I read in a book on depression that people who are depressed have different thought processes than others who just have the blues now and then. It's like my depression is on the heavy end of the scale and everything else is up in the air. If I change my way of thinking, then that baggage will lighten my load and allow me to succeed.

The Devil: This card in the tarot deck, to me, represents that which controls you, like a vice, an addiction, certain behaviors or dependencies. Mine is depression, and I must conquer it somehow. The opposite card to that is Strength card, where mind over matter is the key. As long as I feel shackled to my Depression-Devil that I wrestle with on a daily basis, I'll never succeed in anything. I use up all my energy against it, yet I feel like I lose every battle, hoping I win the war. It's that Goose-Inside-The-Bottle kind of thinking; If you can imagine a goose inside a bottle, how do you get it out? Well, you imagined it inside, so you can imagine it outside of the bottle. I seem to find it hard to think outside the bottle.

The sensation is more like I'm afloat in the middle of the ocean, without a lifesaver or life-jacket. I feel the surface swallowing me at times, and the anxiety hits me when I fear I'll sink. I'm waiting for someone to save me, yet realize no one is coming. I have to save myself somehow.

I leave too many thoughts open-ended without making any choices, leaving it up to chance, like I were powerless, a passenger riding shotgun without a driver at the wheel of a rusty old bus, wobbling all over the road and picking up sketchy passengers. I await a driver to take over, only to have them lead me down the wrong path, unable to find my way again.