I get down and pull myself out, even with major stuff like the recent stint w/ my family after a while. But depression that sticks has two components for me:

I have no HOPE that I can affect a change that will alleviate the situation, and

I am OVERWHELMED by whatever the problem is.

In other words, I see the problem as unsolvable.

For many years the problem was that I thought I was unlovable at my DNA level, I just was by definition. DH, 43t asst. people, and other things have gotten me to see that I’m not any worse or better than most others.

Anyway, the idea that I was subhuman, i.e., unlovable was unsolvable. It just was. Even when I don’t think I’m subhuman and just thought I’d killed my mother, I thought I was unlovable because I’d done this awful thing. Other people’s faults were to be dismissed, but mine were all fatal. It was still overwhelming and there was no way to fix it.

So, at least for me, much of the answer was attitude. If I assume that I’m no better or worse than anyone else at my base, am I okay?

Mostly, the answer is yes.

When it isn’t yes these days, frequently something has happened that invokes the old crapola. And if I can find that I can usually root it out.

But it really was the idea that there was something wrong with me by definition or that I’d done something so appalling, that it was unforgivable/unfixable.

But the fix was attitude, and not dismissing any good about myself or punishing myself by not allowing the good stuff into my life. All of which I did many times. These days, I go a little more after my dreams, and some of them are coming true, much to my surprise!

But it was that attitude shift that started all this. There was nothing wrong with me. I was normal; I reacted normally to a terrible set of circumstances. I kept trying. I did the best I could.

And that’s all any of us can do, and I see YOU doing just that. You are trying to be better, you are trying to solve the problem(s), you are working at it, and that is all anyone, no matter who they are can do, their best.

And that has to be good enough!

Judith