*(This post is not meant to trivialize depression or dismiss anyone’s suffering. I just find that self-deprecation and a little laughter with those who understand sometimes helps me get through the day.)

Many oppressed and maligned groups have empowered themselves by casting off the labels imposed upon them by society. I think we should do the same. Accordingly, I am no longer depressed; I’m Pre-Happy.

I feel that Pre-Happy sounds more hopeful and more proactive. It says to patients, shrinks and pharmaceutical companies: “We can change this, so get off your butts and find something that works.”

I think that Pre-Happy should be more than a word – it should be a movement. Accordingly, we’ll need to have a founding conference. I have some organizational suggestions (And these are only suggestions, I hope others will pipe in with other alternatives.)


LOCATION: I have a TBI and get lost easily. Spreading bread crumbs for more than a few kilometers or from an airplane is impractical, so can it be near my place?

DATE: Now that you’ve said “sure” to my proposed location, I should mention that I live in Canada. That rules out the winter – unless we’re all feeling particularly suicidal.


CELEBRITY SPOKESPERSON: Tom Cruise (Let the ignorant little twerp spend a weekend with a couple hundred of us and still say there’s no such thing as Pre-Happy.)


ADDRESSES: “Only Pea Pods SNAP OUT OF IT.”(morning)


“I’d blame it all on my mother – but she's here with me: The Role of Heredity in Pre-Happy.”(afternoon)


CONFERENCE SONGS: It’s our conference and we’ll cry if we want to…

If you’re happy and you know it, you’re probably looking for the Goldberg Bar Mitzvah in Suite C...

CONFERENCE LOGO:??? Help me out here. I’m brain damaged I can’t think of anything, oops, I meant everything

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* I hope that was a bit of fun for everyone and that you’ll post lots of suggestions.
I’m new here and for those of you I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, I want you to know how much I respect your struggles.

I never suffered Pre-Happy until after a car accident left me with a spinal cord injury and the mother of all brain boo boos. Of all the things I’ve had to struggle against since then, the depression has been – by far – the most challenging. There are days when I’m bluer than a Smurf’s butt. Maybe I’m still in denial, but I find it better to laugh than cry about my situation. (Then again, that might just be the frontal lobe damage.)

As I told Billie, even if I can’t overcome this, I’m humbled to be in such esteemed company. Think of all the famous depressives: Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Walt Whitman, Irving Berlin, Tchaikovsky, Vincent Van Gogh and just about every other artist, composer, poet and writer you can think of. Heck, without depressives there wouldn’t be any art beyond airport novels and poker playing dogs on black velvet (although, I do like both those things). And country music…forget it. The best of human culture is the product of some of its saddest people. The world should say “thank you” instead of “snap out of it.” IN YOUR FACE, CHEERFUL UNDERACHIEVERS!
When I think my state might be permanent I read Shel Silverstein's poem Land of Happy:

“Have you been to the land of happy,
Where everyone’s happy all day,
Where they joke and they sing
Of the happiest things,
And everything’s jolly and gay?
There’s no one unhappy in Happy
There’s laughter and smiles galore.
I have been to The Land of Happy-
What a bore”