The worst, where I had the full panoply of classic symptoms — lethargy, sleep disruption, weight loss, social isolation, melancholy, suicidality — happened the first year after high school. I took a gap year, to read the literature and the mythology I'd become fascinated by. I withdrew into my room, seeing no-one, living on comfort food: chips, cake, sodas, cookies. I was not exercising, or getting sunlight, or having sex, or talking on the phone. Over that year I sank into profound despondency, with frequently suicidal ideation. Where loneliness, decades later identified as my major trigger, multiplied and amplified that despair.

I wanted to die. Except, I didn't really. I wanted to stay in my room bouncing a tennis ball off the walls. Only I hated doing that. What I really wanted was to play wargames with my nerd friends. Except we weren't truly friends and what I actually wanted was to play basketball with my real friend, Craig, or ride bikes together. Only not really, because I wished I was at Marine Street flirting with rich La Jolla girls in bikinis. Probably dying would be simplest but probably it would require energy? And I really couldn't see myself having enough. I wanted to get high and look at pictures. In the end I'd stay up all night listening for noises outside the window.

I thought of death continually. But I was very scattered, so that even the thought of death was unfocused. It would feel good for the turmoil and the exhaustion to be gone. But there was no way I'd ever be that organized.