Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts on this. I have found it more helpful to see depressing thoughts simply as depressing thoughts rather than "irrational" ones myself, as our automatic minds have their own kind of logic going on, often extrapolations from what has happened in the past, and calling them irrational can just set up a second layer of misery where now we are judging our minds for doing what they do AND feeling the sting of the initial thought. Finding ways to balance negative automatic thoughts with other things that are also true is helpful. I also find it helpful to meet those thoughts with compassion and to spot the values under the negative thoughts, reflect on what matters most right now, and take small steps towards those values.