Guide to being depressed

I read somewhere, though I can’t remember where, that a startlingly high proportion of bipolar-disorder-sufferers would not want to be cured of their illness, were there a cure available. Whether or not this is actually true, the fact remains that people love being depressed – it’s a form of self-indulgence that, for some reason, makes people want to empathize with you. It’s like having your cake and eating it. It is also a fact that people are fascinated by depressed people. Life is all about being popular. Nothing else matters. If you’re unpopular, your only hopes of salvation are to either create an army of loyal robot-friends, or become depressed. Every tortured soul longs to have bipolar disorder, but if you are one of the unfortunate people who does not bask in the odious self-importance, self-obsession and self-pity of clinical manic-depression, then you are going to need to look into regular depression as a means of justifying your inability to deal with any problem in a mature manner. Because I am such a god-damned nice guy, I’ve decided to take the liberty of writing a guide for you boring, socially-inept morons who wish to be dealt a new hand in the game of life. You can thank me with cash.

1) Develop a vice. Womanising; heroin; alcoholism; untrustworthiness; insomnia; seemingly-insurmountable existential angst; self-harm; gambling; psychotic urges: befriend one, or more, of these devious fellows, immerse yourself in it, then overcome it. It is very important to conquer your vice – to some degree at least – because most people are total wankers when they are snared in the clutches of a destructive habit, and the self-righteousness that comes with defeating a serious problem makes you appear confident, strong, and intelligent, even when you’re still a shell of a human being on the inside. It is also important, if you plan on choosing more than one vice, to opt for problems which complement one another. Psychotic urges combined with a heroin addiction, for example, is not a winning combination. Seemingly-insurmountable existential angst and alcoholism, on the other hand, join together to form a potent aphrodisiac. Throw in an interest in writing pretentious poetry, and you’ve got yourself a winning ticket in the popularity lottery. There is no rigid formula to ascertain which combination will work and which won’t, but it’s kind of like feng shui – you just know when you’ve got it right.

2) Depression makes you appear more interesting and, so long as you can acquire the label ‘self-destructive’ without actually destroying yourself, you are going to become popular. I have no idea why. Even if you do destroy yourself, you’ll still amass a following of teeny, wannabe-depressives, but dying young is severely overrated, so I’d recommend avoiding that. /completely irrelevant and cringe-inducing quote alert/ “dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” This transition from ‘loser with good health and a secure career ahead of him’ to ‘damaged pottery that inexplicably finds itself in high demand at auction’ can be somewhat confusing, and it is crucial not to let it get to your head. Keep yourself in check by developing an inferiority complex and regularly banging your head against walls.

3) Prepare yourself – being depressed is not all plain-sailing. Recent studies have shown that very few people are aware of the dietary requirements of wallowing in a state of angst-ridden inertia. Eating disorders are not kosher, but occasionally skipping meals because you’re too upset to eat is an absolute must for all wannabes. You must also take great care not to eat a proper meal more than twice a week – from now on, jacket potatoes and baked beans are the manna and quail in your lonely desert. (Which reminds me, dessert is well and truly off the menu – only real winners eat more than one course. You are not a real winner, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to get depressed in the first place. You’ll get over it.) This is not easy to deal with, and you will have to quickly grow accustomed to the intrusive sound of your stomach rumbling at inopportune moments if you want to succeed. Moreover, there are certain food groups which are entirely inedible to people with depression. Anything that has been stored in a jar, for example, will now be poisonous to you. Fortunately, the government has intervened to force companies who provide food in jars to label the lid with a warning (or ‘safety button’, if you want the technical term): “Reject if depressed.” This should help keep you safe from a potentially fatal surprise.

4) Ditching those loser-friends who stood by you through thick-and-thin is essential, but be sure to hold on to any friends who are well-connected to attractive people – you can’t do it all on your own, so you have to pick the right people to use as social leg-ups to get you to the promised land of admiration and empathy. Networking is definitely not cool, so you have to be as subtle as possible in your approach. Frequently harping on about how much you hate people and how little you want to socialise has been scientifically proven to be a very effective means of blinding people to your social leeching, but take care to avoid coming across as a whinging hermit, or nobody will want anything to do with you. Fail, and you’ll have to start all over again at number 1, or else risk an awful life of contentment and productivity. Scared? You should be, you loser.

5) Invest in a tube of superglue in order to stick the tip of your tongue to the inside of one of your cheeks. Nobody likes happy-clappy born-again tossers. The smug bastards. Being embittered is crucial, and what better way to express it than with intellectual sarcasm? Irony and satire are your new weapons of choice, and if you don’t learn quickly how to use them, you’re absolutely fucked. If you aren’t witty or intelligent enough to work out how to do it yourself, then you need to drag your sorry ass to the couch in your living room and watch a whole weeks’ worth of sitcoms, then spend the rest of your life surreptitiously quoting and emulating them. You may not like the prospect of sacrificing your identity and selling out, but everyone else wants you to do it, and they’re all better people than you, therefore your views on morality are lame, and you must discard them accordingly.

6) Although any wannabe-depressive needs to own a blog, or some other form of public space in which to shamelessly seek attention, always keep in mind that it is a cardinal sin to post an entry on a Saturday night.