Hi there faeriechyld68,
Sorry to here about this? it really is a horrible situation to be in. In terms of ?doing?, there are I?m sure many things you can do, but one thing that really really does help me when I?m feeling down is to try to focus on how people are perceiving me.
So? often, when I?m feeling like that, I think that my whole persona is covered in some dreadful, ugly scar that everyone sees every time I look them in the eye, or open my mouth to say something. It?s a shameful, awful feeling, feeling that in some way I am repugnant to other people.
But when I notice that people aren?t seeing it, when they talk to me in exactly the same way as when I?m ok, when strangers treat me like I?m a normal person, it forces my rational mind to recognise that it has to be internal, it just has to be something that is going on inside me. There cannot, rationally, be anything external, because people aren?t noticing anything.
Now I know that this can make us feel that we are not understood? but in part, that for me can be a good thing? it?s because the things that are making us depressed are not actually necessarily true? they are simply our perceptions, or beliefs that are causing it. So when other people don?t ?get? us, it?s not really ?us? they don?t get? it?s this wonky feeling we have inside us that doesn?t really make much sense.
So I do sometimes get those sparky moments of realisation that say ?listen Mike, maybe they don?t get it because it doesn?t make any sense, and it?s just some product of fear or your imagination inventing nonsense in your head?. And sometimes, that helps. Not always, but sometimes.
It?s simply a suggestion that works for me.
Good luck, and keep looking forward? it?s simple math that tells us that the future will always have more opportunities open to us than the past has closed to us :)