Being better at accepting depression

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This topic has 541 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 11 months, 2 weeks ago by anita.

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July 24, 2018 at 5:17 am #218499

Anonymous
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Dear noname:

You are welcome. In your most recent post you wrote that you got frustrated with your supervisor because he never answers your questions, and asks you questions “instead of being direct with what he wants”.

Notice this, three days ago you wrote about your parents visiting you, “they said they wanted to talk about our family history”, that was not true. They were not direct with what they wanted.

And then, your mother “immediately starts talking about how she’s sorry… started crying”, and you suggested in that post that it is her pattern, “she feels guilty and starts crying then I feel guilty/bad”. If your mother was direct with you, she would say to you something like:

noname, empathy belongs to me. I am the one in pain. I matter, you don’t. So forget about you, pay attention to me, my pain matters, there is no other pain but mine.

This is why you are not in touch with your inner child: your mother sent you the clear message that you.. don’t exist really, not as a person with pain. Only she exists. And your father by suggesting to you as a child that your job was to make her happy, didn’t help.

Please re-read what I wrote to you above.

You wrote earlier that you can’t cut contact with them because you depend on them financially. Can you have them give you money (they owe you, I say) without having contact with you, let’s say they deposit the money for you? You also mentioned your sister living with them. Can you not have contact with her outside your parents’ home?

(What is the use of their financial help, I wonder, if your inner child is raging (and understandably so) and causing you to mess up your training).

anita

July 24, 2018 at 6:56 am #218507

noname
Participant

I’ve never taken money from them as an adult and I dont really depend on them financially until recently needing a loaner car from my dad while I get my other car running, and being on their car insurance because it’s cheaper but I still pay. So I kind of depend on my dad to help me with transportation since he has a really nice garage I help build. But that’s it. I don’t have to see them if I don’t want to and I live in another city so it wouldn’t be hard.

My mom and dad are divorced, my sister has her own house, and my mom lives with her. My dad lives alone in the house I grew up in.

My supervisor triggered something in me that reminded me of my parents as I was cursing at him i had a flashback to talking to my parents this weekend, the anger felt the same.

I don’t intend on contacting them at all. I’m worried about my future right now. I don’t know if I’m up for doing counseling as a career anymore because I’m too unstable and dont have a much support. Unfortunately I’m 50k in debt and lack very little to finish my degree, so I don’t think it would be in my best interest to quit now. But im very unmotivated to keep going through my life in this pain right now.

July 24, 2018 at 7:35 am #218513

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

I think you have a great potential to be an excellent psychotherapist. I do hope you finish your studies and become one. I should add, to become an excellent therapist you need to take on your own healing process very seriously. I think it should be your first priority. Do whatever it takes to heal. Number one priority cannot and must not be your sister. Or your mother, or your father.

No one else should matter to you at this point but you, and nothing should matter to you more than your own healing.

Instead of “being better at accepting depression”, be way, way better at accepting the healing process. Begin it and persist. You didn’t start it yet because you didn’t choose you yet, you over anyone else. You didn’t place you yet in the center of your life. Please do that.

anita

July 24, 2018 at 9:43 am #218539

noname
Participant

Anita

Thank you for believing in me. I struggle with focusing on myself and dont even really know what that looks like. I don’t really understand how I can heal myself at this point, I mean I have made progress but most of it has been on an intellectual level and I seldom feel emotionally safe with others. I think the thing I keep coming back to is that I need some kind of motivation for myself to keep trying, for me. I dont know what i need. Having someone to love, being loved, and the idea that I’m I could be loved are the only things that have ever motivated me. In the absence of love I’m depressed and dont try. I will say talking with you is helping more than talking with a friend because you do more than say “you’ll be fine man” which is what I get from friends I never get “what’s bothering you?” Which is really all I need. At the same time sometimes I think Ignore the small samples of love and empathy people do give me telling myself “they will just leave, they can’t be there for you, you can’t depend on anyone but yourself” I’m not sure if that thinking is helping me or not. But i just don’t feel the empathy when people are trying with me and that is so frustrating because I think if I was able to feel a little bit of that love that could help alot.

July 24, 2018 at 10:53 am #218559

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

I understand and thought about it this very morning, before reading your recent post, that your understanding of yourself and your situation is academic. You called it intellectual. What is missing, what you really need in an emotional experience that will give you that emotional understanding to motivate you and give you the push in the right direction.

We don’t really know anything until we feel it.

