yeah.. about that let's see:

* I had undiagnosed Sever Clinical Depression for practically my entire adult life, and since I am old(er), that makes it a few decades. FML, I know.

* I was highly functional, having learned to conceal my unhappiness from others, and being the one who would make light of bad situations, and rushing to help/comfort others (pretty common, I am no snowflake)

* then in 2014 I reached the bottom of the bottom of the bottom, and then even lower. I "rushed" to therapy but this time something has shifted within me: I KNEW that the therapist would not be the one solving my meta-problem, the therapist would be some sort of coach, guiding me, I would be the one doing all the hard work, long work, big time effort

* I studied the book "Feeling Good" that made me understand what depression is and is not, causes, manifestations etc... also in that book there are some self-therapy tools, mostly a special for of journaling. I did that each and every day, for hours, analyzing everything that happened to me. Fighting my depression became my full-time job, on top of my regular full time job.

* I selected my therapist very carefully, I had a very detailed list of what I was looking for, and while the list was extensive it was feasible (no self sabotage there). I found a therapist that hit all the items on my list except for on (I wanted a man, she happened to be a woman). Didn't matter, she was great.

* The co-pay was stiff, so I took a part-time job in order to pay for my therapy.

* I tried a whole bunch of things, To me everything became therapy. A lot of what I tried didn't work, I moved on to trying something else. I wasted a lot of time and money researching and trying stuff: the time and money wasted is also part of the therapy. To give some insight meditation really didn't do much for me, but other Zen practice did. Weight lifting and fixing my diet did help me a lot.

* I cut off from my life toxic people. Some were "family", some were "friends". Cut them off, best thing.

* Except for my therapist, I didn't talk with anyone about my depression, too much of a burden on the recipient(s), and it can become a self-gratifying self-fulfilling prophecy. I suffered alone and in silence, continuing working my ass off to improve, not a word to anyone. Climb a mountain, tell no one.

* I look at the list of my "friends" and I selected a few, 4 or 5 who I believe could "handle" the news that I was in a bad state and I was in therapy for depression. I asked them to have lunch/drinks/dinner with me on a regular basis, and I told that the during these meeting we would NOT talk about me depression/therapy, we would just "hang out", so once a week I would have lunch with one of them, and once a month 3 or 4 of us would get together for drinks. We would talk about work, sports, movies, book... 2 of my friends at the end of the dinners would discreetly ask me "how's therapy going?" I would replay "Fine" they would remind me: "If you're every in trouble, call me/us any time of day or night". I thanked them they meant it. I NEVER called, no matter how bad things got.

* I often visited online boards about depression and I would see what other people would talk about, I would see patterns that I knew I had manifested in the past (self-sabotage, validation through suffering, playing the victim...) I was banned by Patient and Me for questioning the validity of therapy if it becomes a place where to just shoot the breeze

* One day I read an article on "Stop being a victim" I believe it was actually here in HN. So I started reading googling "stop being a victim" and "victim no more" and similar, and read all there is out there.. mostly very good stuff.

* More recently I have started to analyze the challenging events in my life from the starting point of view that I am responsible/accountable/at fault for it... it's just a starting point, not a martyrdom, but it helps me NOT to blame the world/other people for happenings in my life (I am always at least partially responsible, at least for not reacting/responding well to life's events)

* other books that have helped me: The Subtle Art of not giving a fuck; Unfuck yourself; The war on Art; How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons.

How's that for a wall of text?