I’m going to tell you what I did. Don’t take mental health advice from some asshole in the internet.

I had two extra voices in my head. One would wait for me to be alone, and then bring up all the minutia in my life I was embarrassed about. The other would bring up my most depressing moments and just groan in my ear and distract me.

The first one I built a cabin for, and put him in it. Whenever I would think about one of those embarrassing moments, I’d put it in a plastic garbage bag, open the door to the cabin, and throw the bag as hard as I could into his face. Gradually I needed him less and less. Eventually he disappeared, so I just put the garbage bags in a can outside the door. Nobody lives there now, and the cabin has decayed into just a rough mound of dirt. The flowers from the window-box are growing in the mound.

I was more viscous with the other one. Every time he showed up, I imagined grabbing him by the neck and just pummeling his face bruised and bloody. Eventually he disappeared too.

I can remember those embarrassing moments or the causes of my depression without hurt now. They don’t have power over me anymore.