Hey Yukiohimura11,

Way to go reaching out for help, it’s a big step even! If you are looking for advice, here’s a few things that might help you:

First the most important thing is to get into therapy (if you haven’t already done so) to discover the reasons behind your depression. Once you’re there, be totally honest with yourself and your therapist, if you hold back you may never get to the bottom of what’s causing you to have attacks.

Second, you said that you’ve been depressed since as far back as you can remember. You should ask yourself why, what are/were the circumstances around you that set off depressed feelings. I’m guessing something very bad happened when you were younger that is causing you pain still so you should go back to find out what that is.

Keep a journal of your thoughts. Fill it with writing prompts that ask you to look inwardly (you can find a lot of those online), fill it with your stream of consciousness, and fill it with things that inspire you to keep moving forward.

Check out “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, it’s a book that can turn your whole world around if you let it.

And keep writing here. You’ve been fighting alone for a long time it seems, but everyone here is fighting the same battle so you are not alone!

Cheers and good luck,

M

Hi Chelle!

It’s really fantastic that you’ve made such a change from a people pleaser to someone who follows their own heart. I really admire that!

You wrote that you need to “fix” your people pleasing behavior. First off, you do not need to fix anything, you are already perfect underneath all of the junk that the rest of the world has heaped on to you. Your true self is simply waiting to be revealed.

Second, you have absolutely no control over the cycles of life so whether you “fix” yourself or not is irrelevant, what will happen will happen no matter what. Troubles and challenges will never stop coming your way, you cannot change that. What you can change is how you react to these challenges. Positive thinking and a commitment to inner growth will help you greatly. So, maybe you lost the thing you really wanted today but I have no doubt the situation will rise again in the future and that gives you some time to reflect on what lessons this current situation has taught you. If you do that instead of feeling ashamed and hopeless, you’ll find that when you are faced with the same crossroads again, you’ll be better able to handle it than you were the last time. Don’t fight the cycles of life, it is wasted energy that could be put to better use.

So to sum that very long paragraph up: You want to know what direction to take at your crossroads? None. Sit down and listen very carefully to your heart, think back on what lessons you have learned, and be totally brutally honest with yourself about what you want ( that is the most important part!).

You might find that the answer you are looking for is already there in your heart just waiting for you to ask a different question.

Good luck,

-M

Hi there Learningeveryday (that’s a really great name to go by by the way :),

I think that it’s really important to be asking why this person’s judgement affects you so much because it shows a maturity and will undoubtedly lead you to a new level of growth!

On that note, I would ask not just what is it specifically about that person that made you desire their approval from a young age even though they are not (presumably) a parent or a relative? I went through the exact same situation (I’m not just saying that, when I read this I was like “whoa that’s me”). When I was young my father died and my mother had a long lasting mental breakdown, all of this led to the young adult me really craving attention and acceptance from someone, anyone who was not my family. This made me easy prey for someone very similar to the person you described.

SO I would ask you, is there something from the difficult upbringing you spoke of, a need that was not fulfilled for you as a child that this person seems to provide you? If yes, that may be why you once accepted the judgement because this person once was a stand in but now you are outgrowing that and questioning things (which is always good).

Keep your head up and never stop challenging yourself!! You are not alone 🙂

Cheers,

M

Hi Brav3,

You’re pretty brave to challenge your loneliness! It’s hard, I know, I struggle with those kind of feelings too. What you’re going through will pass in time but I bet knowing that doesn’t really help with how awful you must feel today.

I remember a post here on Tiny Buddha about pain and loss I think and the author referenced an old children’s rhyme to frame their struggle: (I’m paraphrasing here for sure) “We’re going on a bear hunt…oh a cave (the cave is narrow and scary and has a bear at the end of it, yikes!) we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it…”

So basically to get to the prize at the end of the cave/entire journey, the characters in the story had to just go through the tough parts the best they could. The author likened that to their own journey, about how in order to move forward, it was essential to acknowledge and really feel the pain they were going through. Instead of fighting it, they embraced the pain and gave its own space to exist in their life and in turn that made the pain a little easier to deal with each day.

Of course, I’m not saying wallow in your loneliness! I’m saying just accept that its there, and it’s going to be a part of you for a while so take a minute or two each day and just feel it. Sit quietly and acknowledge your struggle and then move on with your day the best you can. I think you’ll find that every day you’ll have a little more energy because you’re not fighting so hard to be happy.

Just let it be!

Good luck and I hope this helps!

Cheers,

-M