Out of Depression: A Depressed Patient's Successful Self-Help

Chapter 5 Preface
The purpose of depression is to force you to stop and figure out who you are and where you are going.It requires you to position yourself, which is painful but the driving force for change.

——P. Gilbert
When I fell into depression, I couldn't understand this sentence very well.When I got out of depression, I realized that if depression had not flowed through my life, I would never have known who I was and where I was going.

In depression, the thing that struck me the most was the sense of hopelessness and isolation.The whole person seems to be on an isolated island. If I don't approach others, others cannot really enter my heart.At that time, such a dream often appeared: one day, a person, a pair of hands, rescued me from the vortex of depression, and I was willing to exchange with him on any terms.But dreams are always dreams, that person, those hands, did not appear after all.Hope turned into despair again and again, but I still encouraged myself to persevere countless times in despair.Because I couldn't let go of my dependent mother, and because I didn't want life to end before it had begun, I continued to look for hope in the dark... Repeated failures plunged me into deep despair.I remember, it was a winter afternoon, I wandered aimlessly, and the whole world was gray.I am like a traveler who is about to approach the end, numbly looking at the scenery on the side of the road and the people who continue to travel.Time seemed to have stood still, and those souls who struggled and entangled in the dark night and were tortured so restlessly all day long were finally about to come to an end at this moment.This place is about to become my end point. I am reluctant to give up, but it is helpless.So, I bought the first pack of cigarettes in my life, ate the "Last Supper" prepared for myself, and then suddenly downed the pills I had prepared with beer.It's finally over, I don't have to struggle anymore, I don't have to be swallowed up by despair, my heart is finally at peace... Depression, let death be so close to me.But it is precisely because of the existence of death that I realize the meaning of life lies in: love and hope.It is precisely because love has not melted away and hope has not been extinguished that I have come out of depression and found myself.But when I was in depression, there was only despair in front of my eyes, and trying to convince myself that there was a future was just a kind of self-comfort.It seems that I only have the right to persevere in despair, but it is this persistence in despair that allows me to see hope little by little.When the dawn finally penetrated the night, I saw the motivation born of love and the persistence born of hope.It is love and hope that make me tough, break through the haze, and see the blue sky again!
This book is written from the two identities and perspectives of a former patient and a current psychological counselor. I hope it can give you a little hope in despair and give you a little strength in helplessness. It is my greatest comfort to be able to do this.

I was able to get out of depression and complete the writing of this book without the support and help of my relatives and friends.My mother, late grandma, friends and wife, it is your encouragement and love that made me go to today without giving up on myself!I would like to express my sincere gratitude with this book.

At the same time, I would also like to thank the patient and the late psychologist Karen Horney who accompanied me along the way. It is because of you that I have a better understanding of depression, and this book has the possibility of in-depth analysis of depression.I sincerely hope that friends who have not yet come out of depression can get out of depression as soon as possible and find their true self.

Wang Yu
Nanjing in 2015
(End of this chapter)