I don't remember...

I don't remember the first time I realized I was depressed. Now, looking back, I see milestones, events that I imagine could have been clues to the coming darkness. But at the time, they were anomalies, hiccups in an otherwise bright world.

Some say that depression is all in my head. I think it is just the opposite. Depression is the disappearance of my head.

Before I got stuck in gloomy and dull, my world was sparkling, alive with flashes of insight, layers upon layers of connection, all of them tapping into my overactive reward center. I often told people who found me obnoxiously positive that I had a disability: hyper-dopaminism. It's not just that my "good" was "unbelievably incredible", but more annoying to most, that my "awful" was "awfully full of opportunity." I was six when the phrase, "Every cloud has a silver lining," became my mantra.

I lived a charmed life until I hit 55-years-old. Then my world slowly began to shrink.

By James Seamarsh, who wants desperately to write from his heart, but it seems to cause his head to disappear.(1)

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(1) This "prompt response" was also published at Marlene Cullen's The Write Spot Blog on October 14, 2013.