Boo!

Yup. I have this effect on everyone.

You know what's the bat shit craziest thing about having depression? No bugger ever asks you how you are. Well, no bugger outside the circle of family and close friends, that is. It's as if my depression is a grenade and that asking "how are you?" will yank out the frigging pin. That'll also explain the look of abject fear that I see on some faces, as if I'm perpetually on the verge of going postal. At least, I hope it will.
What the fuck is it all about? I've had the mental equivalent of a train crash but no one ever mentions it. If I'd just recovered from a broken arm or a gall bladder removal I suspect I'd have no end of questions about my fluctuating health. Yet recovering from a breakdown seems to befuddle said well wishers into such a deep state of panic that they're rendered incoherent. 
Twice in recent times I've been invited to mates' places for grub only to feel as if I'm making everyone so maniacally uncomfortable that I'm better off nipping to the chippy. Seriously, I've sat at tables where everyone has been asked about their work, kids, hobbies, views on whatever-the-fuck but I've been asked little more than to pass the salt. And when I have chipped into conversations - offering vignettes on day to day life, say - everyone shifts as if they've collectively had pins stuck in their arses. Some mates' dates have even turned into interviews because they have been so scared of asking me anything that I have simply fired questions at them in a hideous effort to keep the conversation going. I come home exhausted at having made sure that everyone else is having a good time.
Thank fuck I'm able to talk to my close friends and family. My best mates will happily ask me how I am doing, crack jokes about my ongoing banana-ness and offer all manner of wonders when I am mid-meltdown. And behold! None of this has ever come even close to pushing me further over the edge than I already am. In fact, I'd rather a stammered and panicky "how are you?" rather than no "how are you?" at all.
Then again, p'raps this is the price I'm paying for being so open about my depression. Had I spent the last two years sobbing and gibbering yet glossing it all over with a "No, I'm fine!" then perhaps everyone would feel more comfortable about me losing the plot. They could pretend that my marbles had done anything other than rolled away.
Thing is, though, that would have made everyone else feel better but it would have sent me straight to B&Q for a length of rope. And I'll be fucked if I'm going to let politeness kill me. You know, when it comes to being bat shit crazy I reckon I'm the only sane one out there.