The post

People have written to me since the second month. Not many — a few hundred over eighteen years — but consistently, and the pattern in what they say has changed less than I expected.

What most of it says

Overwhelmingly, some version of: this sounded like my Tuesday. Not "this helped me" and not "this changed things", which I'd distrust anyway. Just recognition, which is a smaller and more believable thing for a website to do.

The second most common is people telling me the jokes didn't work for them. That's a fair response and I'd rather have it than politeness.

What I've learned not to do

Early on I tried to be useful. Someone would describe a situation and I'd reply with something that had worked for me. I stopped around 2012, after a reply of mine landed badly enough that the person wrote back to tell me so, and she was right. I had no idea what her life contained.

Now I say thank you, I say I'm not able to advise, and I say where the people who can are. It feels thinner. It's better.

Why there are no comments

Because moderating a conversation on this subject is a real job with real stakes, done properly by people with training. A comment thread on a depression blog run by one person with a day job is an accident waiting for a slow week. I decided that in 2009 and have never regretted it.

Quoting

Nothing anyone has sent me has appeared on this site without me asking first. I've asked four times in eighteen years and two people said no, which they were entitled to do.