Lesson Five: It’s Not Me, It’s You. Time to Break Up

This lesson is designed to give you a physical manifestation of choosing to heal and “break-up” with depression. Depression controlled me much in the way that an abusive partner can be controlling. In order to heal we need to be firm in our resolve.

Write a Break Up Letter!

Write your depression a break up letter. Remember to be gentle and honest. Below is the break up letter I finally wrote to myself last year. You can use this idea for any of your habits that you want to remove from your life. Saying things like this out loud helps to rewire your brain and gives a sense of control over your depression as opposed to the other way around.

Action:

Write a break up letter with depression and bookmark the page so you can read it whenever you need to remember that the relationship is over.

Dear Depression,

Our time together has come to an end. We met under stressful circumstances and bonded over some heavy stuff. Somehow, we made it through the years together, but it’s time for us to separate. We are not happy together and we never have been. My interests have changed from self-loathing to self-love while yours have not. All those times when you continued the negative thoughts and put me down caused me to cry untold amounts of tears. The ways you taught me to be envious of others and think they were better than me caused my self-worth to plummet. You have an easy way of making things that are new and different seem terrifying, as if I’m ‘just not good enough’.

You have taught me a lot about how to under value life, but I can see that my abilities are limitless. I can see that solutions exist even in the stickiest situations. I am so much stronger now than ever before. If there is one good thing I can say about you, it’s that you have caused me to be a strong person with compassion for others who suffer from mental illness and the stigma society has given us. Because of you I can show more understanding to others because I know how depression can paralyze a person.

I don’t hate you. You will always be a part of my authentic self. I already look back at our time together with a hint of gratitude that we met.

Wishing you all the healing you need, My Best Self.

P.S., If you follow me I will not invite you back into my heart. This is the end.

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Feeling overwhelmed from this lesson? Need a fun break?

Grab your crayons and print free coloring pages from my Coloring Book page.