Hi Foxtree

It’s interesting that people think there has to be a root cause for depression. Sadness and depression are two different things – in fact, depression can be defined as feeling down and sad with no particular reason No-one would ask “What is the root cause of your appendicitis?”. They would just treat it, and depression is no different.

In your case you have had some deeply unpleasant things to deal with. You have suffered at the hands of someone you once trusted, so it’s not surprising that you try to distance yourself  from people to prevent it happening again. It’s entirely natural that you feel the way you do. So forgive yourself for that. But, as you have discovered, it’s not a great long term strategy, so give yourself the time and the chance to sort it out.

You have taken the first step by seeking advice and help, and clearly understand that your life is your responsibility. But remember that taking responsibility is not the same thing as accepting the blame You are not to blame for everything that has happened to you, but you are responsible for what you do about it.

This was something that it took me a long time to understand. Like you, I was the sort of person who didn’t shirk responsibility. So for a long time I believed that everything that happened to me, no matter how awful, was somehow my fault. But that meant that I was also blaming myself for the outrageous behaviour of others. It’s one thing to acknowledge where you could have done things differently to secure a better outcome. It’s quite another to simply accept that it is your lot in life to be treated abominably.

I can also identify with the seat belt thing – I went through a stage of doing something similar. I think I was almost daring this bully called life, which had kept punching me repeatedly, to do its worst. Not the most sensible solution, but I suppose I felt I was fighting back. But soon I realised that there were better alternatives.

So many people in situations like yours never even dare to face up to it. They deny it with drink or drugs, or stay in abusive relationships. You are coming out fighting, and recruiting support to help you. That is how you will build a network of friends,maybe online at a distance at first, but you will win your battle, simply because you understand what you need to do. This site has a great many people who understand exactly how you feel, people who have been there and got through it. And before long, you will be on the other side of it, explaining to others how you did it.

One day at a time, you will get there, and your next birthday will be so much better.

Stay strong

Hi Sparkle

Try thinking about this from your partner’s perspective. He obviously loves you and is proud to be seen with you. Having you by his side makes him feel confident and attractive, which in turn makes other women notice him more.  He doesn’t understand your concerns because he doesn’t see these women flirting with him as a threat. He sees it as proof that he chose the right partner – after all, if he’s got you, he must be worth having, right?

But by being self-critical you are criticising his choice too. You are telling him he chose someone “rubbish”. How do you think that makes him feel? Doesn’t do much for his self-esteem, does it? The very person who makes him feel so great is telling him he’s deluded.

Put simply, you have a choice. You can wear him down by constantly suggesting to him that he is a fool for being with you, and eventually he will be brainwashed into thinking it must be true, which will make you both sad. Or you can show him some respect, accept that he loves you for who you are, and resolve to enjoy every day that you have together. You don’t have to agree with or even understand why he has chosen you. The fact is, he has, and he has his reasons.

So if not for your sake, then for his, respect his decision, accept that he is capable of deciding for himself, and that he has decided that you are the person he wants to be with, because you give him that confidence that no-one else can. And the next time you see another woman looking at him, just look at her, smile, and hold his arm a little tighter – you’ve made him feel more of a man, more attractive, which is why she noticed him – and it’s exactly why he wants to be with you.

Good luck!

Hi Dagnytaggart

I’m pleased that these articles have a user name because otherwise I might have been worried that I absent-mindedly wrote this myself after a bottle of red…

Having lived with the same feeling for (probably) at least twice as long as you, here’s how I deal with it.

The first shortcut I would offer is, forget the idea that this happens because you are not talented enough or intelligent enough. In fact, the reverse is true – because you are intelligent and talented, you try to take on too much. As you state, you are ambitious and create pressure for yourself because you can’t reach your own standards. You reach for the stars and feel a failure for only reaching the moon. Someone less intelligent would feel happy for reaching the top of the stairs.

So the chaos arises because there is so much going on in your head, and because you feel you should achieve more. As a result, you lose focus, and end up either overwhelmed and achieving nothing, or at best doing a little bit of everything but with little to show for it. The fact is that you are working hard, but not producing all you are capable of. Being told to work harder is like being told to struggle in quicksand – it makes things worse, not better.

