"How do you keep your spirits up?" - wilde flower

I'm honestly not sure, but I suspect it must take some effort to get depressed, and I simply don't exert that effort. At times, however, when my circumstances have been extremely distressing (shortly after my arrest for example, when I was kept for more than a year in a holding cell in the noisiest part of the jail, and constantly harrassed and insulted by the guards, or during the two-plus years I spent in a dark bug-infested cell with slime and mold growing on the walls in Riverside, California, in both cases having no T.V. or radio, and terrible food), I would simply empty my mind, or think about things that I didn't find depressing. I got “stressed” at times, but I don't recall ever getting depressed. I cried a lot shortly after my arrest, but even through the tears I once looked my attorney in the eyes and said; “Don't worry about me, I'm okay,” and smiled, to reassure him that I was not going over any “edges” anytime soon.