The wide reaches of depression

It's amazing to me how much of my life was, and really still is, affected by the depression.  I'm not sure which came first, the depression or the real belief that I wasn't valuable and didn't deserve nice things.  This second thought really permeates everything.

The thing is, when you don't believe you are valuable, it affects everything you do.  I devalued myself so much that I would purposely make things ugly, or not nice, or sabotage things to make sure they weren't good for me.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point.  I thought I deserved the bad things that happened and so then I also created bad things and then thought I deserved those also.  It's a nasty circle and then once the depression starts, there is no way out.

One example is that I never really have cared about making my living space beautiful and nice for me.  I live there because I have to live somewhere.  Lately, I've been thinking about what I can do with where I live now to make it a great space for me to live in.  To me, this is a sign of good things.  I am finally finding ways to honour myself and to take responsibility for my life.  I know this might seem small, but to me it is huge.  I can see that I deserve to have a nice place, one that suits me. 

One step at a time is the way this is working.  Sometimes I see things that give me hope, other days that is hard to find.  But, the hope is winning out more often now.  And I see things are different, better for the most part.  It makes it easier to keep going.