There's nothing you can ever say, nothing you can ever do

Signs of depression that I possess:

Change in sleeping habits--too much or too little; waking earlier than usual
- too little. I also wake up abnormally early on days when I shold be sleeping in

Change in appetite or weight
- I've been losing weight, which was already a dismal 120, pretty much nonstop for six months. I'm down to 113. I may disappear soon.

Doing things more slowly or very rapidly (speaking for example)
- I do both of these. Sometimes I'm just heavily shaking when trying to do something. Sometimes it's hard for me to get my thoughts together to speak.

Feeling tired, loss of energy
- Well, I think everyone exhibits this one.

Inability to concentrate, confused, slowed thinking, indecisiveness
- Inability to concentrate is a new one that worries me... sometimes I can't focus on what people are saying. I'm still pretty much never confused, and I'm slower than I was before, but that could be age. I've been indecisive forever.

Feeling of worthlessness, self hate, guilt
- 3 fragments of my being.

Feeling hopeless and helpless
- I'm very optimistic, I think, but I am often helpless.

Self neglect--not bathing or changing clothes--a change in hygiene
- I'm decently hygenic, but I can't pay attention to vitamins and fruits and crap like that

Excessive drug or alcohol use
- Does World of Warcraft count?

Thoughts of death, suicide wishing to be dead
- I often have thoughts of death. I try to imagine the funeral, and how I want everyone to be happy. I sometimes think about what would happen if I was never born at all. Would the gang still have a fourth? Who would it be? I don't think of killing myself, I must say. And I don't so much wish to be dead rather than having an opportunity to die for people I love, to forever authenticate how much I care about them.

I'm walking on sunshine

I don't exactly feel good. I feel like when God was handing out inspiring childhood tales, I somehow was not in line. Tonight at class everyone had pretty inspiring childhood stories, about how they came back to face their bullies, or how they were at the brink of teenage destruction but there was that one adult to bail them out.

I told a shitty, uninspiring story. It was one of two dead dad stories of the night. I couldn't think of a real lesson that I learned from my dad dying. The only effects I could really think of were bad: I don't have confidence in being a father myself, I hate relying on people's help, and the lack of a strong role model just made me try and mesh everyone's identities together to form my own. But of course I couldn't do that, so I thought about it the whole class (I was one of the last to present), and I realized that it did teach me something: that I was going to be different. Sure, plenty of Hong Kong people had immigrated, and plenty had dads still in Hong Kong working to support them, but how many of them were dead? None that I knew of. I wasn't afraid to do anything different after that. Resisting peer pressure was a breeze. I always made the smart choices, possibly because no one was there to rebel against. I've always done things differently or looked at things differently, and that is probably because of the lack of authoritative influence. I hated structured instruction even throughout university and preferred to learn on my own. And I've realized that it takes a lot out of me to try and identify a mentor.

I've always relied on the gang for moral outlook, or what's cool. But they weren't authorities. That makes me feel a bit better about fatherhood, about my potential as a father. I'm going to have a new way to raise my kid, and that's probably okay.