How to get that emotional experience, is the question. Oh, I wish I had the answer for you. I imagine at this moment, I see you in my imagination looking at the mirror. Maybe everyday you do that you see a stranger in the mirror, but this moment, in my imagination, you are looking in the mirror and for the first time in your adulthood and way before, for the first time you see that boy you always were, you see the hurt in his eyes and you think: oh, that’ is me, right there, all along.

Words, intellect, academic studies and subject matter, all that doesn’t make a difference unless you feel something different, unless you see yourself with your heart, that boy, that hurting boy with dreams and hopes. From personal experience, I can tell you, that everything looks different when that takes place.

anita

July 24, 2018 at 5:41 pm #218597
noname
Participant
Anita

I’m realizing I can hurt indefinitely by the way I am coping (weed, dissociation, withdrawal, & other self harming) and it is not working for me. I don’t know how to ask others for help, nor am i used to it, i always help others and do everything else by myself. Since im not good at connecting with people I believe the only way i can have the needed experience is to create it within myself similar to what you described above.

I do take issue with myself in respect to this lovability issue because i know many people would be sad if i died, but that doesen’t mean those people are connected with me right now, not because they don’t want to it’s just a matter of me having moved away from home for necessary reasons. I also did a therapy group a couple years ago before i started grad school for about 4-5 months and i felt very accepted and loved by that group, i felt so loved during and after that experience that i started a social group with over 200 members, applied to grad school, and asked a woman out i had been scared to. I was definitely running on all cylinders and felt like i could do anything. However, that feeling wore off a few months after the group was over, and i had to dissolve my group because of school.

I think back to that experience often, because it showed me how i could connect with almost anyone. For some reason for the past year or so i haven’t been able to draw on the lovability i felt then to convince me of my current lovability. I feel guilty about this because i feel like im complaining about a problem that doesn’t actually exist and i’m somehow lying about feeling unlovable. But i actually do feel unlovable. Again because of that experience i intellectually know i am lovable, but i can no longer think back to that time and feel it like i used to. I think of that experience as a rare opportunity. I have since tried to find any groups like it , and have been unsuccessful, i think its a terrible phenomenon that there are not support groups for people who are just going through hard times in my area. It’s like i have to be on drugs or chronically mentally ill to get any kind of social support.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by noname.
July 25, 2018 at 5:26 am #218647

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

You “felt so loved… running on all cylinders and felt like I could do anything”, so you already experienced being loved and the benefit of it, that you could do anything.

The feeling wore off as the old neuropathways were activated, reliving your childhood experience. It reminds me of listening to those positive tapes in the early 90s, repeating those positive affirmations about being lovable and capable and deserving good things. It sure made me feel wonderful, calm and energized. Unfortunately those feelings wore off for me too.

The old core beliefs got activated for me too as a challenge appeared, as the situation I was in changed. It takes the changing of untrue core beliefs to make a positive change last through changes of life circumstances, through challenges.

For years, when I looked at myself in the mirror, or saw a photo of me, I saw a stranger, someone I was ashamed of, someone I didn’t like, someone I despised. When I now look in the mirror I sometimes see myself differently. But it is still a process. I expect to see myself more and more as someone I like, someone I respect, someone close to me, not a stranger.

It takes a lot of time to change core beliefs, to rewire the brain. Time and persistence.

What if you start every day by looking at your face in he mirror. Don’t try to force yourself to see yourself as lovable. Instead, try to see yourself neutrally, just look at your face in the mirror. Wonder, who is this person in the mirror. You believe he is unlovable, sometimes you think he is, but are not convinced. Just look at the face looking back at you and consider the possibility that you may have been thinking wrong all these years.

anita

July 25, 2018 at 8:39 pm #218737
noname
Participant
Anita

Thank you i will try your suggestion, and i agree time and continuous effort is what it will take for me to heal. I saw my therapist today and he reframed the events of the week with my supervisor and my parents as me stepping into my authority or my truth. Of course he didn’t condone cussing people out, but it was helpful to realize that I am (painfully) growing to be my truest authentic self. In regards to my motivation he noted that i come to therapy because i love myself enough to want better for myself, even reframed suicidal thoughts as self love in the sense that it is a desire not to suffer if i understood him correctly. Again, i would say the same thing to a client who presented like myself, I just don’t always see myself in a loving way.

