My point is this: there are those of us who were dealt a specific hand genetically. And there may be more of us than we know of simply because of the things that medical science has not yet discovered. Thirty years ago, when I was first diagnosed with "major depression", I was told that I would have to take antidepressants for approximately six months, go to therapy for six to twelve months and then I would begin to feel better and would be well. I was treated at the world-reknowned Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas where all the wealthy celebrities went to kick their alcohol and drug habits back then.

Twelve months later, I wasn't better. Two years later, I was back in the hospital and my diagnosis was changed to "major depression, recurrent". They told me I'd have to take different antidepressants until they found one that worked better than what I had been taking the first time. This time they gave me a trial of Lithium as well. Made no difference. So, they found an antidepressant that worked and sent me off for more therapy and this time I was so drugged up, I had to give up my job and I divorced my husband and lived in subsidized housing for the mentally ill and was on food stamps. Hard to believe? Perhaps the cure was worse than the illness. But that's all they knew back then. I also had IBS and was on phenobarbitol. What a cocktail! What had I done wrong? They said I would be better. Why was it not working that way?

I actually don't remember all the details of how everything progressed from that point on but what I'm trying to say is, it took until 2004 before someone re-read my 4 inch thick medical file close enough to determine that I had a pattern that closely resembled Bipolar II. And it wasn't a pdoc. It was a very smart nurse practitioner.

You see, back in the beginning, if you did not display clear mania or psychotic symptoms, you were not considered a candidate for a bipolar diagnosis. As the years passed, modern medicine decided that those old diagnostic criteria were outdated.

Therefore, saying that someone is stuck in their problems can also have to do with simply following what their trusted doctor is instructing them to do which may actually only be what medical science knows at any given time.

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Now to address what you are really asking.

I was a child of alcoholic parents. I was extremely angry and self-critical. I had poor self-esteem. I had no self-love. I absolutely KNEW I was so ugly, no one would ever want to be romantically involved with me.

This is what I felt about myself when I was 20 years old and left my parents home. Deep inside, I knew that all of this was wrong. But the deep, emotional pain I suffered from growing up in their home was NOT going to stop me from fixing these things. I was NOT going to live the rest of my life feeling that way. I was NOT going to hide. I wanted a life. But I knew that the only person who was going to make all of these things change was ME. I was scared to death. I was scared of failing. But I knew I would fail if I didn't try.

So I bought books. Self-help books. Most of them I still have and they are so old the pages are brown and fall out when I open them. But I read them and read them again. I did what they said. I wrote affirmations. I didn't know they were affirmations. They didn't call them affirmations back then. But I wrote things to say out loud to myself so I could learn to believe different things about myself. I remember repeating them over and over when I walked to university. I would sing them in step with my footsteps.

Some things got better right away. Some things took years. Some things I'm still working on. But, yes, it does take getting out of your comfort zone. It does take courage. But mostly it takes a burning desire to not hurt anymore.