Fixing chess-based depression

To those familiar with depression, there is nothing funny about it. But for some reason any talk of mental illness brings out immature jokes and/or trolling from tons of people. I have no desire to reveal any personal experience, but I find jokes about depression tasteless. Would you joke or troll about cancer?

I fully agree with you on this, although it has never been just about winning and dominating for me. Realising a plan that I had in mind and set forth from the very beginning of the game, now THAT's very satisfying. For example, if I play an opening that's geared towards a direct attack on my opponent's King, and I get a chance to snatch a pawn on the opposite wing with no clear compensation for my opponent, I'll choose to ignore it and play for the attack any day. Even if that lands me in a position that's objectively inferior for me, compared to the pawn-snatching variation or not, I'd still rather just win by sticking to the principal plan of the opening... and more often than not, when I keep up the pressure like that, my opponents slip up and I win. That's when I really don't sweat the small stuff. So what if I made some mistakes? Big whoop, the PLAN worked, and that's my version of a personal tiny masterpiece that libertadV mentioned.

On the other hand, aside from my numerous snatches of defeats from the jaws of victories by timeouts, it feels the worst when I get shut down right out of the opening and don't even get to play my game, so to speak.

What this all means is, I like to have control at all times, that's what my desire for domination truly translates to... but in retrospect, presenting it as I already have throughout my previous comments here, that wasn't necessarily clear at all. When I feel I lack control, I get angry, and then I talk a big game about how I want violent revenge, when in reality, I might be going through some relatively common thing like being rejected or disrespected or shunned. To me, depression is like constantly surrendering your will over and over - without having your will to begin with.

Now, to address the other helpful comments here, since it seems that a lot of meaningful discussion happened while I wasn't closely monitoring this thread, in part due to RonaldJosephCote's now missing efforts to unite everybody else against himself (thanks for keeping the conversation alive, Ron! ):

I had to google SSRIs, chuddog, and I appreciate the suggestion, but for what it's worth, I intend to avoid any and all non-social chemicals until my psychotherapist suggests I start implementing them. I've had bigger slumps before, and I was advised to get meds (with adequate prescriptions, of course) no more than twice already, but I managed to pull through both times without so much as sniffing a single pill. What recently changed is my attitude toward how productive I should be, and with that change came greater laments, as I very consciously and even intentionally became tired of starting doing something that I loved only to be fatigued and thoroughly discouraged by tiny prodding thoughts about death and failure some fifteen minutes later each time. And while I do understand what ChessVesuvius had to say, I'd say that the necessary will to improve in chess won't just appear from the chess realm itself, especially when you're typically not devoid of any and all depression-related problems... so yeah, flipping the cause and effect.

And speaking of having the will to continue, I can only thank SpiritoftheVictory for sharing his personal story on the matter. I think of you as a very wise and brave person, and I wish you all the best as you wish me.

For suppression of depression , checkmate a dozen sub 1000s