My Tiresome Roomate
It took a routine physical for someone to finally name what had been dragging me down for years—though, honestly, even my cat could have diagnosed it. I had mentioned to my doctor, almost as an afterthought, that I’d been struggling with indecisiveness and lack of motivation. He gave me that grave nod physicians reserve for terminal diagnoses and printer jams and said, “Those are classic signs of depression.”
His raised eyebrow added, Even your cat could have diagnosed it.
You may wonder what depression is doing here—besides quietly killing the vibe. After all, depression is usually seen as a treatable disease—a temporary sputter in your engine that slows you down until you get it fixed. My neurodivergence, on the other hand, feels like I was born as a speeding Porsche: great for zooming ahead—until I blunder into a road built for carpools and crosswalks.
They’re different conditions, sure, but both bring a persistent sense of otherness—a filter that makes everyone else seem nonsensical, judgmental, or just vaguely annoyed by my existence. And they often travel together. For the neurodivergent, that chronic sense of not fitting in—plus how people react to it—can open the door for depression to sneak up, siphon our gas, deflate our tires, and finally settle into our passenger seat where it pulls the parking brake every time the speedometer creeps past 15.
So when the diagnosis came, I felt only about a nanosecond of surprise before my whole life history snapped into focus. All those years of feeling discontented, dropping friendships, being known at work as that asshole—they weren’t just personality glitches. They were symptoms. Which, frankly, was a relief. It meant I wasn’t just an asshole.
I was a depressed asshole.
The Lasagna Problem
Once acquainted with the disease, I started noticing the symptoms everywhere. Especially in those daily decision-making battles—the kind most people breeze through without a second thought. Like whether to respond to a party invitation or just let it rot in my inbox. It’s not indecision so much as anti-decision. Every option feels wrong. Or equally right. Or risky.
I don’t know. You choose.
Sometimes the hardest decisions are the dumbest ones, like whether to microwave leftover lasagna or just eat it cold. Cold is faster. But warm is more satisfying. But cold means fewer dishes. But warm makes the cheese all melty and delicious. But what if I overheat the lasagna, sear my gums, and have to explain it to an ER nurse who turns out to be my ex and she calls her wealthy, handsome, hundred-times-better husband to film it for their Christmas newsletter?
So I sit there, fork in hand, paralyzed by refrigerated lasagna—contemplating a decision so basic it could be answered by a houseplant—until the lasagna grows mold, achieves sentience, and decides for itself.
Over time, I realized I couldn’t just keep sitting there waiting for the lasagna to determine its own fate. So, experts (well, mostly me) have developed a range of trusted techniques that may not resolve the issue but at least distract me for a while.
The Roll-and-Resign Method
Roll dice, flip a coin, or spin a bottle. Whatever result I get, I stare at it for a moment, realize it feels wrong, and do nothing anyway.
Success rate: 0%.
The Lifeline to Nowhere
Modeled after popular game shows, I phone a friend to help me decide. Upon hearing their perfectly reasonable advice, I thank them, hang up, and voila—I’ve made a decision! Several decisions, actually: I hate their advice, hate their meddling, hate them, hate everyone else, and hate being alive in a world where lasagna demands decisions.
Success rate: 0%.
The Strategic Retreat
Why struggle with impossible choices when I can simply go back to bed? Experts agree: unconsciousness is the gold standard for avoiding decisions. Side effects often include drool, pillow lines on my face, and the same problem waiting for me upon waking.
Success rate: 0%.
The Dithering Font of Knowledge
I craft helpful decision tools—flowcharts, spreadsheets, vision boards—then abandon them halfway through because I can’t decide on the font. As a bonus, I now have two problems.
Success Rate: 0%
Schrödinger’s Choice
For advanced practitioners of avoidance: I refuse to decide at all, so that both options remain theoretically open. I can both reheat and not reheat the lasagna. Plus, I’m now a philosopher. A very hungry philosopher.
Success Rate: 0%
I’ve tried them all, and I still can’t decide which to recommend. Which, frankly, says it all.
Sometimes—after hours of mental gymnastics, spreadsheets, and imaginary lasagna diplomacy—I finally pick an option. But then I don’t do it. Because the only thing better than not choosing a path is choosing one and not taking it. Psychologists call this transition from indecision to inertia “executive dysfunction.”
