Please understand this is incredibly hard to fully describe.

I'm feeling pretty excited right now, because earlier today I sort of "caught depression in the act"! It was liking becoming extremely aware of my own mental state for a moment, and noticing subtle things I normally miss.

I noticed a bit of social anxiety related thinking, a bit of low self-esteem type feelings, and most notably of all, an absurd amount of pessimistic thinking. I recall just for a fleeting second thinking and feeling quite positively, then within a fraction of a second a sort of "yeah, like THAT's gonna happen, idiot!" thought and feeling, then a return to feeling bored and depressed (well, no surprise there!)

It's like I'm sort of emotionally "dying of pessimism and low self worth", and the freaky thing is, I can be aware of the process! I do NOT have to keep thinking this way. Clearly, my mind IS capable of non-depressed, non-anxious, ambitious and motivated type thinking. It's actually doing this all the time, until there's this chronic and very negative, self-downing knee-jerk "counter-thought" that pulls the wind from my sails.

I get the vague impression that I "lost at something big one time too many", some time WAY in my past, and I've been mostly gloom-doom-and-worry ever since.

I had to post this, because this was one of those "shock to the system", "holy cow is THAT what's happening!?" moments. It's like, rather than becoming more of a pessimist, I have become less of an optimist, if that makes any sense. I feel that there is a subtle but important difference. I just ... don't expect to "win" at anything.