Growli, it's difficult to argue with your thoughts. A quick survey of the world shows just how much pain and despair there is. I'm no Pollyanna. But I do know my own experience.

I'm pretty sure I suffered from Depressive Disorder--it's different from isolated depression, and used to be called Stable Depression. It's basically when so much of your life experiences have been negative that your only psychological option for survival is to adapt to the misery by being miserable. It keeps you alive, but, well, miserable.

Eventually, the negative part of the self overwhelms any positive thought or feeling that may happen because the self becomes threatened by the pain of loss from any experience that upsets the stable misery. Sounds a bit crazy-making, but is actually pretty clever because it keeps the overall self stable.

A major indicator of this disorder is that the experience of any good feelings--experiencing joy in response to music, for instance--becomes a trigger for an onslaught of pain and hopelessness. It's why the usual treatments for depression that work for most people (variations on "cheering up" ) don't work for Depressive Disorder.

Of course, I don't know if this is your challenge. But it's worth talking to your T about. What does work is the neutralization of the past negative experiences. The feelings have to be processed empathically, and slowly, the ego strength of the T is first depended upon, then shared, then internalized. This, along with cognitive therapy to help solidify behaviors that strengthen the more positive self.

My own defense was dissociation for much of my early life. One of your defenses is SI. At one point, antidepressants helped with the overlaying depression. When I started therapy, I wanted the pain to stop. I didn't even think about ever being happy--that was laughable to me, just not fate for me.

But I was very wrong. No one is more surprised than me that my "normal" now is happiness. Not running through fields of sunflowers happy! But a comfortable, peaceful, basic happiness that is independent of daily life circumstances. Of course, I have transient moods, just like everyone does. And when sad things have happened, the death of friends for instance, I've grieved. But it passes. I regain my peace.

You are simply not in a place psychologically to believe in a positive future. But that has little to do with the reality of your future. Your current psychology isn't a roadmap determining your future. I know this both because you have insight and are pursuing therapy, and because I know it's possible from my own experience.

You don't need to ruminate now about the future. All you need to do right now is to take the best care of yourself possible, so that you can get home where help will be waiting for you.