I call it Tuesday.
This lack of motivation often reveals itself in small, almost poetic ways. Like the time I dropped a used Kleenex on the floor. It was right there, in plain sight. Every time I passed it, I thought I really need to pick that up. And then I didn’t. Not that time, or the next time, or the time after that.
Days passed. I began to develop a complicated relationship with the Kleenex. It was no longer just litter; it was a test of will, a symbol of my failure, a silent, crumpled witness to my inertia. By day three it became part of the décor; a minimalist art installation titled Showdown with a Facial Wipe. By day five, I wasn’t even seeing it anymore—I was stepping over it like it had always been there, like a used Kleenex really tied the room together.
Eventually I did pick it up. Not out of motivation, but because someone was coming over and I didn’t want them to see I’d been locked in a passive-aggressive standoff with a disposable hanky—and losing.
Another charming feature of depression is the way it quietly short-circuits my brain’s translation function, turning harmless comments into microaggressions and friendly faces into jurors. Suddenly, everyone around me seems hostile, critical, or judgmental—even when they’re just asking if I want fries. Innocent remarks become personal attacks. Compliments sound sarcastic. Small talk feels like psychological warfare.
I once ran into a coworker in the break room who said, “Oh, you’re working late?” He probably meant: Oh, you’re working late?
What I heard on Monday: Oh, you’re working late because you’re inefficient and slow, and we’re all secretly talking about it.
On Tuesday: Oh, sucking up to the boss.
Wednesday: No personal life. Gee, what a surprise.
Thursday: Oh, you’re “working.” Right. Scrolling Facebook.
By Friday I stopped going into the break room—or anywhere else I might run into those nit-picking, self-righteous, hypocritical douchebags commonly known as “other people.”
Now if I were especially enlightened, psychologically disciplined, or riding a wave of opiates, I might manage to assume good intentions on their part. I might tell myself They probably didn’t mean it *that* way and briefly believe it.
But depression rarely lets me take that sunny path. It slaps up a “Road Closed” sign to route me back into the swamp, where these perceived slights pull me under like the doomed teenager in a gloomy horror flick.
My coping strategy is to sit down and compose a long scathing email, explaining to those judgmental scumbags how hostile and hurtful they are, detailing the emotional wreckage they’ve caused, and possibly blaming them for global warming, international conflict, and the decline of quality bagels. I write and edit and then I write some more, until my revenge energy is spent. Then—this part is crucial—I never click “Send.” I delete it. Because even I know better than to leave a paper trail.
Unfortunately, I can’t delete depression. It’s different from the sadness everyone feels now and then—like when they break a hip, lose a friend, or hear their cat sneeze. Depression has become a lifelong roommate—one who never pays rent, leaves socks everywhere, and criticizes how I load the dishwasher.
People will try to help. They’ll say things like, “Cheer up!” or “Have you tried yoga?” or “Get yourself a koala.” This is all very helpful, in the same way telling a drowning person to swim is helpful. They see my inability to cheer up as a moral failing, like I’m just not trying hard enough to be positive. What they don’t understand is that “trying” takes fuel—and by the time I’m depressed, I’m running on fumes and misfiring cylinders.
Side Effects May Include Existing
There came a point when the only thing that was going to help me was chemistry. So I did what many people with depression do. I tried self-medicating, which sort of works for a minute before handing the problem a megaphone and a kazoo.
There’s alcohol, which temporarily takes the edge off the stress, loneliness, and that low hum of everything is wrong. But then it starts taking the edge off my judgment, my relationships, and eventually my internal organs. What starts as a quick fix would end with no friends, no job, and a raisin where my liver used to hang out.
So that was out.
There are opioids, which promise relief so sweet it feels like borrowing happiness from the future. And then the future comes to collect with interest, penalties, and a visit from a loan shark enforcer named “Cold Turkey” Malone.
I turned to sugar and carbs, which seemed harmless enough. A muffin was comfort in a
paper wrapper. Ice cream was a frozen orgasm. But then came the sugar crash, which could only be cured by the next confection. I told myself it was self-care, but my waistband begged to differ.
