i had an idea

I had an idea before I started to type this called the authoritarian in my head. and I was going to explain the figure that dominates my mind, and allows for no pleasure and is in constant demand of perfection. But as soon as I started to type the words collapsed on themselves and my mind went numb. Nothing permeated the veil of consciousness and I am left with this convoluted mess of a post. All I can tell you is that I am completely unable to function. I can't read, be socially aware, watch movies, work, take photographs, write, socialize. Without the *** hat telling me of my faults, of my incompetence, of my worthlessness. I know that this is what depression is, but there are is also truth amongst the madness. Truths of my lack of competence, truths of my limited intellect, truths of my few capabilities. These are all truths from which I cannot cope. I cannot cope with anything really. My mind just diverted itself into the awful black pit. This seems to be all that can escape anymore. I feel as though I just wasted your time and mine.....

I'm so sorry you're feeling like this. You haven't wasted anyone's time. And you may have been helpful to those who can relate - letting them know they are not alone in their struggle. I know it feels like you are alone right now, but you never are here on PC. We care and keep posting. Even if you don't think it makes any sense.

Hi Billtrick,

It took me ages to understand this, but depression has ONE BIG TRICK. You are going through your day constantly tortured by thoughts like

I am incompetent

I am worthless

I can't do anything

I can't put together a coherent sentence

I am stupid

and horrible feelings that come with these thoughts. These thoughts come into your mind again and again and again and again, right? They are triggered if the slightest thing goes wrong, right? When this is happening, you are naturally very focussed on these thoughts and your feelings and whether they are true or not and how horrible it is. And, as you say, these thoughts MAY BE CORRECT, which gives them EVEN MORE POWER. The BIG TRICK is that this is all miss-directing you from the essential underlying problem. It doesn't even matter if these thoughts are true or not. It doesn't matter what specific feelings you are having. The essential problem is not what you are thinking or feeling or whether it is justified, the essential problem is HOW these thoughts and feelings are coming into your mind.

That's why snap club works and why meditation works (see the notes on this link

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4369910-post130.html ).

Also notice that many of your thoughts are self-validating and self-justifying. If I walk around all day with a thought

"I can't do anything"

then that thought will actually become true. These are thoughts that become true, but only because you keep thinking them again and again and again.

One other very important thing I want to tell you is that your brain may be both drowning in stress from depression AND it may be triggered by an underlying physical or nutritional problem. I put some resources for checking this out here

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4262681-post105.html

If you look around on this site, you'll occasionally see people say - wow, I took some B vitamins and I feel amazingly better. If you have a B vitamin deficiency (to pick one example out of many possibilities), it's going to help a huge amount to fix it.

- vital

Sorry you feel so hopeless, many of us have, and some relapse, but there can be hope. You just described how you are down on yourself, when a thought comes would it help to write down the evidence (real, not opinion) for and against that thought and what other (more helpful) view(s) the evidence points towards. I find this exercise can lift the load a little sometimes and is often worth it. No magic I'm afraid, but possible glimmer of hope. ('I fall down and get up again')