[shamon86]

I sent this email to my T. Usually she responds but I've been sending her emails and relying on her lately and I don't want to keep on pressing for her thoughts.

"I'm sorry I keep on writing you emails and interrupting your day. I'm struggling right now. Questioning a lot of things. Like what's the purpose of life? Why go through all of this if we're just going to die one day anyway? I just don't get the point. Yes I have things that I want in my life but why keep on trying to convince myself that those things will happen when they might and probably won't? Why put in the work when I don't know if I will ever be happy. Contrary to what people say I don't think you can ever choose to be happy. Had I known there was a choice don't you think I would've have chosen not to be miserable. I need a guarantee that life is worth living and I'll be able to have to simple things that I want in my life, a husband and kids and hapiness. I know that no one can give me that guarantee which is frustrating. What coping skill do you use for all of this? Why try to redirect your thoughts if what you're thinking is true?
If emotions are like waves then I must be in the trough of one right now. Cause I was okay last night and then within the last couple of hours hit a low point. It seems like I can never seem to get to the crest of the wave. I keep on looking for things that will make me happy with what I have now and I just can't see it. There's got to be more to life then just this. And if there isn't.. Well it just doesn't make sense to stick around."

Right now we are doing DBT and I don't know if that has anything to do with why she hasn't responded, but if it doesn't, I kind of understand why she hasn't said anything. Honestly, what is she going to say? She can't tell me that my life is going to turn out to be something more then it is now (work,eat,sleep,repeat). But I wonder what everyone else thinks?

[vital]

Originally Posted by shamon86

I sent this email to my T. Usually she responds but I've been sending her emails and relying on her lately and I don't want to keep on pressing for her thoughts.

"I'm sorry I keep on writing you emails and interrupting your day. I'm struggling right now. Questioning a lot of things. Like what's the purpose of life? Why go through all of this if we're just going to die one day anyway? I just don't get the point. Yes I have things that I want in my life but why keep on trying to convince myself that those things will happen when they might and probably won't? Why put in the work when I don't know if I will ever be happy. Contrary to what people say I don't think you can ever choose to be happy. Had I known there was a choice don't you think I would've have chosen not to be miserable. I need a guarantee that life is worth living and I'll be able to have to simple things that I want in my life, a husband and kids and hapiness. I know that no one can give me that guarantee which is frustrating. What coping skill do you use for all of this? Why try to redirect your thoughts if what you're thinking is true?
If emotions are like waves then I must be in the trough of one right now. Cause I was okay last night and then within the last couple of hours hit a low point. It seems like I can never seem to get to the crest of the wave. I keep on looking for things that will make me happy with what I have now and I just can't see it. There's got to be more to life then just this. And if there isn't.. Well it just doesn't make sense to stick around."

Right now we are doing DBT and I don't know if that has anything to do with why she hasn't responded, but if it doesn't, I kind of understand why she hasn't said anything. Honestly, what is she going to say? She can't tell me that my life is going to turn out to be something more then it is now (work,eat,sleep,repeat). But I wonder what everyone else thinks?

I've read some of your previous posts. A couple of points:

You say (in previous posts) that you had lower than normal thyroid and are taking supplements. Have you been re-tested? I think it often takes some iteration to get that right.

The other point is I suspect that your overall approach to this problem is way too passive. If you had a broken leg, it would make sense to go to your doctors and passively do whatever they tell you do to and expect it to work. I suspect, however, that this approach rarely works for depression. Why is that? It's because depression and passivity are very closely related. If you stay passive about improving your life, it is quite likely that you are going to stay depressed also.

You have to break the spell and get active. You say in previous posts that you have 'tried everything' and nothing has worked. I think that you really mean that you have tried everything that you docs told you to do and nothing has worked. Am I wrong? If I'm right, get out there and search for something better. There are many possibilities. Look for what has helped others. If you need more professional help, tell your docs that what they're doing isn't working and ask for alternatives. Also, ask them to be sure if they have checked for any purely medical or nutritional issue that could be causing your depression.

- vital

[Anxious Minds]

I've spent a lot of time thinking about those same questions you pose. Actually, I think pretty much everybody thinks about this at least once in a while. For some of us, we tend to see through the BS of daily life and can kind of see that the way society is set up is sort of an illusion designed to keep people performing predictable behaviors and to distract them. When you begin to think about that stuff and see behind the curtain of modern life, it can be super depressing and make you feel hopeless. If this is all there is, then what IS the point?

Typically, this is the point at which most conventional advice will tell you that you make your own purpose. That the meaning of life is to live it, and to stop trying to find meaning in life and create it. Victor Frankl actually wrote an entire book on that premise, and discussed how people in the concentration camps of World War 2 were able to find hope in their misery by recognizing their internal ability to choose their response to the situation.

That's awesome advice and it's most definitely true, but it's also one of those things that someone facing depression might reject, simply because the nature of depression is such that you feel like you have NO choice. And in a way, that's actually kind of true. The depression is onset by a mix of genetic factors and bodily processes, and a mostly chemical reaction in your brain. If anything is out of your most immediate control, it would be that (aside from the idea that if you change the types of foods you eat and what you put into your body and become more active, you can influence those chemical processes).

No, the reality came to me later after I got sick of people telling me that I can choose my attitude and that I could control something that I can only describe as coming over me like a storm inside that just leaves you feeling devastated and hopeless. The answer, I feel, comes from examining the truth and learning to accept the darkness inside. The more you resist it, the more it will persist. But if when those moments of desperation hit you, you hunker down and ride it out, the storm inside will pass. If you can cultivate a form of gratitude for that darkness (I know that sounds crazy), you can actually begin to see it from a more objective point of view and it loses its power over you.

In any case, there's not one thing you can do to move beyond this. You basically have to teach yourself an entirely new way of living and thinking about life. You have to find something that feels true to your core, and go after it with everything you can muster. Instead of fighting the darkness, you absorb it and make it your own.