There are the temporary highs that don’t involve ingesting anything: binge-watching entire seasons of shows I don’t even like, impulse shopping for things I don’t need, scrolling social media posts from people I don’t know. Anything to distract me from that heavy, endless echo in my head that keeps asking, “What’s the point?”
And they do distract me—until I look up seven hours later and realize I’ve missed two appointments, ignored three urgent texts from my last remaining friend, and fallen behind on everything except my ability to name all the contestants on Love Island.
Self-medicating turns out to be a series of short-term trade-offs: a little bit of escape now in exchange for a bigger mess later. I wasn’t looking for a mess; I already had one. So eventually, I realized I needed something that could help me get out of bed for reasons other than muffins.
That’s when I turned to the bona fide medical community and embarked on that grand tradition of antidepressant speed-dating: trying a series of drugs, each promising to change my life—and each doing so in ways I didn’t want. Everybody responds differently, but for me, it went something like this:
Prozac was great if I’d dreamed of being restless, jittery, and wide awake at 3:00 a.m., pondering every bad decision I’d ever made while my legs audition for Riverdance.
The good news for Wellbutrin—no side effects. The bad news—no main effects, either. I might as well have been taking homeopathic Skittles.
Paxil was perfect if my dream was to sleep through the rest of my life.
But I was looking for a way not to do that.
Imagine your brain being taxied around in a 1974 Plymouth Duster with no suspension, no brakes, and no tires, bouncing down a rocky goat trail at midnight while streaming a Stephen King audiobook over a spotty connection.
That’s Celexa for me.
Lexapro made me
happy as a clam—
—and about as smart as one, too.
I finally settled on Lexapro at the lowest possible dose, trying to strike a delicate balance between a functional temperament and the mental capacity of a mollusk. And although it took the edge off the depression, I felt like I needed more.
Board-Certified Head Nodding
Enter Dr. Morris H. McHuggins, a psychologist with a lava lamp, a neatly trimmed goatee, bookcases packed with scholarly reference works, and a collection of professionally framed academic degrees. He welcomed me with a pointedly neutral expression and the voice of someone murmuring bedtime stories to traumatized alpacas.
He sat perched in a buttery leather Eames chair sipping green sludge from a mason jar. I explained that my depression wasn’t the fun kind where you get to lie around in sweatpants watching TV. It was the other kind—where you lie around in sweatpants watching TV and hating yourself for it.
McHuggins gently rubbed his beard and quickly decided. “That responds well to CBT. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Are you familiar with that?”
Which is doctor-speak for Even your cat knows about that.
I nodded unconvincingly. “Of course, but it’s been a while. Can you give me a refresher?”
He explained that I shouldn’t repress or resist negative thoughts, but acknowledge them, welcome them, maybe even thank them for trying to help me. After all, they must have helped some ancestor survive long enough to reproduce. So I went home for a week and heartily welcomed such wonderful thoughts as I’m a failure and Everybody hates me.
Then came the easy part: letting those thoughts hang around without chasing them away. And hang around they did—until they crowded out every other thought, including maybe I should eat something.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy actually helped—on the rare occasions I was in a good enough mood to use it. Which was almost never. Trying to employ a mental strategy while emotionally spiraling is like folding dish towels during a house fire. Still, when the stars aligned and my mood lifted just enough, CBT worked—sometimes even spectacularly.
I excitedly shared my success with Dr. McHuggins at our next session, who nodded and introduced me to the next step. “Now try to reframe those thoughts, or replace them with something positive.”
He glanced at my gaunt face. “Oh, and be sure to eat something.”
And sure enough, by the next week I was able to report progress. I told Dr. McHuggins that I was able to reframe I’m a failure.
It was now I’m a failure who occasionally feeds himself.
McHuggins nodded, took a thoughtful sip of green sludge, and said, “Great. Let’s add another technique.”
Which is doctor-speak for This guy needs the Fisher-Price version.
“Let’s try Psychodynamic Therapy.”
He explained that it involved exploring childhood experiences and unconscious patterns to understand how they affect current behavior. Which is therapist-speak for Let’s blame your parents for everything.
McHuggins leaned back, steepled his fingers, and said, “Tell me about your mother.”
“She died years ago. Not a lot of updates.”
