close attention, obviously), or I can listen to a book, and thirty minutes later I’m done and no one has really missed me and the day goes on as usual.

My mood continues to improve. I still don’t know what to do with my life, but right now I’m concentrating on getting through the day in a reasonably productive manner. I’m able to socialize a little without coming off like a yeti. I can concentrate better. Like I said, it’s good to feel better, it’s great to feel fine. But we’ll see.

I’m so sick of it. It’s poisonous to my relationships with family and friends, to start with. I look back on my life and it’s like the track of a tornado: an occasional small structure left untouched, but mainly a swath of chaos and destruction. False starts over there, failed projects here, destroyed relationships over yonder. Nothing seems worth doing when it’s just going to be spoiled. Half my life is spent repairing the damage or catching up from the vacuum of the other half.

My husband was very sweet and kind last night. He believes that the reason I’m feeling so bad lately is because I’m working through a lot of things in therapy. I’m not convinced. I don’t think I’m making any progress, other than that therapy is revealing to me the extent that my life really has been a failure up to this point and that that isn’t likely to change. He says that’s just the way I’m feeling and it’s not real.

I’ve heard all that before. But it was sweet of him to say it.

Refilled my prescriptions this morning: $120 for two month’s worth of Lexapro.

But on a brighter note…hmm. Can’t think of one right now. I came home from therapy and went to bed. After I got up from a nap I did some cleaning. I’m going to have company this weekend, better cheer up fast.

So on a recent entry I receive comment which is rather spam-like but could be well intentioned. The comment consists of a single link to the MoodGYM training program, hosted by the Australian National University. This is a slick website that runs you through a course in CBT. You take quizzes to determine your “warpy” thoughts. (Oh, if only they knew — my warpy thoughts don’t even appear on their radar screen). I assume you are then led to change these thoughts and let a smile be your umbrella. Avatars with various emotional quirks are used as examples.

I say “assume” because I just couldn’t bring myself to continue with the program. After about the fifth time you’re asked if you tend to underplay your achievements or if you’re too sensitive to criticism (why yes, I am, damn you for asking), it’s just too obvious where all this is going. It’s the same simple-minded stuff David Burns sells in his Feeling Good manuals.

My problem is that hardcore cynicism is part and parcel of my depression and who knows, probably my personality as well. If I were capable of accepting the reality that my sad, bad, mad, scared thoughts were irrational, well, I wouldn’t be depressed, would I? But more power to those who find that it works. Sorry to rain on your parade. Let a smile be your umbrella!

Depression has ruined everything I have ever attempted. I really don’t want to try any more. I don’t want to keep switching medicines in the hope that the next one’s placebo effect will be more effective than the last one’s. My life already feels like a joke.

He asked me if there had been times in the past when I had felt worse than I do now. There certainly have. I have been suicidal and nearly unresponsive. I’ve been hospitalized twice. After my second hospitalization I was sent to cognitive-behavioral therapy with medication as a follow up. I personally hate CBT for myself, although I’ve seen it work very well for others. I don’t like the feeling that I’m being led through some kind of step-by-step analysis that will make me well at the end of six weeks, pat, even though I know that’s not really how it works. I’m like a cook who’s seen too much of the kitchen to want to eat in his own restaurant.

My mood ranges from pretty good — laughing, enjoying myself to some degree — to very sad, irritable, crawling out of my skin. Mostly I like to sleep. It’s good sleeping weather and my dreams are pleasant. Sometimes in my dreams I am able to visit with friends and family who died long ago, and I love that.

For several weeks after I began I didn’t think therapy was helping much. Why drag up old painful stuff? Then after some of that stuff got dragged into the light, I could see the benefit. I began feeling really good, much freer. Then I started sliding back down into the gully. Now it takes me most of the session just to work up to saying anything of substance about how I’ve been feeling. Yesterday at about the 40-minute mark I was able to say that I had not been feeling particularly sad lately, just irritable and numb and…disgusted. With myself.

Therapist: “Well, that’s the difference between ordinary sadness and depression, that sense of self-loathing.”

We talked about that for a bit and then it was time to go. Afterward, instead of running the errands I had planned, I went home for a while and just felt exhausted. I often do after a session. Later that afternoon I slept for several hours. When I wasn’t asleep I was bored and numb. But he said today will stick with me for a while, I think.

Even with this improvement, I’m still irrationally disappointed that all the therapy and medication don’t guarantee that I will feel great all the time. I feel like chucking the whole thing — cutting off my nose to spite my face, as my parents would say. Sometimes it seems like enduring the ups and downs is worse than the downs themselves. It’s harder to feel depressed when you’ve had a period of feeling not just not-depressed, but really good.

I feel lonely and bored, and persist in doing things that will keep me feeling lonely and bored. It’s like I’m trying to punish myself. A walk would have done me a lot of good. Yet there was something about the sunshine that made me feel anxious, like too much was expected of me. Which just seems insane to me.

It’s like a bubble of glass growing thicker and thicker around me. I can see other people tapping on the glass, I can communicate with them with difficulty, but I can’t reach them.