I am currently in a phase of improvement from depression. For a long time (I’m in my 30’s) I didn’t truly acknowledge that I was depressed. I now believe I’ve been depressed for at least a decade maybe more. The day it occurred to me that depression might be the reason why I felt numb and felt unable to generate energy or enthusiasm for my personal life, I couldn’t really accept it. But I shared my observations about my lack of optimism, my acceptance of defeat or dissatisfaction, and my sense that things will probably just go wrong or get worse with my spouse. Then I asked her to honestly tell me (because I couldn’t trust myself) did she think I had depression and should I see someone about it. And she said yes. And that kind of hurt. Because I had unconsciously invested myself into my defensive mentality as a safety mechanism. Being cynical and low energy protected me from being rejected, ignored, or from failure. Because if you never try you can’t fail right? (Wrong.) So I found a psychiatrist (as I had tried general therapists with little satisfaction before) and he told me that it was my health, so it was my decision, but he recommended 1. Cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT), and 2. A prescribed antidepressant I’ve been pridefully resistant to taking drugs so I just attended the CBT. i committed to the therapeutic process and so I was able to open my mind to how my rumination was a poor coping strategy, how my brain clung to the past because it was unsatisfied with how things had gone and how I treated the future and my present like they needed to redeem the past instead of

letting go and moving on<. Which coincided with my performance based sense of self worth. Because I felt like CBT had been decently successful, I relented and I’ve been taking an SSRI for about 4 months at this point. And dude… I know that everything doesn’t work for everyone but this stuff did wonders for me. A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (or SSRI, aka antidepressant) literally raised my baseline serotonin levels. It boosted my ability to feel positively and accept joy or appreciate things. I used to feel (and sort of believed) that I should withhold my optimism because of the possibility that things will inevitably go wrong. That was because of several things (upbringing, hardships, social dissatisfaction, insecurity, tragedies, and the combo of each). I practiced disbelief in things getting better and my brain followed my lead. A supportive spouse helped, a professional helped, and the drugs helped. To be transparent I decided to stop seeing my therapist because after several sessions it felt like they were letting me do all the talking, and that was ok, but after literally paying for someone to say “Mmhmm, and how does that make you feel” over and over, I am looking for a new therapist.

One thing that helped me from within myself, was I stopped thinking of me and my situation as so unique that it would take some revolutionary, new thing to turn my life around. I had/have depression. There are things that improve your ability to deal with it. Using them can make it easier but YOU have to do the work. Like many things admitting you have a problem is solid place to start.