I no longer use antidepressants.

[sibelian]

17. Thank you.

You are right, and I think the "turning inwards" is an excellent description of what happens. I hear the phrase a lot, and I'm sure you do too, what I think we don't hear about very often is the idea of its opposite, of "opening out".

I think that people can tolerate amazing levels of loss and grief so long as you don't let the poisonous thought into you that your own emotional reactions to your difficulties are somehow "unfair", so long as you don't start feeling bad about feeling bad. Looking back, that was what scuppered me, it was like crossing a kind of emotional event horizon and I strongly suspect, having had suicidal ideas (and acted on them, unsuccessfully, thank goodness, once and once only) is very closely related to that barrier. You start fighting yourself when you're already down, who can you turn to?