With all the talk about the crucial importance of early childhood experiences, it is important to remember that these experiences are not an unappealable death sentence. People absolutely can liberate themselves from the childhood trauma that is sucking them dry in adulthood, making them depressed, listless, underachieving, lonely, addicted, sick, etc.
One thing people need to seek such liberation is an external source of energy. Their own energy is spilling out of them through the breaches created by the trauma, and they need to supplement it from something that comes from the outside. This external source of energy can be falling in love, interacting with friends, pursuing a hobby, practicing a religion, doing work that one likes – in short, energy comes from healthy, constructive enjoyment (and not from enjoyment derived from self-destructive practices.)
The problem is that many people are too traumatized even to seek these sources of supplemental energy. What they see as love, sex, work, hobby, friendship and religious practice is actually self-destructive, masochistic engagement with the world that reinforces their childhood trauma.
Clarissa's Blog 
Heh. The trigger for getting out of a 4-year depressive episode , for me, was spending 6 months doing nothing but playing one particular computer game, and nerding out about potential interpretations of minute details in that video game (and associated writing by ex-developers) with a bunch of people who lived on the other side of the world. It was a source of energy, and since it had me being awake and sleeping on US time rather than Eastern Europe time, it kept me from interacting with a couple particularly nasty energy drains. That got me well enough to finish my degree, which gave me the boost needed to start going to metal concerts in other cities, which gave me the boost and opportunity to rekindle feelings for an old flame, which gave me the energy boost to go into analysis and after that, if it wasn’t smooth sailing, it was at least sailing with a functional compass&sextant.
I have to wonder though what counts as “external energy sources needed to manage trauma” and what counts as “external energy sources needed for general life.
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That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Sometimes it’s just a little thing that helps one get to a slightly bigger thing, and so on.
After trauma heals, people might discover that they get enormous boosts of energy from the simplest little things that were not even on their radar before.
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And that energy converts to time. I’m amazed how much more time I have for everything nowadays, how much more rich my days are.
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My very non-expert opinion is “if it works it works” go with it.
I’ve never had to deal with depression (in myself) but I think my ability to submerge for periods of time into absorbing (to me) arcane pursuits of interest to approximately no one else in the universe has helped in that regard.
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I’m sure it did help a lot.
It’s much harder for people who only derive enjoyment from self-destructive stuff.
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