You can’t hate yourself for all your flaws if you would not hate someone else with those same flaws.

I’m fat. But I don’t hate people for being fat.
I’m clumsy and uncoordinated. But I don’t hate people for being clumsy and uncoordinated.
I’m very absentminded. But I don’t hate people for being absentminded.
I wouldn’t even hate someone for being fat, clumsy, uncoordinated, and absentminded.

I don’t like any of those three things about myself. When I hate myself, those are the top three justifications for it.

But I don’t hate others for being that way. So why should I hate myself for it? What makes the rules different for me?

Mental exercise time. Think of all the things you hate about yourself. Dig deep. Get to the really nasty stuff. Then…. imagine another person with all those same attributes.

Do you hate them for it? Why or why not?

Of course, the answer to the question of why the rules are different for yourself is not to be found in logic. The position is logically inconsistent. The real reason is not logical, it’s chemical. A chemical imbalance is pulling your mind toward the negative and distorting your perceptions.

And there’s no system of logic in the world that can give you accurate results when the basic data is corrupted. Despite what certain “rationalist” philosophers say, everything in the human mind begins with perception, and if the perceptions are flawed, the rest of the system is useless.

Instead, the depressed create elaborate (but flimsy) logical justifications for the self-loathing being forced upon them by their chemical disorder. This satisfies the bare minimum requirements of logic, or rather, the feeling of logic. Actual logic would destroy these justifications, and that cannot be allowed.

Because the one thing that the human mind cannot tolerate is the knowledge that its perceptions are inaccurate. Without perceptions, there is nothing. The entire structure of our consciousness rests on the belief that things are how we perceive them.

If the justifications were to disappear, then you would be left with emotions with no justification, and that is a deeply terrifying thought. As human being, we need to believe in cause and effect. Unjustified emotion would be an effect with no cause. So we make up explanations.

Myself, I can accept that my perceptions are distorted and that things aren’t always how they feel, but that doesn’t solve anything because no matter what I know, my perceptions are what I have to work with. In this, I am no different than any other form of lunatic. The psychotic may well know that there isn’t a demon waiting for it outside, but it’s still very difficult not to believe there is.

That’s where metacognition comes in. One definition for metacognition is that it is the part of your mind that monitors the rest of the mind and checks for errors. If, for example, you were trying to remember when your next dentist’s appointment is, and you think it’s the 15th, but a part of your mind says “No, it’s the 16th, because of this”, that part is your metacognition.

But it is my belief that metacognition requires an above average level of intelligence, and possibly the “emotional off switch” that allows us to NOT act on emotion that often accompanies it. For the average person, metacognition exists but is not, I suspect, strong enough to resist a very strong perception, one with a great deal of emotion attached to it.

Thus, people, by and large, believe the world to be exactly how they feel it is. The feelings lead and logic provides the justifications. To ask a person of average intelligence to disbelieve their perceptions may be unfair.

Instead you have to change that perception, and for that, you have to change the emotion from which it stems. That’s why any attempt at persuasion that relies solely on logic is doomed to failure. You have to reach people’s emotions directly, and change how they feel. Only then will they be ready to change how they think.

Of course, I am not claiming we smart types are immune to going where emotion leads us and making up the justification later. I am just saying we stand a better chance of resisting it some of the time.

So if you hate yourself (hey look, it’s the topic!), you will invent reasons why it is justified. It is a delicate thing to undo these reasons. It can’t be done all at once – or at least, it can’t for someone like me, who lacks the capacity for transformation of that sort – but you can get there.

You just have to be willing to separate your identity from your depression. This is the necessary first step, and it is the hardest. You are not a depressed person – you are a person currently suffering from depression. It no more defines you than a broken leg would. You were you before you became depressed, and you will still be you when it has gone. There is nothing to fear.

Once you can do that, or at least start down that road, you will be able to attack your depression without it feeling like you are attacking yourself – like you are trying to rip off your own arm. That means that you have bypassed its most powerful defense, because the human mind cannot interpret an attack on identify as anything other than an attempt at assassination.

Identity death is the only real death, after all.

Others will be free to attack your depression as well, if you let them. This is harder than the first step because we interpret disagreement as an attack on identity anyhow. But once you make the separation, you can learn to hate your depression, and turn your rage on it.

I hate my own depression. It destroy my prime adult years and left me trying to get my life started at 43. As far as I am concerned, it’s dead tissue, and the sooner I can get rid of it, the better. I will not defend it or its justifications and excuses. It’s a very wrong path, and I now recognize it and its ways and can make better choices, the exact choices it doesn’t want.

In fact, if my depression tells me not to do something, that’s a damned good reason to do it. Every time I overcome it, it dies a little.

Eventually, it will all be gone…. and only the real me will remain.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.