Limiting Myself Within Defining Myself as "Depressed" - Day 37

Yesterday I mentioned how I had realized a number of things about myself during my commute home and one specific thing that I have been coming to realize but did not go into in yesterday's post was how I have limited myself extensively within defining myself as "depressed."

First of all within this recent development wherein I am facing yet another transition or change, it is very easy for me to participate within and as regret, wherein I regret decisions I have made in the past and miss the circumstances that I lived within prior to those decisions, and also to participate within and as believing myself to be incapable, wherein I fear the transition/change that is coming and justify that fear by telling myself I am not capable and therefore should not move forward.

And so during my drive I saw how when I moved back to Sacramento from Denver just over a year ago, I had made this decision in part because I had accepted and allowed a belief within myself that I was so immersed in "depression" that it was necessary for me to move closer to family as a safety net, because I had convinced myself that I was incapable of being fully independent, which is not true, but within my experience and definition of myself as depressed, I chose to doubt myself and to fear independence and taking responsibility for myself, and so I chose to move home in part for this reason. I even thought about how I have at times perceived within myself such strong experiences of mental instability that I have thought about how I could literally move home and live with my mom and not have a job and just claim that I am too depressed and that's who I am and that's what I'm capable of, and no one could really doubt me within that, and so I would be able to do that and not have to face "life" or adulthood or myself. Like a cushy-comfy suicide. Of course this is not what I did, but the fact that I have considered this as an option for myself in times of distress is kind of the epitome of abdicating responsibility for myself.

And so I saw how within all of this for the past year+ I have been moving away from basically crippling myself through and as my beliefs and thoughts about myself, which I was pretty willfully creating and accepting about myself so as to alleviate the challenges that come with growing up or with being human in a world as fucked up as ours is. And I can see how for the majority of my life I have used "depression" as a definition for the set of experiences I was participating within and as, and within defining and identifying myself this way, I was providing myself with justification for continuing participation within and as those experiences, thus abdicating my responsibility for myself and my experiences. And within these thoughts and beliefs about myself as depressed, and all of the many self-abusive thoughts and beliefs that I have participated in alongside that self-definition, I created real separation from, within, and as myself, to where it is now definitely a real journey to come back to myself as one as equal as life, to deconstruct all that I defined myself and my world and reality as, within my mind, to come back to actual reality and to take responsibility for myself within reality.

So now after years of failed therapy and failed medications and other failed techniques and interventions, I say here that I am not depressed and I will not participate within and as a self-definition as depressed. My cure? Self-honesty, self-responsibility, and self-forgiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself within and as "depression."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my self-definition of "depression" as an excuse or justification for abdicating my responsibility for myself as myself as life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am depressed and therefore I am not capable of reaching my aspirations.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my self-definition as "depressed" in order to attain attention, comfort, friendship, favors, and special treatment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed my Self to be put into the hands of another or into the hands of drugs when I had not ever even tried to hold myself in my own hands to heal myself and to know myself within self-honesty and self-responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see... at least 8-10 different therapists throughout my life, expecting them to somehow have an answer that can only be found within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use a self-definition of "depression" as a way to "cope" with life and suffering rather than actually facing life and suffering and taking responsibility for myself within and as life and within and as suffering.

I forgive myself that I have at times accepted and allowed myself to believe that there was nothing I could do and no way I could change, that I would always be depressed.

I forgive myself that I have at times accepted and allowed myself to think that I should just give up and live at home and not have a job and basically choose to nurture my self-definition as "depressed" until I am actually incapable. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider this CHOICE as a viable option. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to CHOOSE depression.

You see, I make decisions every day, and so many of them limit me in so many ways: it's no wonder I fear that the more blatant more typically-defined decisions will also limit me.

When and as I see myself participating within and as the self-definition of "depressed" and "depression," I stop and I breathe. I realize that I direct myself within every moment and every experience, and I realize that these self-definitions are of no use to me now that I have the tools of self-honesty, self-responsibility, and self-forgiveness. I commit myself to establishing stability within myself through these tools and within my breath in each moment.

When and as I see myself experiencing the "symptoms" of "depression," I stop and I breathe. I realize that these experiences are my own creation, and also that they do not necessitate a self-limiting self-definition. I realize that at one time I saw this definition as supportive in helping me see what I was facing, but within this I was separating myself from these experiences, facing depression and not facing myself. I commit myself to face myself within and as these experiences and to see how I have created, accepted, and allowed them. I commit myself to further investigate myself when and as I experience "depression." I commit myself to release myself from these static self-definitions of experience and to direct myself in every moment within, through, and as my breath, in the physical, as one, as equal, as life itself.