hi sally and welcome to pc!!!
first off feelings are not facts.
what worked for me was a suggestion from my therapist...he suggested i write down a list of "assets" and "liabilities" about myself. i drew a line down the page with the headings at the top. just for an example let's say i wrote under "liabilites", i am worthless. under "assets" i wrote, i am a good friend. well after revewing the list as time went on i could visually see where my assets contradicted my liabilites. like you can't be a good friend and worthless too! this helped me see that i was carrying around a lot of false belifefs about myself. with this list i could remind myself when i had a false belief, of the true belief.
it does take some thinking and honesty to do this constructive list. as the days went on i could see more and more contradictions about what i wrote that i felt about myself under liabilites.
i hope this can help you too. many of us do carry around a lot of 'old tapes" that just are not true about ourselves and it makes us feel badly about who we are. the fact is we are not that person irl!!
keep us posted about how u r doing and know that u matter to us.
ps those negative feelings we have feed into the depression. if u can break the chain you will experience more days of joy and less of despair. worked for me!!