I’ve come to the conclusion that the main problem with depression is the isolation. At least, this is the issues with my depression, but I’m not sure that it is a universal. Perhaps all happy people are the same but all depressed ones unique.

It seems to stem from the complete lack of self worth. If I do not value myself then why would I expect others to? If friends go a time without contacting me this is to be expected, because why would they want to spend time with me? I don’t mean this to sound self-pitying, as though I am sunk in some fug of feeling sorry for myself (although this does happen, on occasion), it is just a self-evident mindset, an obvious state of the world that i accept and love with. So I am (I believe) less likely to go out of my way to contact people, to arrange nights out or get-together, to pick the phone and say hi and shoot the breeze. It doesn’t take long for this to become a self-reinforcing mechanism.

And it can be more damaging than that. It can lead to the Groucho effect; why would I want to be a member of a club that would have someone like me as a member? Surely there is something wrong with people who do want to spend time with you. So you chase people away, pick arguments where there are none - which, of course, is made all the easier by the fact that everyone has their own insecurities. Of course, this manifests itself with those we are closest to; not only are they obviously even more deluded than anyone else, we are just going to end up hurting them anyway. It’s what happens. We fuck up and hurt people and make the world a worse place by our very existence, so perhaps the best course of action is to drive them away early on. Take that minor annoyance or disagreement and build it up, in your own mind, into a major issue that justifies the short-term hurt. Yes, I will have to live with it forever but I’m a freak and I deserve it; I’m sure they’re a normal person who will get over it and, anyway, I’d have hurt them eventually.