“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” –Hemingway, died 1961 by self-inflicted shotgun wound.

When I first started writing this, I tackled it much like self-help books tackle depression, common sense.  “Are you sleeping enough, eating well, and balancing your work and recreational life in a personally and spiritually fulfilling manner?  If not, identify the problems and take logical steps to fix them.”

After a paragraph in, I realized that this method was full of shit.  Because chances are, if you’re depressed and on WordPress reading this article, you’re just as intelligent and self-aware as I am.  And logic-based psychotherapy just didn’t fly with me, because the problem wasn’t in my thought patterns (I like my thought patterns);  it was how I processed emotion with these thought patterns.

I’m still a pessimistic realist. I still have the fundamental personal problems that precipitated my most recent bout of severe depression.

But I’m happy now.

I got there was by following the route that best suited me.  These were what I identify as my three (not so simple) steps out of depression:

1. Get meds
2. Get friends
3. Get laid (love)

For some people, 12 step programs are the way to go.  It’s not for me.   I’m not down with the Judeo-Christian undertones and way the members of AA and such victimize themselves to abstract concepts that help them psychologically absolve responsibility for what are arguably self-induced problems.

Let me elaborate in a cut what constituted my three-step process.  I can only hope that it provides a helpful template for others. Read more…