I feel like depression is less its own discrete condition than it is the material consequence of pathological unhappiness. It’s this helpless normalization of living under that pain and internalizing its effects on one’s ability to function as one’s own inherent flaw.

When i say pathological unhappiness, I don’t mean to say the unhappiness is unjustified. It’s probably a very real response to circumstances. I just mean it is so strong and so constant that it becomes difficult to see for what it is or understand or address in a meaningful way.

I think if I start to understand my unhappiness as abnormal, not as a natural state that I should just expect to be in but as a genuine situational problem that no one should have to deal with, that may help me to make small steps to address and correct for the things causing it. Like, this may help me to at least identify discrete problems and start to think about solutions—even if they’re out of my hands immediately, or not things I can manage on my own. At least then I know, and am not completely at a loss for the why, and blaming it all on myself.

What do I actually want from life?

Now that I know what happiness is, what do I think would be a healthy set of conditions that would allow for its normalization—as opposed to its almost total absence?