Do you have days when you’re just sick of yourself? You try to be a person you’d like to be—all the time—but you keep screwing up. You just get so tired of not measuring up … to what, whom? You’re not sure, but you know you’re not operating at a high level and you feel terrible and you just want to quit and check yourself out. Do you ever have days like that? 

Or are you a person who has a pretty accurate sense of reality so you know you’ll have days when everything goes awry, but that’s just the way things are? You get the ups. You get the downs? If you are that kind of person, I’m happy for you. Kind of. Actually, it’s kind of annoying.

I have a friend who gets Black Dog days, when he considers himself a not worthy person. He is a worthy person. I’d tell you if I thought he really should have black dog days. He’s high functioning in the life he’s chosen. He’s the one who introduced me to the term Black Dog. Actually there’s a mood disorders facility in Australia called Black Dog Institute. My friend has not been there. He deals with his black dogs himself. I wish him well.

Hell, I wish myself well. Writing this has made the current dog turn dark gray. He’ll eventually fade away. I hope this has given those who have sick-of-self days some solace in knowing you’ve got company. Black Dogs are just part of life for some of us. Good thing I like the color black. Hope you do too.

P.S. It doesn’t help that it’s winter and I firmly believe we should all be in hibernation