Different approaches will help different people, but the CBT is really helping me to understand the roots of my issues. Though looking at the patterns of my negative thoughts and my triggers, and then following them back to identify my core beliefs is sort of like following a thread out of a labyrinth, or a number of threads out of a number of labyrinths. I've been struggling over the core beliefs section for months because the beliefs I came up with seemed obvious, but then I had a click and I found my way out of one of my labyrinths. It was a comment my therapist made to some story I told him, but without the framework of the CBT (he doesn't do CBT) I think that the comment would have just slipped by me.
I know that it's only one of my labyrinths, and I have no idea how many labyrinths I have, but I recognize it clearly as one of my core beliefs that, when my negative thoughts around it are really changed, I will behave and feel differently.
I obsess as well, and I get sick of my obsessing. I really don't know if it's important, helpful, or even possible to understand all the reasons behind my depression. I think that a component of mine is inherited from my father, but again, I don't know if it's biological or environmental... It's all so complicated! But I think that I've found another labyrinth -- I'm not out of it yet, but at least I see it -- and I think that if I can address these two, I'll be able to function again. And then maybe just functioning, in itself, will make me feel better. And then maybe the rest will just evaporate because I've other things to think about...
Where medication fits in? Another thing I don't know, as I've been prescribed pretty much the gamut and the effect of each one/combination has worn off after just a few months. I can't even imagine what I'm doing to my brain with all this messing around with it's chemicals :(
