Done.

Dear Jessica,

I’m sorry that you are going through a rough time. Your supposition about the presence of any “listeners” is off the mark actually. This site is fairly well trafficked. There are a lot of people out here that feel as you do, and there are a lot of people out here who care and want to help. I’m one of the latter.

The reason that I mentioned that there are many others struggling with problems similar to yours is to point out that there are many people who have had the problems you are having who have figured out effective and sustainable ways to deal with them. This is good news, I think, because you can learn how to do this too, if you are open to it.

One highly effective way to deal with depression, according to many clinical studies, is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy called rational emotive behavioral therapy. Here’s a one sentence description of REBT’s basic premise that I just copied from Wikipedia: “One of the fundamental premises of REBT is that humans, in most cases, do not merely get upset by unfortunate adversities, but also through how they construct their views of reality through their language, evaluative beliefs, meanings and philosophies about the world, themselves and others.”

For example, you seem to be primarily depressed by the fact that a girl that you love is not loving you back how you would like her to. Falling in love with someone who doesn’t love you back in the same way is a very common thing, I believe, and feeling sad or upset about it is a natural reaction. I think. However, going to the point of harming yourself physically and contemplating ending your own life as a result seems to be an extreme reaction to me, as I’m sure it does to many others. You write about wanting and needing love from others, and it’s clear that you would like to have a particular kind of love from this girl.

I think it’s important to realize that everyone, including this girl, has the freedom to love who she wants, how she wants. It’s equally important to realize that someone choosing not to love you how you would like them to love you is not about YOU, that’s about her and what SHE wants. Even if she loved you for a while, she has the right to choose to not love you in the same way now or in the future. I imagine that you have created a number of dis-empowering beliefs about yourself and life as a result of the rejection you received from this girl. I’m guessing that you might be thinking that you’re not worthy of someone elses love or maybe that you will not find someone to love you the way that you want to be loved. What’s important to get is that YOU are the one creating those beliefs. YOU are choosing to think that way (assuming that that’s what you’re thinking.)

What you wrote about your sister points to the same kind of problem in thinking I believe: “my sister moved out for a time which also contributed with the cutting. she also made me feel worthless.” Isn’t it more accurate to say that you chose cutting yourself as a way to deal with the pain you felt when your sister moved out? And regarding feeling worthless as a result of things your sister may have said to you – consider looking at it this way – YOU CHOOSE to label yourself as worthless based on what your sister said or did. That is YOUR choice to think and/or feel that you are worthless. My point is that you can choose to think otherwise, and thinking otherwise could lead you to feel differently about yourself and your life.

You wrote a lot about love in your post and I think that the love you may be lacking may be an unconditional love for yourself. Cutting yourself and worse, ending your own life is an unloving thing to do to yourself. I don’t mean to say that you don’t have valid reasons to think what you do which lead you to feel how you feel right now – i.e. the abuse from your mother and issues with your family and friends. What’s important to get here is that just because something is VALID doesn’t mean that it has to be that way or that it is necessarily the TRUTH.

You are in charge of what you think and what you think is going to determine how you feel. Some people have more ‘negative input’ or troubling or challenging circumstances in life to deal with – that’s the way life is. What I’m offering for you to consider is that you are in charge of creating your own self-image and view of the world, regardless of the environment you’re in.

One book that I read during a difficult time in my life is called Feeling Good by David D. Burns. It explains in great detail how to go about altering how you feel by altering how you think about the things that happen in your life.

I hope what I’ve written here offers you some hope that things can go differently for you in the future. I know they can, but it’s up to you to believe that they can. Believing that something else is possible is what makes something else possible.

I’m here to help. Please feel free to contact me at incredulity at gmail dot com. I wish you the best.

Sincerely,
Francesco Bellafante

my dad got a job. my mom is doing better. my sister is back. me and my girl r doing fine. and me, im finding a way; i write poems to filter anger and depression instead of cutting. lifes still rough, but getting better. i needed tht support!!! (: i now have hope.