I think my mind is broken

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Hey all

My mind feels like a minefield.
The way I've been coping with depression is to shut out things that remind me to think depressive thoughts. I've gotten so good at it, I'm frankly developing some kind of split personality disorder. I'll cheerfully regale any audience about just how quirky and screwey my brain is - I'm doing it right now, as a matter of fact - while the part of me that might potentially *feel* any of the stuff I talk or write about is looking on from its little cage in the back of my mind.

I've spent years of my life disciplining myself to ensure that this emotional mind doesn't ever get out. Occasionally, it'll make a flurry of noise when I meet a nice girl or something, and I - or, what I assume is me - will dutifully beat my emotional mind back into submission whilst marvelling at just how blue the sky is, lest I notice that I'm near other people.
Sometimes, my discipline is weaker, and I'll sit around shaking, and the beating gets more literal than metaphorical. I no longer key my wrists like when I was a teenager. Blunt force is sufficient.

Then, once in a while, I'll actually start feeling something. And, though I know better, I'll let it happen. Sometimes, I don't get a choice - like when a girl I like starts making out with someone - and my brain freezes like a broken computer, all redundantly repeating error messages in the form of intense physical pain. Soon afterwards, I'm reduced to a shambling hulk of a man sitting around weeping outside in the rain.

Days later, I'm back to my normal self. And that's the terrible part. I feel dead inside. Not because of my depression - it never did that. Not because of my medicine - which just numbs the pain. No, I feel dead inside because I've selectively removed every part of my life that had any emotional content. I abandoned friends. I abandoned my memories. I abandoned my identity. I'm literally finding myself incapable of thinking of anything that's happened in my past for more than a split-second, just enough for me to register some part of my youth as being a potential emotionally destabilizing factor.

I think I'm literally terrified of roaming around in my own thoughts, feelings, and memories.

I'm not asking for help - I doubt there's any to be had. But I really want to hear if anyone else has a similar experience of their mind(s)... And if anyone has unwound this sort of system of thought control?

Thank you for reading

English isn?t even your first language, my response won?t be as articulate, so if it doesnt make sense, please ask me a direct question... but I have felt like my brain was broken, so no, you are are not alone in feeling this way...

I?ve plenty of memories that trigger pain, for me there are roughly two types of memories, those that might always cause pain and those I can let go of/make peace with. I reckon this is a permanent feature of my life, so I let go of the less significant pain as much as possible. I started with regular everyday instances, will this matter tomorrow, next week, next year? If the answer is no, then I make peace with the fact that I can?t change the past, but I can learn from it and every time I think of the smaller incident I gently remind myself that I have let go of this small pain for a bigger reason and wait for the feeling to pass. The more I practiced this, the easier it became.

Before I moved away from home I had a change in perspective: this world has hurt me enough in ways that I could not control and if no one cares enough to not hurt me then I must protect myself, the ability to forgive others and myself was crucial for this. (the benefits of forgiveness are for you, not for the other person)
I don?t really have anything constructive to offer, except that caging your emotional voice might not be healthy for you in the long term.

Hi Sorenzo:

You're probably not as bad as you think. I've experienced similar thoughts, had contact with other people, then those thoughts disappeared.

Do you have any "special interests?"