I spent the first two months of 2012 trying to get out of a chair.

The depression settled in with such oppressive and overwhelming weight that I found myself pep-talking aloud to do simple things like brush my teeth, put my laundry in the washing machine, make toast, walk downstairs to get the mail...thinking about socializing made me worn out, noises were amplified, and I wasted hours with my back on the bedroom floor, sobbing or staring, and waiting.

In the middle of February, I took a day trip to Chicago, and as soon as I drove away from Cleveland, I felt a little better. When I came home, the crush of the depression had mostly dissipated, and I was even a little bit hopeful that I might be over the so-called hump of this little wave of pain. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist late in the month, and started Wellbutrin, crossing my fingers that the drug might continue to elevate (or at least stabilize) my mood.

It's been...11 days since my first dose, and I am a disaster. I might not be tied to the legs of my desk chair by the tangles of a major depressive episode, but the physical effects I've been feeling have similarly wrecked my ability to get up and move. I am easily short of breath, and my athletic ability disintegrated from a baseline of running and biking 5-6 days a week to barely being able to jog 3 minutes without stopping. I am even more spacey and distracted than usual; I am so lightheaded that I'm afraid to drive.

This isn't worth it. The depression I feel comes in cycles- a month up, a month down, here and there a patch of pain in a mostly-okay life. If this drug is going to take away my ability to run, to ride, to walk up my goddamn stairs- then it's not worth it.

I've gone from sad to sadder, really. My favorite thing- activity- is inaccessible. I hate this.

I'm done.