Thought help: I feel myself falling back into depression. - Help.com

For a few reasons I suppose. There isn’t much concrete evidence that antidepressants work. They have tonnes of very negative side effects. I’m worried of how it might change me. I also don’t want to ever be dependent on drugs. Even if they are prescribed to me.

I know of people who are dependent on their antidepressants to stay happy. So, it’s not physically addictive, but you’ll kill yourself if you go off them.

Pnov wrote:
Can you understand how YOU are NOT your thoughts and feelings, even though you EXPERIENCE them?

See, the problem is that the reason I continue is how I define myself by my thoughts. I don’t know if that makes sense, but maybe it does.

Pnov wrote:
Before I understood what was really happening with my thoughts and feelings, I used to believe, “If I feel bad, I must be bad somehow.” But that is NOT the truth.

I never thought that way. I do think that if I feel bad, I must be in a bad place somehow. I would be surprised if you disagree with this.

I think I have a pretty good sense of who I am. Actually, I think I have had a much better understanding of myself than average since I was very young. I’ve been very introverted my whole life, and I’ve always enjoys time with just me and my thoughts.

And Cell, I don’t mean to sound naive or closed-minded or anything like that, but I don’t want to take antidepressants. Maybe I am naive and closed minded. Infact, I’m pretty sure I am, but that doesn’t change that I’m not going to take meds for depression.

I’m afraid I’m an atheist.

I see what you mean, but is it not just as accurate to say that one infact is identified (not necessarily wholly, but at least in part) by their thoughts, and since their thoughts are changing, so are they?

Pnov wrote:
The TRUTH is, we are CONSTANTLY changing how and what we think, and what we believe. Yet, through it all, through all those constantly changing thoughts and beliefs, WE still exist.

I agree fully with this, but you seem to not see the difference between change and existence. They are not mutually exclusive. Who you are as a person can change, and you can still exist.

Our thoughts do constantly change, and through this we do still exist, but we ourselves have changed. I know for a fact that looking back on my past self, I thought differently then. Now, my thoughts have changed, and I in turn have changed as a person with them. My thoughts and feeling from the past are none the less real, nor are my thoughts and feelings now, nor ones I will experience in the future.

But who are you to say that I’ve never changed? Maybe you haven’t but I believe I honestly have. Neither of us are any more correct than the other here.