Beware this troubled world; control your intake.

One red pill. One fuckin' huge red pill. Or is it sort of orange-ish? I haven't actually taken any out of the wrapper yet. Maybe the wrapper is just red, and the pill will be some kind of washed-out beige color. Beige is bland. Beige is oatmeal. Beige is a multi-vitamin from Central Market that makes your urine turn neon.

But red. A red pill is serious. Fire-engine red. Red is danger. Red is passion. Red is not. fucking around.

Every morning. With food. One big red fucking passionate pill.

8 am? Every morning? Why 8 am? That seems absurd. Why will it hurt to take it at 10? With my 4 daily eggs and orange juice and coffee.

Because they said so. 8 am. And they're doctors. So you have to listen to them. Well, except for Stacy. She's not a doctor, but she is working on her Ph.D. in Psychology. It's nice that they let her help with the psychiatric evaluation. Dr. Garcia I'm not so crazy about. Not incredibly affable for a psychiatrist. But here I've been sitting in this room for 45 fucking minutes waiting on him. I tried to turn on the radio to listen to Fresh Air, but it didn't work even though it was plugged in.

Not crazy. About him. Not crazy. I don't want to kill myself. I still have my sense of humor. No suicidal ideation.

No, no nightmares.

Yes, I have a still have a libido. Oh yes. The pill could reduce that. The big red fuckin' passionate pill could interfere with "sexual function." Hmm. That's something to consider. But that might not be so bad. It's not like I'm sleeping with anyone anyway.

Appetite? Yep. Although I do seem to have lost some weight. I wonder if that's due to the red meat I've been cutting down on and replacing with more yogurt, bananas and cantaloupe.

Nevertheless, I qualify. Acute generalized anxiety disorder with mild to moderate depression.

It's not healthy to ruminate. It's not healthy to be gripped by such panic at least once a day that you have to stop whatever you're doing and cry or go be alone, and if you can't you fly into such a murderous rage that you want to kill every person you see for at least an hour and you grind your teeth and your blood pressure goes up.

I'm not special.

It's called Being Alive.

At least I'm feeling something. I guess.

Who am I to feel this way? My life has been pretty charmed, considering. There have been some tragedies, some upsets, some tension. Nothing's perfect. And besides, that's got shit all to really do with it.

But it's in my lineage.

My grandfather suffered from debilitating depression for most of his life. He was a warm, sensitive, loving, wonderful man. I miss him dearly. But he could also be very cold, withdrawn, distant, tired. Blank. His eyes held a lot of pain.

His daughter, my aunt, my mom's sister, she died too young. The coroner was a family friend, so it was an "accident," but we all know what really happened. She practically held a degree in pharmaceuticals. She knew what she was doing.

And, well, there's the immediate family, which I won't even go into.

So what's one more?

That, in and of itself, is depressing. Elizabeth Wurtzel makes it seem glamorous. But it's not. It's fucking boring. At least I can get out of bed in the morning and don't try to kill myself at parties.

Blake Schwarzenbach, of Jawbreaker, once sang, "All I want is a life without parties." I know what he means.

William Styron said, "The shadows of nightfall seemed more somber, my mornings were less buoyant, walks in the woods became less zestful." He was saddled with a "fidgety restlessness" and "an immense and aching solitude."

In The Savage God A. Alvarez writes, "My life felt so cluttered and obstructed that I could hardly breathe. I inhabited a closed, concentrated world, airless and without exits. I doubt if any of this was noticeable socially: I was simply tenser, more nervous than usual, and I drank more. But underneath I was going a bit mad."

Can a big red fucking passionate pill give you Hope? Can it give you Faith that intellectually you believe in, but emotionally you don't? And I don't mean the religious variety. I just mean Faith in general. Faith in humanity. Faith in yourself. Faith in your future. (That's the hardest one.)

We'll see.

10 weeks. Then 3-6 months of free treatment, regardless of what happens with the pill.

It's a win-win-win situation.

I guess.