Depression & The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I feel like I’m at the edge of falling into a deeper depression spiral.

When I was a teenager, trauma led to me becoming severely depressed for at least an entire decade. I became a very angry, bitter, anti-social, misanthropic, and cynical person. It took a long time to heal and gain a positive outlook on life.

I don’t want to go back there, but I can feel those negative feelings and thoughts creeping back in.

Having experienced so much social rejection and negative judgement over the past few years, I want to say “fuck everyone and fuck trying to be nice because I’ll never be good enough for them.”

But that’s exactly what teenage me thought when my depression spiraled in the past.

I don’t want to fester in hate again.

I believe in the self-fulfilling prophecy. This means if I let myself have these sorts of negative thoughts, then I will further repel other people and isolate myself. Increased social rejection means more negative thoughts, and the depression spirals.

Now is an important time for me to actively look for the silver lining in my life and start a positive cycle (or at least prevent a depression spiral). Positive thinking leads to more prosocial behaviour which leads to positive social feedback which leads to positive thinking.

The hard part is changing the direction from negative thinking to positive thinking. This requires active effort and sometimes professional guidance.

Even if positive thinking doesn’t actually lead to more social acceptance, it can boost your mood because you are reframing your perception of events in a more positive way. This is what cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) helps with.

Getting into a positive thinking cycle doesn’t mean you will live in perpetual utopia.

Negative things will still happen.

For example, I still received social rejection despite putting my all into being a friendly person. But because I’m autistic and I don’t mask well, I was misunderstood and rejected by a lot of people in my life.

So shit still happens. 

It’s how you react to these negative events that dictate whether you will spiral into more negativity or not.