His face remained neutral, but the air between us somehow frowned. “What are your earliest memories of her?”
“She seemed large. But I was small, so scale might’ve been the issue.”
He looked at me in silence, and when I didn’t elaborate, he prodded. “Recount the event. What did she do or say? What did you do?”
I stared at the ceiling, rummaging for something useful. “She made me wear mittens with strings so I wouldn’t lose them.”
Dr. McHuggins nodded solemnly, as if I’d revealed a great trauma. “And how did that make you feel?”
“Warmer.”
He waited, pen poised.
And then I remembered something. “And also like I was on parole.”
He slightly raised an eyebrow, so I continued:
“Sometimes she’d pull the strings to get my attention.”
He nodded again, scribbling in his notebook. I could tell he was loving this, and it felt good to make someone happy. But I was clean out of memories, and he looked so hopeful, so I did what I thought any emotionally intelligent adult would do. I started making things up.
“I guess I still feel like someone’s tugging on me all the time, telling me what I should be doing.”
McHuggins scribbled furiously. I gave him more.
“I want to unravel the mittens, just to prove I can.”
I could feel him getting excited. This was his Super Bowl, his Nobel Prize, his chance to prove to the world—and his parents—that majoring in feelings hadn’t been a tragic error.
“And maybe,” I continued, “that’s why I still wear socks to bed. So my feet don’t get any ideas.”
I was getting the hang of this.
“And maybe that’s why I get uncomfortable at puppet shows. All those strings, controlling everyone and anything.”
McHuggins grunted “uh-huh,” which is therapist speak for We’re going to need a bigger notebook.
And that was the exact moment I overshot the landing.
“Maybe that’s why I panic around spaghetti, because it’s like, so MANY strings.”
McHuggins froze, pen midair.
“And sometimes I check the dryer lint trap to see if the mittens are trying to contact me.”
McHuggins closed his notebook. We sat in silence.
Finally, he said, “Let’s pause there.” Which, in therapist-speak, means I didn’t want the Nobel Prize anyway.
But McHuggins was nothing if not tenacious. At the next session, he introduced me to Behavioral Therapy. He encouraged me to reward myself for small wins. So I started giving myself a cookie every time I answered an email. By the end of the week, I was caught up on email and dangerously close to a diabetic coma.
I realized I was back to self-medicating with sugar. So when I went back to Dr. McHuggins, he suggested “non-food rewards.”
I thought for a bit. “Like what?”
“A walk. Or a dinner out with friends.”
What a hoot! I laughed hard at that. But then I saw he wasn’t laughing. He was glaring at me over his jar of sludge. And that’s when I realized that McHuggins had no clue who I was, had never even seen me. He was the biological embodiment of his reference volumes and framed degrees. A walking certificate. I could have received more personalized care by Googling “depression.”
I told him that maybe he wasn’t the right therapist for me. I said it apologetically, so he wouldn’t take it personally, but he looked more relieved than anything else. Then he got a gleam in his eye, thumbed through an ancient Rolodex, and handed me a lavender business card.
McHuggins was actually smiling. “Doctor Shanti is a very advanced practitioner of alternative therapies that you might find effective.” He pronounced “alternative” like he was choking on a repressed incest memory.
And then, to my surprise—and premature self-congratulation—I thought Why not? instead of Why bother? I practically gave myself a medal for open-mindedness, for overruling the objections of every hyper-rational, evidence-based fiber of my brain.
Which is how I ended up climbing a flight of concrete stairs in a mini mall that featured a liquor store, a pizza takeout place, and a business called “Make Very Good” that advertised “Haircut Nail Massage.” I found Dr. Shanti’s lavender door and tapped the wolf-shaped doorknocker. An electronic gong sputtered over a burst of static when she opened it.
I’d been expecting an Indian guru or a Native American healer in flowing ceremonial robes. Instead, I got a sun-wrinkled WASP in a linen poncho, wearing beaded necklaces and a single feather earring. Her aggressively dyed red hair had recently lost a frizzy skirmish with a heat styler.
She greeted me with a serene, self-satisfied smile. “Welcome to your sanctuary.”
I stepped in. “Is something burning?”
She laughed—condescending yet kind. “I just cleansed our space with a sage smudge.”
