Check, check

One of the most prominent characteristics of my depression is and always has been the intractable feeling that no one cares about me in general. The closer I am to any given person, the stronger and more distressing that feeling is. While it never fully goes away, just being asked how I'm doing helps a ton in alleviating that sense, and by extension improving my headspace a little bit for a little while.

All that being said, no one ever really checks in with me - KH doesn't, and Curly generally doesn't if I'm not clearly agitated - and asking people to do so makes me feel like a pest. Even though it is the one small thing that almost anyone can do to help me, even if I don't really have an answer or, worst case scenario, I'm so deep in an episode that I'm physically and mentally incapable of really responding. 

I think that being asked how I'm doing is so deeply reassuring because when I ask someone that, I genuinely am concerned about their wellbeing, more so than if I just state that I care. So, whenever I get asked that, I read it as an expression of genuine concern, and that gives me both something to cling to and something to fight back against the intense feeling of not being cared about.

I really wish that the people around would just...organically ask how I'm doing from time to time.