The imcomparable Real Live Preacher reflects on his depression after five months on meds:

Okay, this is the important part. This is why there are no heroes with depression. On the day you snap, you are just a guy who snapped. You get no credit for the weeks or months or years that you were being heroic. No one knew that you were holding all that inside. Sorry buddy, there are no bonus points for being a hero. When you snap and start yelling at your kids for no good reason, you are just a guy who yells at his kids for no good reason.

Of course, you don’t want to be a guy who yells at his kids, so you start avoiding them and everyone else if you can get away with it. You begin to isolate yourself. By the time you get home from a long day of pretending that you care about things, you don’t want to talk to anyone.

Your whole life becomes centered around trying not to feel bad. You will do whatever it takes to get a little relief from despair, anxiety, self-loathing, and all the other horrible things you feel. Hell yes, you’ll do it. You’ll do anything to feel a little better or at least to feel nothing at all.

For me, the only way to stop feeling bad was to lose myself in a movie, or a book, or the computer. So I spent less and less time with my wife and children. I was home, but I really wasn’t home. I knew that they needed me, but I was willing to sacrifice my long-term happiness for short-term relief.