As I tried to picture cleanse and smudge as allies, her practiced hand guided me to a large floor cushion. “Before we begin, I’d like you to align with the room’s energy.”
I glanced around, but the room couldn’t seem to align with itself. There were Tibetan prayer flags draped over an Aztec calendar, a cheap resin Buddha next to a mini Eiffel Tower, pyramids that were Egyptian, Mayan, and vaguely Etsy. The room had crystals strewn here and there, each branded with an affirming word in loopy calligraphy:
“Abundance”
“Acceptance”
“Serenity”
“WiFi Password: L@venderChakra”
So I did my best to align with a rusty radiator and stole a peek at her. She was sitting cross-legged on her own cushion, eyes closed, rocking slightly, and silently mouthing something. I couldn’t tell if she was praying, summoning leprechauns, or trying to remember where she’d left her kombucha scoby.
Once the crystals gave their silent approval—or perhaps realizing she had a 3:30 tarot reading—she asked why I was there. So I told her about my depression, the therapies I’d tried, and Dr. McHuggins’ referral.
She nodded gravely. “Dr. McHuggins is a very, very good academic.” She pronounced “academic” as if it were a drive-thru cheeseburger clogging her Sacral Chakra.
“What you need,” she said, “is mindfulness meditation.”
She came over to my cushion and gently positioned my shoulders, explaining that she was aligning me with the Axis Mundi so I could drop a grounding cord to receive love from Mother Earth. After she had pulled, pushed, and twisted me to the point where she felt sufficiently hopeless, she returned to her cushion and told me to focus on my breath and observe my thoughts without judgment.
To my surprise, it was easy—almost pleasant. My mind floated from one memory to another: a clever comment here, a kind gesture there, a moment of insight that had gone unrecognized at the time but now gleamed with quiet brilliance. I felt a warm glow of appreciation—for myself, mostly.
The glow lasted right up until I noticed a pattern. Somehow, every memory had been whitewashed to feature me in the best possible light.
That time I reeled off my favorite resale sites as Steve and Marissa quietly announced a miscarriage? A catastrophic misread.
The moment I bravely prioritized self-care and healthy boundaries? That was me ghosting a friend for three months because I couldn’t be bothered with the social effort of making someone feel wanted.
That time I remained calm and composed while my relatives argued about politics over Thanksgiving dinner? I was actually dissociating so hard I spent twenty minutes buttering a napkin.
I knew I was supposed to observe these thoughts without judgment, but try doing that when your mind is basically a publicist working overtime to polish every memory into a highlight reel just so you can stomach yourself. It was horrifying—not just because the truth was ugly, but because I was the only one buying the revisionist fiction.
I left that session disturbed. By the time I got home, I’d decided: I wasn’t ready to face that emptiness.
At our next session, Dr. Shanti Shakti Moonfeather greeted me with her usual serene smile.
“So, how did the mindfulness meditation go?”
“I can’t do it.”
She tilted her head, feather earring swaying. “And why is that?”
“Because my brain thinks it’s being encouraging,” I said. “But it’s drawing the wrong conclusions.”
Her serene smile didn’t waver, but I swear her aura sighed.
“I think you’ve made real progress.”
“Great,” I said. “So can I stop now, or can I borrow that crystal to poke my eyes out?”
She didn’t laugh. Instead, she nodded slowly, as if receiving cosmic instructions, and said, “Perhaps it’s time to try something…deeper.”
And that’s how we ended up scheduling a shamanic journey with psilocybin.
When the day came, the “ceremony” took place in her office, which she insisted was a “sacred space.” I silently vowed to grab a slice of sacred pizza on my way out from the divine carb portal downstairs. She dimmed the lights, lit incense, and turned on a playlist called “Quantum Spirit Awakening,” which sounded like a humpback whale giving birth to wind chimes.
Dr. Shanti explained that the psilocybin would help me embark on a journey “to discover my totem,” which, according to her, was an object or creature representing my true identity—something that would bring self-understanding, spiritual connection, and emotional well-being. I nodded politely while wondering if we could just skip ahead, because deep down, I was pretty sure my totem was a used Kleenex hunkered on my floor, quietly embodying my spirit of apathy.
