I've been making some progress in the past few months for whatever it's worth. I'm trying to make steps to finding work and am putting my all in making progress in my life which is something I couldn't say before. I guess some things are looking up. When I first came home from college things were pretty good between my parents and I, even though I was doing extremely badly and was self harming and having suicidal thoughts. At least now I'm not anywhere near that bad, but I'm definitely not really better either. I'm still having a lot of difficulties. I sometimes will frequently say really negative pessimistic things like, "It's all just hopeless" or "What's the point of anything, I'm no good, I'm just a piece of trash" and it's often pretty hard to bring me around. Sometimes, I have just gone on for a lot of the day just talking about how screwed up of a person I am, how I'm just trash, etc. For instance, today I was talking with my Mom about having her help me with something for a job I am trying to get but when I struggled with it, she talked to me to try to bring me around but after a while I just said, "It's just hopeless. There's no point in anything. I'm just garbage." My Mom is away on a trip and she's saying that she feels that she is completely ineffective in bringing me back up, which is somewhat true, and that she can't deal with all the negativity. They say that I start out with something neutral or positive then "ambush" them with something like, "I'm no good." or another meaningless, negative comment which is true but it isn't meant as an attack. She is thinking about not coming home at all that she is there for me but just can't take it anymore. I talked to her on the phone for probably two hours today though, so it isn't like she isn't wanting to speak to me again. They are also saying that if it's too difficult for them to live with me, that they are selling the house and giving me a good bit of the money so I can support myself while I am getting myself together mentally.

i'm so sorry you're being knocked back

[Fuzzybear]

[Fizzyo]

Sorry you're struggling and those near you are struggling too. Thinking of and praying for you. Sorry can't do more.

[pinkflower17]

Originally Posted by Steve223

I've been making some progress in the past few months for whatever it's worth. I'm trying to make steps to finding work and am putting my all in making progress in my life which is something I couldn't say before. I guess some things are looking up. When I first came home from college things were pretty good between my parents and I, even though I was doing extremely badly and was self harming and having suicidal thoughts. At least now I'm not anywhere near that bad, but I'm definitely not really better either. I'm still having a lot of difficulties. I sometimes will frequently say really negative pessimistic things like, "It's all just hopeless" or "What's the point of anything, I'm no good, I'm just a piece of trash" and it's often pretty hard to bring me around. Sometimes, I have just gone on for a lot of the day just talking about how screwed up of a person I am, how I'm just trash, etc. For instance, today I was talking with my Mom about having her help me with something for a job I am trying to get but when I struggled with it, she talked to me to try to bring me around but after a while I just said, "It's just hopeless. There's no point in anything. I'm just garbage." My Mom is away on a trip and she's saying that she feels that she is completely ineffective in bringing me back up, which is somewhat true, and that she can't deal with all the negativity. They say that I start out with something neutral or positive then "ambush" them with something like, "I'm no good." or another meaningless, negative comment which is true but it isn't meant as an attack. She is thinking about not coming home at all that she is there for me but just can't take it anymore. I talked to her on the phone for probably two hours today though, so it isn't like she isn't wanting to speak to me again. They are also saying that if it's too difficult for them to live with me, that they are selling the house and giving me a good bit of the money so I can support myself while I am getting myself together mentally.

I'm sorry you're struggling so much. I can emphasize with your situation, I wanted to move in with my parents when I was struggling really hard a couple years ago and first moving back to my home state and they basically said tough ****, they didn't want to deal with it. They try to help, but can only handle so much and that so much isn't very much in my case. Have you ever heard the expression "fake it until you make it"? I'm struggling a lot right now too and what I'm trying to do (not that it's working all the time, but it does work some of the time), is basically tell myself or whoever I'm talking to whatever the positive, optimistic response would be, whether I believe it or not. Not saying to lie or pretend things are going fine when they're not, but for example someone called me a few minutes ago and asked how things were going. I wanted to say, "horrible". And that's it. Instead I said, "I'm not having the best day so far, but I had a good talk with someone this morning and this afternoon is going to be better". I'm not sure I really believe that, but I think if you tell yourself something over and over again eventually you start to believe it, whether it's a negative or a positive statement. Like instead of saying "it's hopeless, there's no point in anything, I'm just garbage", can you try to tell yourself, "things are tough right now, but I'm going to get through them, I'm doing the best I can right now to accomplish what I want to do". Instead of "I'm just garbage", "I'm going through a hard time, I've made some mistakes and I'm not where I want to be but I can learn from those mistakes. I've accomplished things in the past, I can do it again, even though it's probably going to be very difficult".
I don't know if this helps any, I just want to say hang in there, you can get through this, you deserve to feel better and I really hope you do. It takes a lot of time and effort to overcome these cognitive distortions, but it's ultimately worth it. Take care of yourself.

Steve223, I can empathize with your situation as well. It's a fine line, such a difficult decision (for me) to decide just what to tell my parents and boyfriend at times when I am feeling deeply depressed. Do I say the complete truth knowing they will just worry for me and get down on themselves? What should I hide, what should I not? They say honesty is the best policy but I don't agree with that for all situations. A few weeks ago, my whole family found out some heavy stuff I've been hiding and I've been accused of lying to them. But it's not really lying - it's hiding - or at least making your responses seem more positive. I agree with pinkflower17's post above. It's helpful at times to remain optimistic and try to express that in responses. However, in my situation, doing JUST THAT turned out to bite me in the end when people found out I have been "sugarcoating" my responses.