On a side note today was not bad, I was able to setup an interview for another internship and class was good. The topic for group class tonight was imposter syndrome or feeling like a fraud. Loaded topic that has a lot to do with self worth. I don’t story tell or self disclose too much in this class because i am the only male, and i don’t necessarily trust everyone, but i do offer insight into some of these issues. The discovery i made tonight is that most of my class mates are just as if not more insecure than i am and share some of the same worries. I have noticed that people frequently quote me in these groups, even things i said over a week ago, meaning that i probably have more of an effect on people than i think, and i might be causing people to think critically. Im shocked at this, someone even let me know how great they felt hearing a compliment from me about their intellect during the group today.

This is good evidence for me of my worth, and discussing the topic of self worth made me realize i have made huge strides in my healing because i am easily able to identify cognitive distortions in others that i have been able to overcome for myself, though i still struggle sometimes nonetheless. I think i left class today feeling as if i am worthy. I know this may wear off, but for toady I feel as if I made a positive impact on others, because of the way i am, not because i tried to help or anything like that but just being myself was good enough today.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by noname.
July 26, 2018 at 3:04 am #218799

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

I like your therapist’s reframing work. I agree with seeing your recent interaction with your parents as you “stepping into my authority or my truth”. I was impressed myself at your account when you shared about your part of that interaction a few posts ago but didn’t process my thoughts in this regard long enough and didn’t share such with you. Now that I read your therapist’s reframing on the matter, I agree.

Good experience at the group. I am not surprised people quote you and that you have a significant effect on people. Your words, insights, your way of expressing yourself is quite powerful. This is something that will make you the excellent therapist that you will be.

I started reading your previous threads yesterday, had the time and I often read members’ previous threads for better understanding as I integrate recent communication with past communication. Would you like me to share what I learn doing this, in my next post to you?

anita

July 26, 2018 at 11:14 pm #218909

noname
Participant

Anita

I would be thrilled to know what you’ve learning about me! I find it absolutely amazing how perceptive you are through only reading people’s words, without affect or body language to guide you. I hope to be as attentive to detail as you are when it comes to listening to people.

Speaking of past posts, I think I will always remember something you wrote about my dating life that was something like wait for a woman who is curious about me. I really started paying attention not just on dates but with people in my life in general. I have since discovered many people in my life are not curious about me, I even noticed this with my mom we would see each other once or twice a month and upon first contact the topic of how I was doing wouldn’t come up until she talked so long about herself that she was able to wonder about me. If I notice this phenomenon on a first date, it’s the last date. It’s not that I don’t want to give people a chance but I think that curiosity is a way to care for someone. It’s like saying I want to understand you and be close to you.

Not the most recent woman I was with, but the one before I was with for a few months I began to notice she could care less about my life, and i remember thinking back to your advice and feeling that something was wrong with the relationship. That wasn’t the only thing I ignored about her either, kind of indicative of where I was then.

Since I stopped smoking weed monday I’ve been noticing my depressed thoughts and feelings are surfacing. This happens every time I quit smoking, I’m forced to listen to my body and mind again and shut off autopilot. That’s why it’s 2am and I’m typing this. Although I feel less anxious than the first couple days of sobriety, I find I can’t sleep. I got 2hrs last night and I’ll get at most 4hrs tonight. It’s really hard for me to relax and my mind wanders back to the Times when I was held and how comforting that was. If only I were somehow able to hold (accept? love?) myself I think my anxieties about life would lessen even more as I feel more secure, and I can sleep again. I remember I got great sleep the first couple years of my relationship with my first gf even though we didn’t live together or sleep together every night, there was something comforting about knowing and feeling attached to someone that made sleeping so easy. No pills just love.

July 27, 2018 at 4:58 am #218923

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

It is amazing that your recent post has a lot to do with what I planned to send you (following my study of your past threads) before reading your most recent post. It is the very topic of love, that “something comforting… that made sleeping so easy. No pills just love”. I do hope you sleep better soon. I don’t know if you are in the state of mind to read my post attentively, having slept so little. If you are not, maybe later.

I think that what I understand from having read and studied your threads over time can be very helpful to you. I think it has the potential to be make the shift that you need, the leap you need to make toward a way better quality of life in-between-the-ears. I would like you then to calmly consider what I write, relax into it (when it is possible for you to do so).

The reason I think this can be that leap opportunity is because what became clear to me recently is that it is not that you understand everything intellectually but your emotional understanding is not catching up with your intellectual understanding, but some of your intellectual understanding is incorrect.

