sharks

i don't want to dwell too much on this because it was making me very sad yesterday, but i think i should talk about it. i like therapy a lot. as an idealist myself, i like that therapy represents belief in the idea that people can help each other and change themselves and be better. i just sometimes worry that i'm not one of those people who can actually change.

people often compare being depressed to a feeling of drowning, which i like as a metaphor because i can't swim and sometimes have nightmares about drowning in an infinite ocean. anyway, i feel that way a lot, like i'm trying to swim with all my clothes on and not doing very well. most of the time i can keep my head above water, though, but sometimes i start to sink and nearly drown.
what i would like is to be pulled out of the water and set onto dry land. but what i've done in therapy so far is closer to taking swimming lessons. that is sort of okay, because i do spend less time struggling not to drown, but i still always feel like it's only temporary because eventually i will get too tired to swim or some marine animal will grab me and then i will go underwater again. and anyway, who wants to spend their whole life trying not to drown? it's tiring. i don't understand why some people are born on land and some people are born in the water. i don't even remember a time when i wasn't very sad. i remember being about 8 years old and crying all the time but being aware that i was supposed to have a reason for it, so i would listen to sad songs on purpose and then cry. probably all of this is genetic, but how could i ever know?