The way I deal with it is firstly to write down everything that I need or want to do on a list. I know it sounds basic, but just getting it out of your head and onto paper saves an awful lot of “RAM” in the brain. The bible on doing this effectively is GTD by David Allen, but even just a single list is far better than nothing.

Then, the secret is focus. As you say, you manage to complete your assignments, because they take on huge importance as the due date looms and you have to. So tonight, from your list, select just one task as the thing that you really want to achieve tomorrow. Promise yourself that once that task is done, you will do something pleasurable (this is important). Then, tomorrow, focus on just that one task until it’s done. If you’re like me, you will try to procrastinate on it even then. Tell yourself that you will do it for 5 minutes and give yourself permission to stop then if you want (you won’t).

Do this daily, and you will find that you can build up to (maybe) 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) of the day. Don’t build this up too quickly, or be tempted to exceed this, as you will end up back where you started. You want a pattern of success, not failure. There is nothing to stop you doing another task once your MITs are done – you just don’t have to.

Will doing all this quieten down your creative mind? Probably not. But you will be more productive and a much greater proportion of the stuff that you think about will end up happening. And it will at least be the stuff that is most important to you. Will you reach the stars? Who knows? But you will be making your ideas real and not fantasy, and that benefits everyone.

Good luck!

Hi Mia

I think a lot of us look for external sources to provide us with the things we need – I guess it’s part of trying to return to childhood when our parents provided all of these things. As we grow up we either seek these things from others in relationships, suffer from lacking them, or learn to provide them for ourselves.

The last of these is obviously the preferable solution, as that way we are not reliant on others. But, as you are finding, that is much easier said than done. It’s so much easier to get someone else to do it for us. But, like learning to cook for ourselves, it’s much more satisfying when you learn to do it for yourself. And you seem to be a long way down the line by actually defining it all in a very clear and eloquent way.

Protection can be physical and emotional. If you live in a place that physically isn’t very safe, then you will have some basis for feeling unsafe and anxious, so need to take steps to address that – locks, alarms, etc. From the emotional protection perspective, it’s worth thinking about what has actually happened in the past, rather than letting your imagination run wild thinking of what might happen. How often has your feared outcome actually happened? And how often have you been able to deal with frightening things through your own skills and ability? I’m sure that, if you were to list them all, you’d find the second list much, much longer than the first.

As for feeling lost and needing guidance, that is often down to spending so long living up to the expectations of others that you end up with no expectations of your own. When we are a passenger, it’s easy – we just go where we are driven. Once we are in the driving seat, there’s decisions to be made, things to consider, and responsibilities for outcomes. No wonder some prefer to stay in the other seat. So it’s a difficult habit to break, but start small. Choose to do something just for you, something that you will really enjoy, no matter what anyone else thinks. Learn what it feels to be in the driving seat. Learn to enjoy being in control. Then the guidance will start to come internally, and naturally.

You say you feel alone and in need of comfort. Do you mean you feel alone, or do you feel lonely, because there is a big difference. For myself, I get comfort from being alone, and the loneliest I ever felt in my life was when I was married. I think for you this feeling will be helped largely by doing things for yourself as I mentioned before, the things that really give you comfort. Another thing worth trying is simply in giving comfort to others who are in need – it will give you a feeling of self-worth which will overcome any loneliness, and in doing so address your need for validation, helping you to realise that you have skills that others will value.

The fact is that, when we look externally for things, it’s easy to assume that is the only place we can find them. The fact is, they are within us all, but need to be brought out of us. And we do that by taking concrete actions to bring them to the surface.

How often have you given support to a family member, friend or colleague who felt fear? That’s you giving protection. How often have you offered advice to others? That’s you giving guidance. How often have you supported another person who felt in distress or vulnerable? That’s you giving comfort. How often have you given somebody praise? That’s you giving validation.

So you already have all these things inside you – they just need bringing to the surface. And by giving them to others, you will find them for yourself more easily too. And the odd thing is, those others will be even more likely to give them back to you in return – now that’s real magic.

Hi Penguin

Finishing study is an extremely difficult point in life, but many people don’t recognise it as such. I remember when I was at the same point as you, and feeling like I was alone in a space rocket on the launch pad. Up until then, everything had been mapped out for me, people were there to guide me. Suddenly, it was time to put everything I had learned into practice.

