Depression is a multi-layered thing.  At the root of it are a myriad of thinking errors.  How a person gets to them, and then getting out of them, is the tricky part.  So many things play a part--genetics, environment, brain chemicals.  Sometimes there are catastrophic life events that lead to a depression in someone who was not depressed previously.  For me, the latter was not the case.  I had battled depression and anxiety in varying degrees for most of my life.  The first three factors most likely held the key to why I had gotten to the point of not being able to deal with life.

But again, no matter where the blame might lie; if it were possible, I needed to get better.  But the prospect of the healing process was almost as discouraging as the illness itself.  I blamed myself.  I was defective--I had to be.  If not, then why did my mind fall prey to all these errors?  What made me so much worse than those around me--some who had challenges just as difficult as mine--who did not have episodes of curling up in chairs shaking with terror; who could get through church services or other group settings (sometimes even sitting between people on a bench...not sitting on the end so that they could bolt); who could manage to listen to an auction coupled with noise and chaos of children running around...and so many other things that I could no longer handle?  The answer had to be that they were simply better, more worthy, human beings.  

It was a terribly painful thing was to have to reveal the inner workings of my brain to someone else--at least enough to get some kind of help--and then hear what was wrong with me.  Even though I knew it was necessary, it made me feel worse.  The general overriding impression I got was that it was all my fault.  Everything that was meant to help me--the consultations and the questionings and the general picking of my brain--left me feeling like the blame was placed on me.  The horrible feeling of shame was the worst--I can still hardly stand to write the word, but I think that the word shame describes what i felt the most.  I don’t think anybody specifically meant to shame me, but in my distorted thinking, I was horribly ashamed of myself.  And how to tell anyone how this felt?  If all of this was meant to shame me, i felt that i certainly deserved it.  

And the resources that I was supposed to benefit from...oh, horrors.  I had to read.  I had the concentration of a gnat.  I used to love to read, but now?  I couldn’t make my mind focus on much of anything.  I was supposed to find something fun to do.  Fun?  i had no concept of enjoyment anymore.  I couldn’t remember what it felt like to look forward to anything, to feel happy.  I was supposed to write--it seemed to be therapeutic for me.  (So said the people who were assessing my condition and trying to help me.)  What did they know?  I used to write, but now...I had the concentration of a gnat.  When I did manage to put words together, my writings were very bleak.  Not only was I failing at life, recovery looked far, far, out of reach.