I would be upbeat and flippant, but there's too much heaviness in the air. I'm probably the only person who senses it, but I know in my gut that this is when it begins - the honeymoon is over, the fear is beginning to set in; it's like I've been high for far too long, and now the coming down is starting - all these familiar faces seem to take on sinister undertones, and my social paranoia takes over; what if all these people actually HATE me? The claims validate themselves in my mind, till I'm left with no doubt in my mind whatsoever - I cannot understand these people, and they all wish I would stop pestering them with my trifling concerns or bizarre notions of reality.

I know where all this leads, too - back down to the depths of depression, back to my fist bleeding and broken over no reason whatsoever, back to being maladjusted, unhappy, miserable even - I have to stop the slide somehow. I have to push the thin end out of the door, to make things right.

I'm trying, I really am. Honest.