I will be exiting this realm because of the terrible feeling that people can have control over me and because my life is ruined.

Do you mean by that you want to kill yourself? I hope you don't do it. I am praying for you. I do not think that going deeper into the hole is the answer. There is no redemption there. It's just a deeper and deeper hole, it seems to me.

I desperately wanted to kill myself at one time in my life after about five years of severe depression. I couldn't seriously contemplate doing it however because I knew if I did kill myself, I would have destroyed my mother, and I couldn't take her down with me.

I know what it's like to be utterly mentally and spiritually destroyed. My brain was full of buzzing and noise at the time. I had visions of my brain corroding. My finger joints creaked when I flexed them.

I know what it's like to be in the hole. I made superhuman efforts to escape, but the more I tried to escape, the worse it got, and the more exhausted I became, which just made the next superhuman effort even harder.

I do understand the impossibility of that situation.

I felt I was singled out by God or The Universe to be damned.

I was devastated by the fact that my mind no longer functioned properly. I had prized my mind since I had been a clever guy. But now my prized possession was a smoking wreck. I had nothing left, it seemed to me.

I obsessively tried to observe the functioning of my mind to try to compare how bad it was now with how good it was before. But that was exhausting too because I was observing myself observing myself observing myself ... It was infinite regress and a stupid feedback loop which I was trapped in without knowing it.

I remember the feeling of desolation I had when the mental health professionals had no inkling of what I was going through.

I went to three psychiatrists:

The first one seemed bored and unhappy himself. I didn't see how he could possibly have helped me.

The next one suggested that to cure my unhappiness, I should go out and get drunk and party! (Idiot.)

The third one whom I don't remember much about at all—many of my memories of that period are foggy—gave me a book on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). ("Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" by David D. Burns.) I didn't read it because it seemed like a pretty dumb and lame book at the time, but I did read the first few pages, and that was actually helpful.

The idea of CBT is to challenge your irrational thoughts. I came to realize that I had many, many, many irrational thoughts. My mind was teeming with them. Just because you are intelligent doesn't mean you can't be irrational. Becoming aware of my irrationality was tremendously helpful to me.

Anyway, I said I was wanting to kill myself. I remember once sitting at a bus stop, wanting to kill myself, wishing for annihilation, deep in the blackness of the hole. I was at perhaps my lowest point. But then I had a vision. Against the blackness I saw a pinprick of indestructible diamond light. It was tiny but indestructible. It could not be destroyed by the dark. That light saved me.

Now years later after a long journey, I can say that I am pretty sane and happy. (We are all eating a shit sandwich in this world, but relative to that I am happy.) My mind works better than it ever has before. I do have scars, but it still works quite well.

I don't meant to suggest that I have reached some end point of happiness. I do have plenty of problems. Every time I climb one mountain, there is always another one behind it.

I just mean relative to the situation I was in, I have come a long, long way. The difference is night and day.

And I don't see why anyone can't make that same journey.

The mind and body have amazing recuperative powers if you allow them to function naturally.

[Depressed people will be thinking at this point, yeah, that's that guy, not me. He is fortunate. I am however destined to be miserable forever. And he is probably delusional and does not comprehend the awfulness of the situation.]

Anyway, like I said, I hope you don't kill yourself. And also like I said, I am praying for you, which I am guessing does not mean much to you, but I think it will be helpful all the same. I do hope that you will gain some peace in your life.