Have I mentioned lately how much I hate this?

"This" being my state of mind, my dis-ease: anxiety, depression and all that comes with those things. I hate looking out the window on a beautiful sunny day and feeling abject terror at the thought of going out into it. I not being able to concentrate on anything for more than about fifteen minutes before becoming incredibly frustrated, and even then feeling like I'm pushing my way through a thicket of brambles to get anything done at all. I hate the days when all I seem capable of is lying on the couch staring at the ceiling or the walls like a catatonic person. I know every fault, every swirl in the plaster. There is one that looks exactly like a hawk in flight, another like a moose.

I want to be well. I want to feel energy and excitement. Mostly, I want to be able to enjoy life. Even when I accomplish something I get no feeling of satisfaction to offset the horrible difficulty of getting it done at all. I have been trying. I have been trying to play my flute. I have been trying to read. Trying--read--those words together seem anathema to me, as reading was the one sole pleasure I had in life even when I was horribly depressed up until now. But now it's as if all pleasure in everything has been wrenched away from me. I feel nothing most of the time and when I feel it's only pain. I bite at my hands and scratch at my face and I can't even take enough interest in it to make it horrific. I remember practicing self-abuse in this way in my teen years and drawing blood. But I feel as though there is no blood left in me and all I am is a lifeless husk. Or maybe not so much lifeless as soul-less. Whatever; I am waiting around for something to happen that just does not come.

People tell me to keep trying, to hang on and keep pushing at the walls and the spark of enjoyment will come down the line, but I find that harder and harder to believe. Rather, it seems to me that every activity eventually gets sucked as dry as I am or becomes too painful even to mention, much less engage in. I start to have a conversation and the tears run down my face when I try to talk about what I am up to, what I am doing. How can I even be with other people in this state?

I wonder if I am self-perpetuating this depression and making myself ill on purpose, but I don't think I am. I just hate it so much. And I don't know what to do except keep trying the different medications and hoping against hope that one will work, that I'll get some semblance of a life back. It may be a hard life; I accept that. But anything would be better than this.