Pride in Depression
An extract from Dorothy Rowe's book Depression.

All of us, when we were children, created our personal myth, the story which we believed would be our life, not just so as to have a map to guide us through life, but to bolster up our pride in response to the insults the world had inflicted on our small person and to give us courage enough to attempt the journey. Unfortunately, we all grow up thinking that the map, our myth, is the reality, and so when our map proves to be inaccurate, as it must, since reality rarely conforms to myth, we all have to face the fearful task of recognising that our map is nothing but a map and that we need to change it, to bring it more in line with reality. To do this we have to admit that we are wrong, and for some of us, particularly you who get depressed, admitting that you are wrong is something that you find very hard to do. Given the choice, you would prefer to be right and suffer than wrong and happy.
As you well know, when we say we are wrong we create an area of uncertainty. If what I thought proves to be wrong, then a whole range of possibilities immediately opens up and it might be some considerable time before I can discover which of these possibilities is right. If you cannot tolerate uncertainty then you cannot afford to admit that you are wrong.
Absolute certainty may appear to you to be a wonderful thing, giving complete security, but have you ever considered that if you want absolute certainty you must give up freedom, love and hope?
Freedom means making choices and allowing other people to make choices.
Love arises spontaneously and is freely given. It cannot be coerced into being and produced on demand.
Hope can only exist where there is uncertainty. Absolute certainty means complete hopelessness.
If we want to live life fully we must have freedom, love and hope. So life must be an uncertain business. That is what makes it worthwhile.
But you want absolute certainty and you have too much pride to admit that you could be wrong. You take pride in seeing yourself as essentially bad; you take pride in not loving and accepting other people; pride in the starkness and harshness of your philosophy of life; pride in the sorrows of your past and the blackness of your future; pride in recognising the evil of anger; pride in not forgiving; pride in your sensitivity; pride in your refusal to lose face by being rejected; pride in your pessimism; pride in your martyrdom; pride in your suffering.
Pride, so Christian theology teaches, is the deadliest of the seven sins since it prevents the person from recognising his sins and repenting and reforming. Sin or not, it is pride that keeps you locked in the prison of depression. It is pride that prevents you from changing and finding your way out of the prison.