Yesterday my psychologist diagnosed me with moderate (borderline severe) depression and exhaustion/burnout. It's really quite bad and I can't live a normal life right now. The depression affects everything. I've missed the last three weeks of university, my appetite is poor, I'm too tired to clean, cook food, do the dishes, do the laundry etc. I hate myself, I'm anxious, I think about killing myself or at least hurting myself sometimes, I don't care about things or people I normally care about, I can't really focus on things, I cry a lot, and I think my life is completely meaningless. Also, I often feel like my memory is poor and like someone has placed a veil or a lid on my brain so that my surroundings feel unreal or distant somehow.
If the psychologist would've told me I'm "only" depressed I think I would've been able to have more compassion for myself but now I only see myself as weak. I'm a perfectionist and I have very high expectations of myself (which, according to my psychologist, is one of the reasons I'm exhausted now) and I see the exhaustion part of the diagnosis as a failure and proof of how utterly useless I am. I feel like I should just "suck it up" and stop complaining or something. I would never think the same thing about someone else with the same diagnosis so I see how illogical my thinking is, but I still can't accept it. It's a bit of a vicious cycle because the more depressed I get the more exhausted I get and the more exhausted I get the more depressed I get, and so on.
How do I accept the fact that I'm sick and not just weak or lazy or useless or something? Again, I would never think anyone with the same diagnosis is any of those things so I hope I'm not offending anyone. I'm just seriously struggling.
Thanks.
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