Isolation

It's easy to believe no one else can empathize with being so depressed that it overrides every other emotion. Depression can make everything else seem fuzzy and unfocused, blurring out the details to the point that happiness or anxiety become too similar to differentiate. Likewise, depression can also make it easy to forget that there are people that might genuinely care about your well-being, even if you've already become ambivalent to the idea of still being alive.

Even with therapy and a lot of support, I still struggle with being in that state of mind every day. It makes me wonder if I'll ever reach a point of actually feeling as though my life and everything I'm trying to accomplish is worthwhile.

Validation

From as early as I can remember, I have always been treated as something that exists solely to bend to my mother's every whim. If not, I was always the scapegoat instead. She would pretend to be the epitome of a martyr parent to everyone on the outside, the self-sacrificing mother that would do anything for her child. Yet on the inside, she would use that same act to guilt me into making sacrifices for her instead. She would (and still does) remind me of all the 'sacrifices' she's made to justify everything she knows she shouldn't be asking me to do. How else can a mentally ill parent come to terms with emotionally blackmailing a twelve year old into handing over all of her money just to cover the mortgage? This particular thing happened often in my childhood, if only because she could never stop herself from buying more shit she didn't need.

On the other hand, whenever I bought something for myself instead of donating everything I had to paying the bills, she would make sure I knew what an ungrateful, horrible person I was. Buying anything other than food for myself was, as she once put it, like biting the hand that fed me.

I believe part of this stems from the fact that she sees me as just another part of the hoard, an object without its own thoughts or opinions, and growing up being treated as such explains a lot about why I have so much difficulty with finding validation in myself. It also explains why she reacts with skepticism or negativity whenever I accomplish something for my own well-being rather than hers. It might be a subconscious thing for her, but that doesn't make it any less damaging for me.