[rise13eyond]

I have had an epiphany. I am very depressed. That probably doesn’t sound like any earth shattering realization when you look at how often I complain about it, or the fact that you should recognize an emotion that you feel nearly 24/7. But you’d need some context. For literally my entire life I have denied everything I’ve experienced or felt, good or bad. This isn't an exaggeration.
Let me give you one example to try and put this into perspective. I was about 13 when depression (just because that's what the thread is about) began to creep up. I would pace around the house for hours wondering what the problem was because depression and me? Not a chance, I have no reason to be depressed therefore am incapable of experiencing that emotion. But eventually other people, most notably my mom, noticed this and I more or less got help for it. Therapy and medications. Although it persisted until I was in my early 20s. At which point things had begun to change. You know I went off to college and actually attempted to do something with my life. And joy of joys I got into an exchange program that took me to the place I had always dreamed about going to. Japan. And things were great when I got there, I think choosing to go was the single most best decision I have ever made in my life. And it went great for the first three months I was there. However when the excitement wore down I went right back to feeling depressed. Then spent the next month telling myself there was no way I could have depression until (unironically) my mom again noticed just through skype conversations.
Anyway I've take then oh those kinds of things only happen to other people approach with everything in my life. I've already given waay more info about my life story than is probably necessary and now I think I've gotten off topic. I'm just saying that even though recognizing you have depression doesn't seem all that amazing, it does to me.
But really this doesn’t actually accomplish anything because I don’t have the motivation or energy to care or really do anything. In any case I’ve got that little voice in the back of my head that says you’re not enough, or you don’t deserve to be happy.

I have had many Eureka moments in my life. As my psychiatrist explained something about my childhood which I don't remember exactly, my eyes flashed, indicating I am some sort of genius who is intellectually disabled.

It's a long story about my disability. It's not the place to put it here, but I have a few statements to make that agree with your insight in depression.

1) Mental illness isn't exactly obvious to the patient. You need to be quite intelligent to deduce you've a mental illness, but diagnosing a mental illness by oneself is very much impossible as the psychiatrists and therapists are professionally trained to diagnose and it's not very easy for us to diagnose like them.

2) You can and will achieve anything in your life you want to if your depression is managed by meds and therapy (which can take years.)

3) Depression isn't that bad. I suffer from from various ailments and I am still trying to get into med school.

[mote.of.soul]

@rise13eyond

Thanks for sharing. I think your epiphany is still good in the sense that you can see yourself in a more accurate way. There's an element of having broken through the denial, broken through the mind games of self deception, so to speak, and from there you're able to factor that in to any future decisions you make in your life. I think it's important really.

[MtnTime2896]

Crawling out of the pit of denial is actually a really big deal. That's sort of step one in getting better. Embrace this accomplishment.

[Fuzzybear]