# BREAKING FREE (A Response to Depression)
**[Chorus]**
I thought I lost myself, mm
Got trapped inside my brain
I thought I needed help, mm
But I was looking the wrong way
I blamed the cards they dealt
Like there was nothing I could change
But when I looked within
I found the power to rearrange
**[Verse 1]**
Sometimes I sit and I deconstruct all the old lies
Patterns I can finally track
I kept on running these mental loops that controlled my mind
Till I learned to push back
I'm not my thoughts or my feelings, mm
I'm the awareness that watches them revealing
Schema therapy showed me childhood wounds I've been concealing
Narrative therapy helped me rewrite the story I've been dealing
Now there's somewhere to run, somewhere to grow
Not liquor bottles, but journals filling the floor
Understanding the space inside my heart and my soul
Wasn't empty—just waiting for me to take back control
**[Chorus]**
I thought I lost myself, mm
Got trapped inside my brain
I thought I needed help, mm
But I was looking the wrong way
I blamed the cards they dealt
Like there was nothing I could change
But when I looked within
I found the power to rearrange
**[Verse 2]**
These thoughts were draining all my energy, mm
Until I learned from the Stoics about what I can control
Not the external world that triggered me, mm
But my perception, my judgment—that's where I find my role
Epictetus taught me that it's not events that disturb us
But our views about them—the internal fuss
The enemy wasn't depression, wasn't life being rough
It was my identification with the struggle, holding too tight to the stuff
That I labeled as "me"—"I AM depressed"
But Buddha showed me that's attachment to suffering's address
The Self is just a story that we tell and profess
When we cling to our pain, we create our own mess
The pills might numb, but they won't set you free
'Cause the prison isn't chemical, it's identity
When I decided "depression defines me"
I gave it power to bind me
**[Bridge 1]**
Should I drown all these thoughts? No—I watch 'em float
Stoic equanimity says don't rock the boat
Don't identify with emotions, just take note
They arise and they pass like clouds—I'm not the smoke
I got all of my schemas from childhood's pain
But narrative therapy helped me reframe
Not "I'm broken," but "I learned to sustain
In difficult conditions"—that rewrites the shame
Schema therapy showed me the patterns I repeat
The abandonment, the defectiveness beneath
But once I saw them, I could finally meet
Myself with compassion and find relief
**[Verse 3]**
Christ taught me something that changed the whole game
Agape love—selfless, not seeking acclaim
When I stopped obsessing over my own pain
And started serving others, I broke the chain
Self-dismissal through selflessness, that's the key
Not self-hatred, but "it's not about me"
When you dedicate your life to God's mission, you see
There's no room for self-pity when you're serving the free-
dom of others, the healing of souls
You decide
