This is a big challenge for me. I am facing stress in home life, communications challenges with mother and personal setbacks so there's a lot of numbing and always has been. I might be better off taking the sting of hurt, but how does one go about that?

I'm not gentle or non-judgemental with myself. And maybe I shouldn't be! I am not sticking with things that I know help. Instead I'm overly relying on medication that is making me tired and run down and doesn't even give me a full remission of symptoms. If anything, I need to be more harsh with myself in order to get back on track. It ain't funny all the bad decisions and wasted potential I have made in the past year. My failure to initiate is at the root of my depression and until I address that, I can whine and search for medications all I want, but things aren't going to get better.

You're sticking with this program well. If you all of a sudden stopped and fell back into depression, wouldn't you feel angry with yourself? That's how I feel, except on a repeated scale.

I think everyone has different needs for social relations. Is there a specific way of being or talking to others that you most feel comfortable with? Maybe eating lunch with a friend or family or having a friend accompany you on some errands or something else where hanging out isn't purely the focus so you can chat without all the pressure. Do you feel like talking to people online helps? I know when I was a teenager, it was my biggest source of friendship and talking, so it is definitely valuable.