Dear noname:

You are welcome, it’s kind of you to express appreciation. I wish I was able to somehow make you feel better about who you are because I sincerely appreciate you, not only for your accomplishments, but for who you are inside, underneath the depression, underneath the delusion of worthlessness. Delusion, I say because it is not true, this part of what you believe about yourself.

I wrote the above paragraph before I read this part: “I realized I don’t exactly know how to feel good about myself without stroking my ego. Thinking about how attached I am to achievements, and concrete numbers for feeling good about myself” – so, if you were able to feel good about yourself not because of concrete numbers, but because of the abstract value of being a good human being, that would do…?

“Being a therapist is the first job I’ve had where… a concrete measure of achievement is non-existent and pointless anyway. I often leave work feeling confused as to whether I did anything worthwhile that day” – if you helped another good person out there on any one day, to learn something that is true, and suffer less because of it, that’s worthwhile.

“Either I am dependent on the approval of others, or I’m dependent on comparison to others. I really hate that I have this problem and believe it as the root of my anxiety…  feel I have no way to generate something that feels like love and validation for myself” -how about doing what I do: I focus on learning what is true, every day; it sustains me emotionally.

“The result is I increase all of my addictions to feel “good” which have been pretty bad lately” – if you are talking about smoking pot, do it a bit less, and enjoy it when you do. You deserve to feel good!

anita