I have been asked by many peo­ple whether becom­ing involved in the angst of oth­ers doesn’t exac­er­bate my depres­sion. I have, for most of my life, answered, “for the most part, no!” I never had, how­ever, a good rea­son to give to explain this per­sonal phe­nom­e­non, until recently.

I have dis­cov­ered that, if some­one you care about is wor­ried but you are not privy to the par­tic­u­lars of their wor­ries, you worry for them, and while doing so, fill in the gap in your knowl­edge with the worst pos­si­ble sce­nar­ios. On the other hand, if you are called in for advice on what causes them grief, you have been made part of the search for solu­tions, and there is no won­der­ing, no cat­a­stro­phiz­ing. You are wor­ry­ing with them, and work­ing with them to solve the prob­lem (even if work­ing with them means just being there), and there is a cama­raderie in that.

I still haven’t solved the mys­tery sur­round­ing my love of all things mor­bid, though. I will keep you in the know.