You have a lot of correct intellectual understanding, and lots of education that encouraged such understanding. But the basis of the whole intellectual understanding building, so to speak, is not true to reality, not correct, therefore the whole building is shaky, even though some of the doors and windows are constructed perfectly. Your emotions cannot catch up to your intellectual understanding before you correct that understanding.

There is more in what I learned so far to fit one post. If you want to engage in this process with me, then it will take a few posts. I will end this post and start the Study, Part 1 post next. In this next post I will incorporate your most recent post.

anita

July 27, 2018 at 5:24 am #218925

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname, Study Part 1:

These are March 2017-July 2018 quotes where you state that in-between-the-ears life experience I referred to previously. This is, I believe, your dominant experience since early childhood and through your adult life. A break here and there, some improvements, then back to this very ongoing experience:

“I am so desperate for love, and the hope is what hurts the most… I just want to feel as if i’m cared for… the need is immediate, and overwhelming. I’m so sick of just living with hopes that tomorrow might be the day… I find myself screaming in frustration, and crying… I don’t know that I have the strength to endure for much longer. I really want this pain to stop. I need a hug badly… just knowing there is another human out there who can hear me cry… I still feel alone and empty… I feel like I’ve been going through this pain so long that its hopeless. I have cried.. this empty lonely anxious feeling that doesn’t seem to let up. It rests in my stomach throughout the day… it’s right at the surface… I curled up in a ball on the floor wishing someone could hear me but of course there was no one there… I still feel worthless and have nothing to look forward to… I’m on my own as I’ve always been.. I’m feeling very hopeless and don’t really see the point in trying anymore… I don’t have anything to look forward… I still feel worthless and sad… I couldn’t matter to anther human being”

And now, the most basic element in your intellectual building: you understand incorrectly that your mother (your most physically present parent in your life and the one of the two you feel most empathy towards) loved you and loves you. This is incorrect. She didn’t love you.

Reading your ongoing experience, that which I quoted, this is not the experience of a loved child. “The proof is in the pudding”. The pudding is what I quoted.

If you were not loved, it means your mother did not love you.

Thinking this is impossible for a child, so the child makes believe otherwise. But it is possible for an adult and is necessary to make that leap in healing because truth is necessary for healing.

A label on a container of mustard lists 0 calories, but it is not that there are really no calories in a serving, only too few to matter, and so legally it is permitted for the producer to list zero calories. So is the case here. Not enough love to matter, therefore, I say, no love.

In your most recent post, yesterday, you wrote: I even noticed this with my mom we would see each other once or twice a month and upon first contact the topic of how I was doing wouldn’t come up until she talked so long about herself that she was able to wonder about me”- there it is, that little, late wondering about you is those few mustard calories, too few to matter, to few to list on the label.

Your mother didn’t love you. Your mother doesn’t love you.

When you are calm and read or re-read this calmly, letting it soak deeper than the superficial, let me know what you think and feel.

anita

July 30, 2018 at 1:00 am #219331

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

For a child, his mother is his World. She is his Everything, much like the words in romantic love songs. A child is born into a mental unit with his mother, that mental unit is his World. She is indeed his World.

When she doesn’t love him, it is impossible for the child to maintain awareness of such, so he makes believe that she loves him. But reality doesn’t accommodate this make-believe: he continues to experience, in real life, day after day, the fact that she doesn’t love him and so, he suffers.

He then grows up projecting her into every person he meets. He lives in a World that doesn’t love him, a reject, an alien, unloved, unlovable.

The reason it is necessary for an adult who has been unloved by his mother to stop believing otherwise, is so to know that it is only this particular woman, this one human being who doesn’t love him, not the whole World.

Oh, it is not the whole world that doesn’t love me, the aware adult says to himself, relieved, it is only this one woman, one of billions of individuals, who doesn’t love me. Another person then can love me, it is possible then… it is possible to love me.

anita

July 30, 2018 at 12:47 pm #219455

noname
Participant

Dear Anita,

Thank you for continuing to post and help me, I had a good long weekend I want to tell you about. Unfortunately I have been so busy and sleepless (less than 18hrs last week combined) that im kind of in a zombified state at the moment and will read and respond to these very soon!

July 30, 2018 at 1:16 pm #219457

Anonymous
Guest

Dear noname:

Thank you for letting me know. 18 hours last week means you slept an average of less than 3 hours per night. I sure hope it gets better. Respond when you are able and willing. I will patiently wait until you respond.

anita
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