Your depression isn't you. There is probably a decent person behind all that junk. You just living with an illness, just as I am living with several physical diseases. It's just that depression is so stigmatized.

Whatever you did wasn't your fault. The important thing is that you are still with us.

And shame and guilt have been a normal part of my life since I was nine years old and came home from a psychiatric hospital after spending a year and a half there. I'm still trying to let go of that. It's memories of that shame that have influenced me on this board more than anything else and the resolve to never inflict the suffering that was inflicted on me by my parents and others.