What about relapse?

So there you are, happily tootling along with your new-found confidence, then something happens that seems to plunge you back into the goop again. Maybe it's a blazing row where words that reverberate with the old BROH get yelled at you in anger, maybe you've lost your job or suffered a bereavement, maybe it's something that you think ought to be quite trivial, like a disappointing shopping trip on a cold wet day. It all seems to come back, and you can't see a way out, because it's all true! You really are still a pain in the backside, after you thought you'd left all that behind.

Trouble is, you've been forced back on to focusing on yourself and your inability to cope. What you need is a reality check. It's time to look at an uncomfortable fact: some of the BROH was actually true, up to a point and from a certain point of view. No smoke without fire and all that. On the up side, it's not nearly as bad as the BROH is telling you it is. But at some point it will be necessary to face up to the grain of truth that resides in there and take steps to transform the situation. The best solution is to make a virtue out of a seemingly negative trait.

Here's an example: perhaps you're the kind of person who homes in on the snag just when everyone else is getting enthusiastic about something. You get told you're 'always so negative' and you're 'dragging the group/team down'. Fact is, you are dead right about the snag - if there was an easy solution to it, someone would have pointed it out and there would have been no harm done. So, what did you do wrong?

Trick is, to use all the reasoning skills you have accumulated over the years refining the BROH to look at the situation and sort the truth from the angry bullshit (whether the angry bullshit comes from within you or from others). The BROH insight has allowed you to step outside of yourself enough to look at things more objectively. It looks like you need to develop a new way of pointing out snags - after all, they need to be pointed out sooner or later or the whole project (whatever it is) will fail. Your capacity not only to see the snag but to point it out is an important part of the group effort. In this example, you just need to get a feel for politics. That's all. You're only a downer because you put the truth in the wrong place.

Now. getting a feel for politics (or whatever the next lesson in your life turns out to be) could well be a sizeable project; you're not going to acquire new skills overnight. But it's not a project against the depression; it's a project towards further growth.

It might be appropriate to go back on the medication for a short while; you might benefit from the breathing space if you've been hit hard. You can use your reasoning skills for that decision too. But rest assured, you have moved on from the original chronic goop.