I know exactly how you feel. I've been there... in fact, I have depended (and still sometimes depend) on exactly those coping mechanisms to survive - that is, to get my ass up in the morning and out the door to work.

This is why mind-altering drugs scare me so much. I know how to deal with depression, how to calibrate how much my depression is throwing off my perception of the world (at any particular moment) and how to compensate. I do NOT know how to deal with mind-altering drugs (including prescription drugs); that is, I can't calibrate how much the drug is throwing off my perceptions of the world, and I so I can't even begin to compensate for it. I imagine it's different for each drug, and different at different times for each drug.

So, anyway, here's to a better tomorrow for both of us.

Kiralee