Caught in a Cycle of Depression and Acting-Out

Reader’s Question

I have been battling depression most of my life. I have been off and on medications for about 13 years. I feel like I am not getting the answers and help I need. I take my meds for about 2 years and then feel like I am OK — and I am, for about 6-8 months — but then I find myself taking money from people, mostly my family, and have been charged now 3 times for theft. I tend to hurt the people that are closest to me, either my family or my best friends. But every time this has happened is when my life is good and successful. After I do it I feel like I am not the one who did it. I feel like that person is not me because I hate hurting people; in fact when I am doing well I would do anything in the world for anyone. But after I do something wrong I know it and I go into a deep depression and feel like I should just die so I won’t hurt anyone else. I feel like I don’t deserve to be loved by any man and when one does love me I accuse him of cheating on me when he really is not. It is like I need him to because I don’t think he should really love me. I just want to live a normal life. Is this possible?

Psychologist’s Reply

You are probably battling a combination of chronic depression and personality issues. Antidepressant medications do work on their own, but their response is significantly improved when we combine medications with psychotherapy/counseling. This may be your problem. Your depression acts to suppress your personality issues and problems. When you start coming out of the depression, the personality issues become more active and you “act-out” as we say in mental health work. As you observed, the acting-out (thefts) is followed by another cycle of depression/guilt. This cycle has likely been going on for many years.

Your best bet is treatment with a combination of medications and psychotherapy/counseling. Your personality issues are not being treated at this time. You are describing a type of self-defeating personality which can be addressed and treated in psychotherapy. However, we have no medications for self-defeating behavior. You’ll need both to successfully stop this cycle of depression-acting out-depression.

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