I don't know where this "not doing anything about it" belief comes from. I saw a therapist for seven years. I stopped because I realized therapy does nothing for me. There is a difference between believing something and simply hearing it. How do I make myself believe things that I don't?
You can't make yourself believe something any more than you can make yourself love someone. Belief isn't something you can just
do.
So, in absence of belief, you have to use
reason. You look at your life and say: is there any particular reason for me to be unhappy right now? Or am I simply
feeling unhappy? If you have particular reasons, then what
are those reasons? Make a list. Once you have your list, you go through it one by one and say "can I change this?" If no, you have to simply accept it as it is. If yes, you have an ancillary list, like in an outline: what can I do to change this one thing? (not the main thing, just that one list item) Then go over
that list and say "Can I have a
reasonable expectation of doing this part of the thing I need to change in order to change the reason for my unhappiness? Is this something I can change at all? If not, you accept it as it is.
For example (and I'm using your example but answering the questions myself):
I see a young guy on a skateboard. The first thing I think is "I wish I was able to skateboard." But I remind myself how clumsy and unathletic I am. How much I would be afraid to fall if I got on a skateboard. And then I remember how most men aren't dominated by the fear I have. But then, they are real men, I'm not. I'm a wimp. A pussy. A weakling. Let's break this down.
I wish I was able to skateboard. OK, but what practical use is it? Unless you're Tony Hawk, being able to skateboard is about as useful as doing tricks with a yoyo or blowing smoke-rings. But let's say we want to skateboard just for fun. Let's address why you can't:
I am clumsy and unathletic. Most people who are unathletic are so
because they're clumsy, so let's conflate these things for convenience.
Why are you clumsy? Do you have a poor sense of balance? Do you have poor hand-eye coordination? I have both of those things, my inner ear has
since birth been a little wonky, and so my balance is off; my hand-eye coordination never developed well because I couldn't do things to develop it without losing my balance... we didn't have video games back then. As a result, I'll never play baseball, or dance ballet, or ride a skateboard.
Conclusion: if it's your inner ear that's the root of your clumsiness, there's absolutely fuck-all you can do about it. So you have to simply accept it as a condition of living, like sweating and shitting.
I would be afraid to fall if I got on a skateboard. Well, of course you are, that's a perfectly rational fear. You've already established that you're clumsy, falling off is a foregone conclusion. Only an idiot would put himself in a position to fall down. Furthermore, the people you see skateboarding brilliantly have fallen off so many times that they lost count. They willingly courted injury, willingly sacrificed their bones, in order to master a skill with no practical value.
Conclusion: you're not afraid, you're sensible.
I remember how most men aren't dominated by the fear I have.How do you know that? It's fatal to judge your insides by other people's outsides. Most people
do actually experience fear pretty much every day. But the definition of courage is not the absence of fear (absence of fear is a sign of psychopathy; all
thinking humans feel fear) but pushing through and doing the thing anyway. However, to push through and do the thing requires a
reward; some people (like skaters and bunjee-jumpers) are rewarded by the endorphin rush of doing something dangerous, but the rest of us require something a little more tangible. So, is the thing you're afraid of doing really
worth doing? Will it make your life better? Will it make you happier? Will it win you cash and prizes?
Conclusion: So you can't ride a skateboard. Big deal.
Final Conclusion: I can't ride a skateboard because I have poor balance. I can't do anything about that, and there's no good reason to do anything about it, so I'll just content myself watching others do it.
You can do this with pretty much anything. I mean, I have this pathological fear of rejection, too; this fear ill-suits me to certain pastimes, like dating. But is overcoming my fear worth the reward of being able to date? People I know in relationships aren't any happier than I am. People on TV and in movies are, but they aren't real. What am I losing by being afraid of rejection? Not much.
Of course, there are times you will need something bad enough to push through the fear, like getting a job. But what are your other choices? Not get a job? Go on SSI and live the rest of your life on a pittance? Go live under a bridge? Those are scarier than the scariness of looking for a job, so you push through... not because you
believe you
can, but because you
know you
have to.
So yeah, drop trying to
believe things. If you take a thought and subject it to reason, you'll know if it's yours or your depression's.
Like, all your friends who think you're a great guy; you disagree. So, what difference does it make? If you can fake being a great guy, you're doing better than all those other worthless dicks out there who can't maintain a relationship. That's not a believe, that's knowledge. See what I mean?
And finally, there's more to treating an ailment like depression than talk therapy. I mentioned three other things that I myself use all at once, there are at least half a dozen more out there. Like any other chronic illness, you have to
keep treating it in perpetuity; the treatment you're on now might not work, but if you stop trying new treatments until you find the one that does work, you've doomed yourself to terminal progression. When there's no cure, you take treatment or you die.
It's like people read a subject heading and look for a punchline with little regard to the actual issue at hand.
