Ive been suffering from on and off depression for maybe 10 years or more. I get overwhelmed by stress and I have a tendency to sink into periods that last for months or even a year of debilitating self-loathing. A lot of damage has come out of that already. I dropped out of college 10 years ago because of depression, Ive lost all my friends because of depression, I think I even have some level of social anxiety and I dont even bother to look for normal work, because I cant take the stress of going to interviews or working with people. Luckily I manage to do some work from home, but I dont make a lot of money that way, which of course, adds to depression...

Anyway I first went to a psychiatrist a couple of years ago, but she wasnt the talking kind. She just prescribed antidepressants which I took for a while with moderate effects.

A few months after getting off meds I sank into deeper depression than ever before. I finally went to a new therapist this week, but I found the conversation I had with her very unsettling.

Yet, since Im so full of self-doubt, I am doubting my right to find the conversation unsettling. Maybe she was right in what she said to me? Maybe Im just being a crybaby over nothing? Maybe she told me right and Im too childish to accept it?

In short, after a brief interview during which I think I cried more than I talked and made any sense, she told me that her conclusion is that all my life I have just avoided unpleasant situations and that I have to learn that nothing will happen in life if I dont make an effort. Thats where we left it off. She scheduled the next appointment with me at a deliberately incommoding time for me - at 7 am - because I told her I was a nightbird and had a tendency to work all night. She says thats to teach me to make an effort.

So now Im feeling even more pathetic and worthless than before and thinking - this is it, the evil voice inside my head has won. The one that always told me that I was useless and inept and lazy and stupid and immature and worthless - that one was right. Not the voice that told me its not my fault cos I just have an unlucky brain chemistry. No no.
Its my own fault im depressed. Im depressed because I have unrealistic expectations that life should be too easy and Im lazy and I just dont try hard enough.

Im writing this here because I wonder if other people get told such things by therapists. I wonder what you think of it? Is she being cruel or just realistic? Is that how therapy looks? Is this "facing"? Am I just refusing to "accept"? Is therapy supposed to be painful? Already at the first appointment? I read somewhere that in CBT how you feel about doing things doesnt matter, that you just have to do what your therapist tells you. Is that it?

Am I a weakling for wanting to never go back to this womans office again? Would that just be avoiding unpleasant things again and taking the easy way out?