I tried to overdose because depression makes me feel worthless. Can hypnosis help?

Hi Mark,

I suffer from depression. I take medication and have been in therapy for 15 years. I have read dozens of books. I have all the head knowledge.

However, I am still feeling like I make the people around me, the ones I love the most, miserable. I feel like I screw up their lives. I cannot make friends, though I have many acquaintances. I believe that I make my family so screwed up with my stupid thinking that everyone would be better off if I were gone. In fact, a year ago, my husband found me unconscious from a drug overdose.

I have sought help and treatment, but without success. I sleep for hours. I have tried exercise, which did help for a while, but the depression is back again and I am at my wits' end.

Is there anything hypnosis can do to get me to stop thinking that I am a useless piece of trash? Please help me; I am really desperate. Thank you for your time.

Cynthia

This question was submitted by 'Cynthia'

Mark says...

Hello Cynthia,

Thank you so much for writing in; I'm sure many of my readers will be touched by and relate to your story.

Depression lies to people. It convinces them to think in black or white, distorted, and over-simplistic ways; to see setbacks as disasters; and to make sweeping generalizations about the self from limited, negatively 'biased', and narrowly selected evidence. It makes people over-ruminate, going round and round in their heads and dreaming more at night so that they wake up exhausted even if they do manage to sleep for hours. It steals confidence, sucks motivation, and stamps on self-esteem. And yet, it can be defeated!

I know you have probably read just about everything on depression, but if you haven't read the Depression Learning Path, then please do. Depression fills people to the brim with stress hormone, which eventually makes them feel exhausted. Hypnosis can help you relax and diminish the stress hormone, and once the stress hormone has diminished, you are in a better position to both think more evenly (less 'self-tyrannically') and start to get your basic primal emotional and physical needs met. For more on this, please see 'Why am I Depressed?'.

I suggest you use the Depression Recovery Program, which has 17 steps - each supported by a hypnosis session designed to help embed the learning from the step and relax you very deeply so that you feel better, not just try to 'think better'.

The really important thing to remember, I think, is that depression makes you think and feel in distorted ways that only seem to reflect the way things are. I know it's hard to bear that in mind whilst you feel so emotional, but if you can just keep that in sight, like a place of safety on dry land as you head towards it through a storm, then that will help. No one would be better off without you, but depression tries to convince you they would. The fact is that you can't trust anything that depression 'says', because whilst the mind is whipped up, it can't reflect things as they really are - which is just what this story illustrates:

Once, a beautiful princess sat by an ornate pool in her palace grounds. As she peered down, admiring her beautiful reflection in the surface of the clear pool, her priceless crown suddenly slipped from her head and into the waters with a splash.

She screamed for her attendants to retrieve her precious crown and they leapt into the waters, frantically searching, scrabbling around, a flurry of activity. But all this effort merely brought up mud and debris from the bottom of the pool, making it even harder to find the missing crown.

Eventually, an old storyteller arrived on the scene. He began to tell such a riveting tale of times gone past that, despite themselves, all the princess's aides stopped searching and relaxed. Even the princess momentarily forgot about the missing crown and listened to the man's sweet words. By the time he'd finished telling his tale, not only had everyone calmed down, but the mud from the pool had settled and the waters were again clear.

At that point, the storyteller reached down into the water and retrieved the princess's crown, which could now clearly be seen.

So, in short, read the Learning Path, which is free. And consider following the Depression Recovery Program, which isn't free, but does have a 90-day money back guarantee. Also, bear in mind that depression feeds you BS and you can really begin to question its distortions as you start to leave depression behind for good.

All best wishes and please get in touch if you need to, Cynthia.

Mark