For as long as I've had depression, whenever I feel a a strong emotion, it ends up as sadness. It doesn't seem to matter if it's positive or negative--love, joy, fear, happiness, anger whatever--if I'm feeling something strongly, it's going to turn into depression.

This has led me to learn how to dampen my emotions. When I'm participating in something that should make me happy, for instance, I've learned to pull back. For me, the moment of joy I might feel isn't worth the hours or days of despair that might follow.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? How can I overcome this? I feel like I'm living a half life, if I don't let myself feel positive emotions, but at the same time, the hours of tears that follow aren't worth it to me.

I've talked to both my general practitioner (when discussing medication) and my therapist about this, and they both had suggestions and ideas, but nothing seems to work.