I'm not sure what you mean when you say abandon (to) fears. But my experience was that when I could pinpoint the fear, overcoming it by facing it was the way out.

Often as infants we develop legitimate fears in the context of our vulnerable position and extreme dependency on maintaining the parental relationship. These fears made sense then and helped us keep our parents calm, but interrupt our adult lives. These fears are also extremely powerful as our infant brain associates breaking them with a risk of death (typically through abandonment).

However, the brain seems to be remarkably fast at unlearning these fears when it realises they no longer are needed (I will not die/risk death by doing the "forbidden action"). So my experience was that pinpointing the fear, facing it in my life (perhaps initially in the context of the safe relationship with my therapist, and then outside in the "real world"), and watching my anxious reactions which were previously flared up in situations where I was avoiding the forbidden behaviour fade away. It leads to a calmer mind with fewer and fewer situations in daily life which cause anxiety to arise.

Curiosity: what if you've done so and your fears have been reinforced instead?

Background: after a difficult childhood, I did a therapy, discovered self improvement and lived a few years where I faced fears regularly and expanded massively. However, multiple debatable decisions built up to a point where everything broke down. Lost my job, hoped on 3 jobs even worse afterwards, was morally harassed, and the resulting bad mood and general negativity made me lose friends, and be even more vulnerable. Loss of confidence made me sabotage more or less voluntarily other aspects of my health, balance and projects. Therapists, SSRI, etc. no way to get out of it (just lots of money taken away => even more pressure/problems). It felt like death since I had to go through these many years, helpless, hopeless. It was worth than any experience in my childhood, and still traumatizing.

Now, the absence of "death" at an instant t when doing a "dangerous" action doesn't mean that death can't come later as a consequence (ex. tell your opinion at work -> doesn't kill you but if it leads to be fired later and start a cycle like above, it can be dangerous). Therefore there's never validation that my actions don't kill, they're just written on a list, with consequences pending, and the fear of the ultimate judgment is impossible to confront, unless it all happens again and this time I manage it. How would you confront this kind of fears?

Sorry you had to endure this. It's true that adult life is wide and chaotic and you can slowly end up in a black hole situation.

A bed room theory is live small and grow through tiny risks. Small means your life is easier to secure and you can try stuff and fallback as soon as something goes wrong.

It's only a theory, that came up through the realization that a lot of pain comes from bad obligations. Too much mortgage, obligation to stay in a toxic job. Also contexts too large to really know if what you can do or not (such as politics at work).

Thanks, very thoughtful of you.

I was saying almost the same thing as your last line to a colleague, taking many responsibilities in parallel before waiting for full closure, can lead to failing something that you would normally be able to do, just because you were stressed out by the other things you had to do in parallel.

what I found hard is:

- being able to recognize what are too large obligations, with time your nose becomes better at avoiding them quick

- being able to recognize how much I want to bear

- learning to say no thanks

It was a poetic wording that popped into my mind a times. The image of abandoning all defensive reflexes and walking into whatever context you were afraid of and see how it feels.

There's a tendency to avoid seeking reality and stay in fearful predictions based on limited data that we gathered.

All this is probably close (if not same as) CBT. And Yoda :)

That said I often fail to do so. But I used to never try at all.

> There are a few psychological constructs in our head that really tie deep into the mental pain

Indeed, one of those is the 'chemical imbalance' theory of depression, which in itself can lead to a person believing there is no hope because they just are a bag of chemicals.

The way out of this particular conundrum is as the OP stated - therapy which addresses the cause of the imbalance, which has every indication of being an effect of the depression, rather than the direct cause. Change your mind through therapy and non-physical means, then watch the bag of chemicals transform...

So, what type of therapy should one seek out if they get severe depression for a week or so every month, always during their period?

If the "theory" that depression can be caused by chemical or hormonal imbalances is wrong, then what externality is causing such severe depressive swings on such a regular basis, like clockwork?

What "mindset" should a pregnant mother with a history of post partum depression put herself in so that she doesn't feel depressed even after everything goes great and she has a perfect baby and all the support she needs?

> which in itself can lead to a person believing there is no hope because they just are a bag of chemicals.

I'd expect the opposite effect. If we are bags of chemicals, we can change ourselves by altering the composition of chemicals. The hard part is finding the proper balance.

It may not be as simple, i had pills that did influence chemistry (first take was a surprising experience.. feeling your nervous system shift toward mellow was strange). But mental construct of loss were still causing pain as high as before.