Hello, My name is Drew I have suffered from MDD for years, since I was seven. I also have ADD which seems to create a lot the behaviors and feelings associated with depression. It has resulted in broken relationships, anger, abuse of alcohol and other substances I have never really been able to snap out of it. I constantly feel inadequate, anxious, self-loathing, irritated, empty and worthless. I'm heading through my second master's program and while I have accomplished a lot I constantly feel like I am falling short of others' expectations and society's. It is a very primer master's program for career field I have been trying to break into you, everyone is quite self-directed and seems to be a much faster learner, more intuitive, and better at following instructions than me. I did very well this summer being off on my own at a professional enhancing internship and for several weeks I felt totally able and without my standard feelings depression. However returning to Cooperstown and new experiences and things outside my comfort zone I have slid back into my same depressive patterns. I keep looking for reassurance which I usually get, but it never satisfies me in the long-run. My dad a successful doctor and my mom is a successful nurse, my brother (who is four years younger than me) has a great job and an officer's commission in the army. I never feel able to achieve the level of professional achievement and repute they have because of my limiting beliefs and fixation on my faults and failures. I have had a some of failures as a adult in terms of launching a career and measuring that I just allow to haunt and torment me mentally, a vicious cycle. Many times during the day I feel like it would be a relief to either be dead or in jail. Absurd I know but I feel so hopeless like that. I overcompensate or suppress my feelings of inadequacy by overworking myself, obsessing over learning and drawing my attention away. I feel ill at ease when I'm not engrossing myself in work tasks, etc. Then I overwhelm myself with the details, potential outcome, and implications of what I am working on. It's not really a healthy escape I realize because my depressive thoughts and behaviors on resurface again. My relationships are very strained because of my wayward expectations. I certainly have not been able to hold down a girlfriend in some years attributable in large part to MDD and not working on it. This has left me very sexually frustrated and feeling romantically impotent and isolated. I attend self-help meetings to combat my urge to drink and substance abuse which has DEFINITELY improved my physical and mental welfare, but prayer, taking a moral inventory and attending church do not quite cut it for me. I have made new friends who are just wonderful, but I feel that my internal involuntary inclination to feel depressed is preventing from benefitting from these regimens. I want to feel capable, motivated, and primed all day at any time with full confidence that I can do anything. I am not expecting miracles from this CBT, but I want to break this cycle of a downward spiral that going to continue until I'm homeless, dead, or insane. What should I try to be broad???
