Yeah. I get it. And you never want to play with medication. Especially medicine that has a psychological effect. I have faith it'll get better for you. Just don't give up hope. I know that's easier said than done. Some helpful things that I've heard help people? Count your blessings. Roof over your head. Another day to be alive (although sometimes that doesn't feel like a blessing). I've always thought about those who have it worse than me to push me through. While only you know you, I know doing that can make things worse. It's how you see it. The way I looked at it was "I'm struggling now. Sure. However I have food to eat. A place to sleep. Clothes to keep warm." And with people having it worse than that, knowing they're still pushing forward drove me to keep pushing forward too. But it can also make things more grim.

As for the self destructive thoughts, something that has helped me a lot (not saying it will help you but I hope it will) is disconnect yourself from the self destructive lies. For me, I basically made there be 2 of me, and I chose which one I wanted to be. I changed my depression (what I didn't want) into its own personality basically. I know it sounds crazy but try to bear with me here. The thoughts ("I'm ugly, I'm worthless, I can't do anything right", etc.) I changed them. I looked in the mirror and when those thoughts came, I deliberately refused to see the person in the mirror as myself. It had my face, my looks, but wasn't me. The comments went from "I this, I that" to "you this, you that". I'll use the hulk as an example. Banner looks in the mirror and sees the hulk, not his own reflection. When I looked in the mirror, I decided what I saw wasn't me. It was what I hated inside of me (my depression). When I was able to stop internalizing the self destruction and accepting it as coming from myself, I could argue back against it. As if it was another personality trying to take over myself, I was then able to fight something that was distinctly not me. Not who I wanted to be. Not who I chose to be. And gave me an enemy outside of my personal ego to argue against and take control of my life over. When "you're ugly" would come, my response mentally was "I'm not. You're an ugly, miserable grouch. I'm not playing this game anymore. I see you for what you are and you're not me. I reject you. You're everything I don't want to be and you won't control me anymore."

Because that's essentially what depression is is an internal battle. And it's nearly impossible to figure out how to fight it when you believe you're fighting yourself. You grow hatred for yourself that is misplaced. When you're both sides, it's like you have a Ukrainian and a Russian (just the people at war right now that came to mind) fighting each other but you're both. You can't win when fighting both sides.

By separating my depression and no longer accepting it as me, anxiety was a separate issue I then struggled with. I accepted depression as something I struggle with. Something that tries sometimes to take over again. However, I stopped identifying in my head as my depression. Someone who has cancer for example. They don't say " I am lymphoma." It doesn't make sense.

Also, there was a book I started reading. It talked about emotions and ego/identity. Emotions are just that. Emotions. You feel sad. That's an emotion. You feel happy. That's an emotion. The emotions are the specific things we feel. Its good to feel them and theres nothing wrong with feeling your emotions. They come and they go. Not the thoughts behind them. Now there's the other part of it. The ego or identity. Not ego in the sense of "you have an ego as big as Texas". No. Ego in this context is who you are. Your personal being. Your soul. The problem comes in where we feel these emotions (like sadness) and then we think deeper into them, questioning ourselves and beating ourselves up as a result of an emotion. When you're sad, you think or do things (sometimes) that make the sadness worse. Not let it out. Worsen it. Digging yourself deeper. You don't have to try to make yourself be happy, but when you're sad, sometimes it can be better to just let yourself go through your sadness without digging deeper and unintentionally finding reasons to be sad.

Also, I emotionally blocked myself off to everyone too. I wouldn't let anyone in. Something else that helped me personally (because I struggled with things I viewed as weakness. I viewed myself as weak and it wasn't okay for me to be what I thought was weak). what does it mean to be human by Jeff Bethke. Strength doesn't come from hiding and blocking yourself off. It doesn't come from loving someone. While love makes people vulnerable, it also gives us strength in its own way.

I know there's a lot here, and I'm sorry for that. Things are never simple, and psychological things are always so much more complex. During the day, I felt nothing. During the night, I felt pain. I don't know if it's the case for you, but during the day, I felt nothing because I shut it down that way. Pretended like everything was okay and faked being happy. Faked being okay. Let me know what you think