Was I scared? Hell, I was terrified. I thought I was supposed to have everything all mapped out for the next 40 years, and I just didn’t. I had spent all of those years studying, receiving praise for getting things “right”, only to find that I was now in the world of work, where instead of praise you get paid, and if you get it wrong, you wouldn’t get helped, you’d get fired. No wonder it’s frightening.

I took a job in a bank because I thought it would be a guaranteed future. Since then I’ve been made redundant 4 times as a result of restructuring or takeovers. So if you or any of your friends think that they are embarking on a safe and solid career, they are seriously deluding themselves. Who knows, they may still be working in the same field in 2056, but the odds are massively against it.

I don’t know what roles you have been going for, but as someone who has both sought employment and employed people, I can tell you one thing for certain – there may be lots of people looking for work, but not nearly enough who have the right attitude. So you can stand out, not by having a degree, but by having the right attitude to work. Whatever you do, be it freelance writing, studying, helping out, or working in a bar, use it all to build a reputation of being trustworthy. Turn up, do your best and keep your promises and you will be streets ahead of a lot of young people. As a result you’ll be recommended to others and get more work and the financial backing to follow your dreams much more easily.

Your studies will at times have taken you well outside of your comfort zone, so don’t think that any job is beyond you – almost by definition, it isn’t. You have been able to stretch yourself and create things beyond anything you would have thought possible even a short time ago. So keep doing stuff that takes you outside your comfort zone. Do stuff that is uncomfortable and difficult, on purpose, every day. Take an action every day that moves you towards becoming an author. Write a thousand words a day, every day. Get into the habit of becoming a writer. Because those habits will help you in any other work you undertake.

Build your skills and experience to take advantage of whatever arises, and the opportunities that come your way and you won’t fear uncertainty – instead you will relish it. Remember that the world changes very fast. The job I do now didn’t exist 15 years ago, and now it is over-subscribed. My skills are no longer valued, so I need to look to something else that will make better use of them. So whilst it may seem like there are too many people out there chasing too few jobs, the reality is that new jobs are appearing all the time. I’ll bet that not many of your parents’ friends left school to become website designers, podcasters or smartphone engineers.

So all I would suggest is to have confidence in your skills – you have already proved that you have them. And accept that it may feel uncomfortable and alien to you to promote yourself. Once you get used to feeling discomfort and fear and can overcome it, you can do anything. Nothing will frighten you again. You are no longer limited to a cosy, safe bubble – everything in the world becomes yours for the taking.

You have already come a long way and learned a lot about yourself. The mere fact that you are nervous about the next step shows that you have the intelligence to understand what it involves, and that intelligence is what will take you through it in whatever direction you want to go.

Good luck!

Hi Nicole

Really sorry to hear what you are going through. You have been treated badly by someone who has taken advantage of you and your trusting, caring nature. What do you do now? Right now, all I would suggest is that you do something for yourself, no-one else. Of course you can’t concentrate, your mind will be a whirlwind of thoughts. Just do something that you enjoy, and it will help to bring your thoughts back into some kind of order. But give yourself time – it is still very raw right now. You will be wishing that things had turned out differently – that’s only human. It’ll take a bit of time and distance to see it more clearly for what it is.

You deserve to be treated with respect, and your ex-boyfriend didn’t do that. That is something which would only have got worse and hurt more. The thing to focus on is that, despite what he might have been trying to load on you, none of this is your fault. He treated you badly, not the other way around. It’s time to allow your own feelings to come out, instead of him dictating them. Like Anita says, the cell door is open – step outside and be you.

You will feel cynical about love right now, of course you will. But in time you will be able to use this experience to spot the warning signs, to spot when you are being treated badly. And that experience will mean that next time around, you will love and be loved in the way that you deserve.

You will get plenty of support and help from people on this site who understand exactly what you are going through right now. It may not feel like it now, but give yourself some space and time, and you will come through this stronger and happier than ever before.

Hi Ashley

Really sad story. I don’t normally comment on relationship issues as I’m hardly an expert, but I can identify with so much of what you have spoken about that I hope I can help a little. In my case, I suffered physical and mental abuse from a partner who was mentally ill, but it lasted nearly 18 years.

