I am not suggesting that you are hiding your pain on purpose.
But my thought "running around in a circle"
needs elaboration.
We Fe auxiliaries and inferiors have an urge to help other people, and sometimes we forget about ourselves. When we - our conscious - make decisions, then a bunch of decisions are also made by our subconscious, of which we are not aware.
You are involved in things where the purpose is to help people: being a surgeon, helping addicts. That is adorable.
Extrinsic emotions arise from people that you know or events that happen to you, for example having a partner or doing gardening. Intrinsic emotions arise from the inside. They are independent of things happening on the outside.
I suppose that your choices reflect extrinsic emotions. That you are still depressed means that you lack intrinsic happiness. Those emotions arise from the subconscious. Experiencing extrinsic unhappiness means that you rebound after a while due to intrinsic happiness that is stronger.
There are various ways of treating depression. But do those ways treat the symptoms or the cause? If they treat the symptoms only, then that follows the worldview of mechanistic physics (Newtonian physics). The alternative is quantum physics. Let us distinguish the two with a couple of examples.
going to a psychiatrist -> getting a diagnosis -> getting pills prescribed -> treating the symptoms
playing sports -> treating the symptoms
doing gardening -> treating the symptoms
vs.
asking yourself what you want or need, being introspective -> getting to the root of the problem -> treating the cause
Some things such as getting a pet, doing reiki or meditation ought to belong to both groups. You might find out what it is that you want or need and thus be healed, but you might just as well not unlock your subconscious completely.
The ideal is to become a Buddhist monk and achieve the state of Nirvana. Then, you have purged all extrinsic factors that affect emotions and there is only intrinsic happiness. But the Buddha was cheating. Modern people have lots of responsibilities from which we cannot escape. That makes it a bit tougher. :eyebrows:
Before finishing, let me suggest the following things for manifestation:
* With manifestation, you can do two things: imagine yourself (1) doing something (2) feeling something.
Doing something means climbing K2 for example. You enjoy climbing. What does it feel like reaching the peak?
What does it the wind blowing in your face feel like? What are the colors of the sky?
Regarding feeling, imagine yourself being full of joy for example.
* If you do not know what you are looking for, let the answer come to you instead of searching for it. Manifest that you will find the answer. Ask the Universe for help and guidance.
* If everything fails, go for the nuclear option. Albert Woodfox, one of the Angola Three, was just released from prison after 43 years in solitary confinement. If you were him and had to leave everyone behind, what could you do manifest positive emotions? You have no extrinsic happiness to rely on, e.g. your cat.
Intrinsic happiness is the only option.
I am exhausting myself. Psychology is not my thing really. But it is worth the effort.
So what I have been working on is to reach that state - using a mish-mash of stuff that I have been reading. I think that I am succeeding. Switching to vegan food and doing meditation helped a great deal. But there seemed to be something missing. There was some negativity that I could not reach and that no external factors could affect. The only plausible factor was an internal one. My writing here is part of my own rehabilitation.
There are many ways to reach the same goal. I hope that you will find your own. I wish you all the best for the future, @
Skarekrow.