I swallowed four brown capsules and washed them down with kombucha that tasted like carbonated armpit.
While waiting for them to take effect, Dr. Shanti had me begin with “intention setting.” I was supposed to whisper my grand purpose into a crystal, so I leaned in and muttered, “Please don’t let me barf on your floor.” Dr. Shanti momentarily raised her eyebrows, then softly nodded.
After a few minutes, I felt a gentle hum in my bones, like my body had switched on a low-level purr. Colors got a little brighter, the air felt thicker, and every sound seemed to arrive
with a polite echo, as if the room were clearing its throat before speaking.
I felt calm, almost cheerful. The dusty sunbeam slanting through the blinds cast a quiet benediction. The room assessed my soul and, to my relief, enthusiastically approved. Even the cushion under my butt was rooting for me: “You’ve got this, buddy.”
The lava lamp in the corner seemed unusually friendly, breathing in sync with me. It introduced itself as Steve, and we passed the time in companionable silence, watching Dr. Shanti’s face morph gently, her features swirling like watercolor, which was oddly comforting. Then her face cycled through a fox, an owl, a goldfish, and finally a goat.
I laughed, deeply and honestly, for the first time in months.
I was filled with energy, but it wasn’t my energy. On the contrary, I was completely relaxed. I had tapped into a boundless reserve of vitality and joy that was everywhere in the universe—a universe that was no longer separate from or outside of me. Everything was connected.
By love!
I basked in bliss, barely noticing a subtle change in the air, like the room was holding its breath, waiting for me to notice. I had the sense that the joy was too perfect to trust.
That’s when I realized that Dr. Shanti’s goat face had disturbingly judgmental eyes. I looked to the lava lamp for reassurance, but instead, it started critiquing my posture. Then the dreamcatcher overhead began to spin, and for a moment, I was certain it was trying to catch me.
The laughter stopped.
And then came the totem.
I had hoped for something dignified—a bear, an eagle, maybe even a planet. But no. The universe, in its infinite wisdom, sent me a fastidious little guinea pig wearing a tiny crown, squeaking out all my insecurities in a high-pitched voice. “You think you’re deep, but you’re just annoying,” it shrieked. “And your posture is terrible.”
I tried to defend myself, but the guinea pig morphed into a kaleidoscope of every embarrassing moment of my life, looping them in 4K slow motion while the goat lady shook her head in disappointment.
I tried to stand, but the floor turned to warm pudding, and I collapsed. The lava lamp snickered. I started crying, feeling every ounce of pain, humiliation, and suffering in the world at once. The feelings were so intense, I popped right out of my body and up to the ceiling, where I watched the pathetically empty vessel I used to live in pound its head with its fists. I saw the goat woman rush over, drape a weighted blanket around it, and begin chanting what sounded like Enya lyrics.
Eventually, the colors stopped swirling, the floor stopped pulsing, and I snapped back into my body. I lay on the cushion, sweating and exhausted, staring at the ceiling while Dr. Shanti—now fully human—whispered something about heartspace convergence. I thanked her for the “journey” and stumbled out without scheduling another session.
Downstairs, the liquor store was still advertising “Two for One” on malt liquor, the pizza place still smelled like burnt cheese, and “Make Very Good” still hadn’t clarified what exactly they made very good. The world felt insultingly ordinary after my cosmic guinea pig meltdown. I wanted the pavement to shimmer, the trees to hum, or at least for Steve the lava lamp to wave goodbye. Instead, I was just a sweaty man on a Tuesday, standing in a parking lot, realizing that enlightenment had left me with a headache and a $200 credit card charge.
The bliss had fizzled, the terror had receded, and all that remained was a stubborn, familiar depression—my surly roommate whose name is on the lease.
And that’s when it finally hit me: for all its flaws, depression had never tried to fix me. Not with guided meditations, unguided medications, or whatever “heartspace convergence” was pretending to be. By trying to eradicate it, I’d been whittling away parts of my personality I actually liked.
So these days, I’m content to add a tiny bit of Lexapro to my diet and subtract just a touch of cognitive ambition. It leaves me feeling like a surly cat in a warm laundry basket—still mildly resentful, but mellow enough to keep my claws holstered.
It’s not perfect, but it beats that persnickety rodent in a crown.