[NPMaxwell]

I'm sorry we have switched on resumes from reporting years to reporting years and months. It used to be that even 20 months off could just disappear.

When you're ready, drop this Hacker News name. Switch to something like makingChances.

Sounds like restarting may be helpful -- not expecting to continue from where you were -- getting a contracting agency to pitch you and going from there. Once you're in a job, most people don't care about earlier gaps, except that managers who don't know how to collect people who can do the work get fixated on superstitions.

To restate what you're probably already hearing from your therapist: everyone can become depressed. It's something you learn. Some people are more clever at picking it up than others, but everyone can learn it. Depression is episodic. It goes away and comes back. A common recovery is for the gaps between episodes to get larger and the episodes get smaller. Depression grants three super powers. 1) You can see probabilities and how much control you and others have. People without depression cannot. 2) You are ready to serve, even at the risk of your life. This is something that doesn't apply to most of modern life, but does come up now and then. Think of Oscar Schindler. 3) While in an episode, you can be confident that you will not enjoy things. So if you're trying to resist a bowl of ice cream, you have help: you won't enjoy it.

Your negative thoughts and feelings are a natural part of mammalian neural systems, like kicking when you're tapped under the knee and being able to see dim lights easier if you look a little away. Those thoughts and the feeling of dread are not necessary or helpful (in almost every situation). You do not have to respect them. In fact, when they appear, you can disrespect them. They are just an evolutionary glitch that served primitive communities, but were never in the best interests of the people getting them.