I find it difficult to accept my diagnosis.

Yesterday my psychologist diagnosed me with moderate (borderline severe) depression and exhaustion/burnout. It's really quite bad and I can't live a normal life right now. The depression affects everything. I've missed the last three weeks of university, my appetite is poor, I'm too tired to clean, cook food, do the dishes, do the laundry etc. I hate myself, I'm anxious, I think about killing myself or at least hurting myself sometimes, I don't care about things or people I normally care about, I can't really focus on things, I cry a lot, and I think my life is completely meaningless. Also, I often feel like my memory is poor and like someone has placed a veil or a lid on my brain so that my surroundings feel unreal or distant somehow.

If the psychologist would've told me I'm "only" depressed I think I would've been able to have more compassion for myself but now I only see myself as weak. I'm a perfectionist and I have very high expectations of myself (which, according to my psychologist, is one of the reasons I'm exhausted now) and I see the exhaustion part of the diagnosis as a failure and proof of how utterly useless I am. I feel like I should just "suck it up" and stop complaining or something. I would never think the same thing about someone else with the same diagnosis so I see how illogical my thinking is, but I still can't accept it. It's a bit of a vicious cycle because the more depressed I get the more exhausted I get and the more exhausted I get the more depressed I get, and so on.

How do I accept the fact that I'm sick and not just weak or lazy or useless or something? Again, I would never think anyone with the same diagnosis is any of those things so I hope I'm not offending anyone. I'm just seriously struggling.

Thanks.

Hello neutrino: Well... hopefully your psychologist is doing more than simply diagnosing you. Really, what this about, from my perspective, is working in therapy over time to resolve how you feel about yourself. At least that is the mainstream way of approaching it. There are Buddhist practices that also get at this sort of thing. But assuming you're not interested in becoming a Buddhist, therapy & / or psych med's are where it's at. The reality is, from my perspective, the options are pretty-much well known. There are no secret techniques, things one just never hears about, to resolve feeling of self-hatred & worthlessness.

There is a member here on PC whose user name is "Vital" I haven't seen anything from him for quite a while now. So perhaps he's not active on PC anymore. But Vital posted an extensive thread regarding something called "Snap Club". Perhaps you're familiar with it? If not, you could go to Vital's listing of posted threads & find it. It might be a technique that would help you to begin to accomplish some of those day-to-day tasks you're having difficulty completing. And getting some of them done might help you to begin to feel better in general.

Part of the problem here, as you clearly realize, is that you are not able to accept yourself as you are. As you wrote, you have very high expectations of yourself. And when you find yourself unable to live up to them then you beat yourself up for not achieving all that you feel you should. I once participated in a partial hospital program where they told us: "Don't should on yourself!" That's great advice. But, of course, saying it is one thing... doing it is something else. And that's where ongoing therapy comes in I would presume. In all honesty I say: "I would presume" because I never found therapy to be of much benefit to me. But that was at least in part due to my own circumstances. That's why I have become something of a quasi-Buddhist. It's an alternative that seems to work for me.

What is the root of perfectionism in human beings? Always I wonder that because it seems to be ruining people's lives

Yes, this most certainly has to do with me hating myself. That's what my psychologist said too.

Seriously though, is this post (the original post) offensive? I really didn't mean it that way but someone else (not on here) told me that I'm just having a superiority complex, that I think I'm better than everyone else, and that I just think I'm special. That comment has plagued me for over an hour and I can't sleep because of it. It honestly hurts inside. I really don't think I'm better than anyone else. It's the opposite actually. I think I'm worthless and a worse person than everyone else.

I really didn't mean to offend anyone and thinking that I might've makes me feel really bad. I'm sorry.

No, not offensive at all!

And people say many things to us. What do they know about us? They just see the surface

Hi

It's only natural for you too come too terms with your diagnosis. I found it difficult when I was diagnosed. Even now after nearly a year I still sometimes have the really effect. I kind of thought it's not true or I'm having a bad dream. Eventually I accepted it and came to terms with it I don't really think there s a way of getting yourself to accept it. I could be wrong about that but in my case it just happened really.