If only it were that simple.

This has not been an easy winter. I am coping, but some days barely. Last night as I headed off to bed I decided to up my anti-depressant medication starting this morning.

I have just been feeling flat. Going through the day - getting things done - but just flat.

And then this morning I saw a meme that said:

Exercise is the most under utilized anti-depressant.

Oh my fucking god! If I had high blood pressure it would have gone through the roof. (I don't. I have low blood pressure so it probably is pushed into the normal range.)

Really? Really?

I swim at least three miles a week. I go to yoga at least once a week. Most weeks I hit the gym once or twice and when it is not pouring with rain I go for a hilly walk of 4km or so.

I eat well, I spend time with friends and family, I do ALL THE THINGS.

But depression doesn't care.

It lies, and it doesn't care.

I have had people in my life like that - people who lie and don't care - and those people I eighty-sixed.

You can't eighty-six depression.

And you can't exercise it away.

This is not to say exercise can't help, and that when I get home from a long swim it gives me some ammunition to say "See? You didn't win today."

But the effort to do that with depression is like swimming dragging a manatee, or walking carrying a fifty pound sack, or breathing with an eighteen-wheeler on your chest.

Yes, you can do it, but it ain't easy.

So stop with the memes that are trite and meaningless (and in this case grammatically incorrect because it said "Exercises (sic) is the most under-utilized anti-depressant."

The same meme stated "Food is the most abused anxiety medication". Really? More than, let's say, heroin? Because I suppose to the author of that meme it is worse to be fat than to be a junkie. Really? Don't get me started on the fat-phobic society of ours. I don't have the energy. But it is wrong, too.

So today?

Today I am going to be good to myself. I am going to ignore that constant nagging little voice that says it isn't worth it. I am going to replace worrisome thoughts with something else if I can.

And yes, I am going to up my medication.

And if you have an opinion about that?

Keep it to yourself.

And, most certainly, don't make a meme.