First and most importantly, you must keep well away from this woman for your own safety. She clearly has serious mental health issues and it is clear from her seriously assaulting you that you cannot help her even if you wanted to.

These issues may or may not relate to the things in her past that she told you about, but from experience I would be cautious about taking them at face value. I have often known people who will invent such stories in an effort to garner sympathy, or simply as an excuse to behave outrageously. This has a damaging effect, not only on those around them, but particularly on those who genuinely have suffered such abuse. Whilst there is no way of knowing anything for definite in her case, I would find it incredibly difficult to believe she would let her Grandad babysit her own daughter if he had genuinely abused her. So all I would say is that her statements bear all the hallmarks of being invented to excuse herself, but I accept I may be completely wrong.

The only other important issue is your son, and access to him. You absolutely need to approach the courts to gain access, and potentially apply for custody. You don’t mention whether you have pressed charges relating to the assault but it would certainly be in your and your son’s interests to do so. As a father, I found that the Court was prepared to overlook virtually any behaviour of the Mother (including violence towards me and my children) because I hadn’t made any complaints to the police. In my case, I was trying to hold the relationship together, but you have no relationship to lose. If she is capable of inflicting such an injury on you, she is capable of doing it to a child.

I can fully identify with where you are right now, and it feels completely devastating. The best way I found of working through it was simply taking action and starting the fight for your son. Whatever the outcome, the knowledge that you have done everything that you can will enable you to start healing yourself. In my case, I had very limited success, due to a lazy lawyer and an incompetent Family Court system (which has since been acknowledged). But at least it allowed me to look my children in the eye and live with myself, knowing that I had done everything I could.

Once I resolved that I was going to fight back as hard as I could, not out of spite against her but for the welfare of my children, I felt so much better and more energised, and I’m sure you will feel the same. It’s clear from the way that you write that your focus is on your children. Keep that focus, because it will stop you from pursuing pointless arguments, and at the end of the day it is all about them, not about you and her.

Good luck, my friend, and stay strong.

Hi Ben

I’m glad that your lists are churning out a lot of ideas, but I understand how easy it is to become overwhelmed. I have the same issue myself – so many business ideas that it becomes incredibly difficult to focus on one without part of me thinking “But what about the others?”. I’m at the stage where I have more than enough ideas to keep me busy for the rest of my life, and beyond! But that is much better than the alternative – imagine how it would feel if there was nothing you could think of.

Once you’ve got as much as you can onto your list, the issue will be to narrow it down to target the relevant things. Now, I can completely identify with the red tape and qualifications issue – it often feels as if every possible obstacle is put in the way of anyone achieving anything. But what I would say from experience is, don’t worry about that at too early a stage. In other words, don’t let the qualifications and red tape issue dictate your decision – make your decision and then deal with it. To use an extreme example, if you decided you wanted to become a heart surgeon, there would be a lot of red tape and qualifications involved. But if it’s what you really want to do, you’ll see it through as it will simply be part of the education process that you have decided you enjoy, and you will have the necessary motivation.

As an example of red tape and qualifications in action, I am now having to take a qualification in my profession. I hadn’t taken it before, for the simple reason that I devised and wrote it in the first place, more than 15 years ago, so I couldn’t – I would have been examining myself. But now, the regulator says everyone must have the qualification to do the job, so I have to take it. So I get what you are saying exactly! But if you treat it less as a qualification, and more an issue of learning about something that you are really interested in, it will be less daunting.

Also, never forget that every job has its boring aspects. Many, many years ago I played in a rock band at University. I spent half my time setting up and taking down my drum kit, had hours of practice on my own, and even had difficulty getting the free drinks (which is all we were paid) from the bar because the barman couldn’t see me at the back of the stage. So when I left University and our guitarist asked me if I wanted to go touring with him, it didn’t really appeal. I also did a bit of motorcycle racing, which sounds exciting, but in reality was an hour or so of excitement surrounded by 47 hours of utter, mind-numbing boredom and red tape. So the boring stuff will always be there – it’s just a matter of whether you are prepared to go through it to get the rewards of the good bits.

But as I said before, don’t rush, take your time and consider your options carefully. Keep looking at your list, and there will be certain ones that you keep being drawn back to again and again, and others that you decide are never going to make it to the top of the pile. The answer will come.