I recently wrote about how depression "just is" as I couldn't seem to find a reason for it (this time). It's certainly taught me that you can be depressed even if your life is fine - which in itself worried me. I mean, if I don't need a reason, the little blighter is going to start popping up all over the place isn't it!?!

When did your depression start? For me it used to be that it only popped up over relationship breakups. As I got older (and there have been no relationship breakups) depression didn't seem to satisfied to stay in the shadows. It now drops me into the dark side for any old reason, and lately, none at all.

My mind cannot stop crawling over this curiosity - and I suppose I mistakenly think that if I could understand this, maybe I could control it? (Spoiler alert, no you can't!).

Still, I decided to give my mind free reign to meditate and have a really good listen to my subconscious thoughts, rather than consciously wondering all day why I'm feeling like this. We're told that our thoughts lead to these awful feelings, so what on earth am I thinking, below the radar, to make my world turn black?

Candle lit, empty flat, I sit. I listen and I listen. And I'm shocked. My thoughts disappear - all of them, scurry away like mice. "You don't get to listen to us!!". So I'm sitting with nothing. My depression is literally nothing. I almost laugh with this realisation, but not before my mind has floated off again, and then I see it, flickering under the surface. Whenever I catch it, it darts away like a fish, unwilling to be caught. But I've sensed it. I never realised it was even there!

So this is what I realised. My mind is not on my side. It's playing for the other side and undermines me. Every time I think about someone else a tiny thought pops up "They can do that, but you couldn't". Every time I think of a business idea it says "You'd never be able to do that kind of thing, that's for others". I look at a job "You'd never get that, others could but you can't". My mind is telling me, oh so quietly, that I am less, much much less than everyone else.

Previously it told me I was less because I didn't have money. (Now I have more). It told me I was less because I didn't have a relationship (I now do). It told me that I was less because I didn't have a good job (then I did have a good job). So now, I think, with these boxes tick, it stubbornly tells me I'm just less in every possible way - it compares me constantly and unfavourably to everyone else. It has subtly woven its way into my every thought.

The most extraordinary part of this realisation, is the fact that if you met me, you'd likely think I was the life and soul of the party without a care in the world! You would not match my life, with my thoughts. No one is more surprised than I am. Logically I see myself as having a great life. Emotionally, my wayward mind is telling me that I have no business to succeed at anything, be anything, or go anywhere.

Do others have these pesky thoughts? What do you hear when you really listen to yourself?

The Travelling Girl

A Moodscope member.