Self Perception

Self perception is a HUGE part of depression. If you're depressed, there's a pretty good chance you don't like yourself, or worse. Negative self perception feeds the depression: feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy, a sense of failure, or a lack of purpose are examples. However, our self perceptions are often very, very skewed. Especially the negative ones. We tend to believe that we are worse than we are. Why, I have no clue. I'd be interested in doing some research on that topic. I'm writing a paper for one of my classes and actually just read an article about self consciousness as related to depression and it was fascinating. In this article, depression was found to be related to something called private self-consciousness that has to do with things like attitude consistency and internal awareness. Anyway, that was a bit off topic. My point is, our negative self perceptions can fuel our depression and make it a lot worse. Take a minute and think about yourself. Think about the things you like. The things you don't like. For the things you don't like, take an extra long time to ponder whether or not these things are actually accurate. If possible, even get a second opinion. I was talking to someone this morning and further on in the conversation she told me that I'm not nearly as socially inept as I believe myself to be. Believing that I fail at all things that have to do with people is one of my most significant negative self perceptions. When I really thought about it, I realized that I'm not as bad as I tend to portray myself. Sure, I make the occasional faux pas, but who doesn't? I tend to internally over exaggerate the severity of things I feel the need to work on. When I get on the "I'm so horrible with people, I suck at being a person" train because some little thing happened at school that got blown way out of proportion, my depression gets worse. Don't let that happen to you. I know it can be hard, but once you recognize that your negative self perceptions are not as accurate as you think they are, it doesn't affect you as much. Believe me, recognizing that you aren't actually all that bad really helps. It's the first step to believing that you are good or worth it, which you definitely are! Hang in there, guys. You can do this.