Depression and what it's really like

i have post job application depression. i submitted for a 6 month contract at a place i worked before that i know has a terrible commute for me, but it's steady work with the opportunity to move up the ladder. now i feel shitty because i told the recruiter i was interested, when i was gonna tell him i wasn't interested, because of the commute. i have trouble with being (a) assertive (b) realistic.

found a b3ck depression inventory test online and scored a 43 - Extreme Depression, the highest category. makes sense. i've been living with this since i was a kid, so i guess i never noticed ... not much to compare it to. also never had thoughts of killing myself and always thought that's what depression was.

whelp, at least there's a reason instead of "i was born cursed and deserve to live in inescapable hell."

nevermind, scored a 9 on a redo. mostly remembered composites of how i used to feel. i'll let myself out...

at least there's a reason instead of "i was born cursed and deserve to live in inescapable hell.

it was kinda like the dudes who got in an argument about whether this was the best possible world or the worst possible world, both convinced the other and both committed suicide

life's aight, intellectually got the idea that as a human being, my life could be as good as anyone elses... took about 29 years. feeling it is a different story. it's weird, i understand more about life and shit more now than ever, but i also feel the lowest in a long time. i'm going to read feeling good! by david burns and see if it helps. anyone crack open that one?

I found an old addition of Feeling Good on the street. Some of it is dip-shitty and doesn't really resonate for me with true depression, like I get the feeling dude's never been there. But the exercises really do help me a little bit, and are good for general problem-solving and working through feelings. The chapter on recognizing cognitive distortions was helpful.

feeling good handbook?

if it's the david burns one don't forget he has mad clinical cred and many years of group cbt practice at v prestigious institutions went into making that book. at first it will seem dipshitty but that's a cognitive distortion too!

Not the handbook. An older version of http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-The-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346905138&sr=8-1&keywords=feeling+good+david+burns. Also, OTM

^probably contains pretty much the same material, just not as worksheety

i feel dipshitty just looking at the cover tbh. but i guess it looks like the same kind of information i've heard in therapy

tbh i think they market this stuff to look dipshitty, for the self-help crowd.

I'd say it's worth a gander.

don't judge a book by its cover

when you talk about someone and how much they know and their contributions to a field and to get the point across you say "they wrote the book on ..."

it would be fair to say dr david wrote the book on cognitive behavioral therapy

thanks for this info btw, there's a copy in the city library i'm going to check out

Dr David Burns is great! cognitive therapy is great

my issue is that at some point i couldn't locate my distortions anymore. i had worked with one therapist for ten years and she taught me all about david burns and cbt (and christine padesky and dennis greenberger) but suddenly we weren't making any progress ... so we parted amicably and i found somebody with more of a freudian orientation but who also did CBT, but crucially she is also a teacher (of clinical practice of therapy) and iranian-american and from i think a similar family. so she had these insights into the distorted thoughts i had (re: family, work and cultural expectations) that i couldn't identify on my own or w/ my other (very wonderful) therapists

any of you guys not have a family in the emotional, loving, relationship sense? starting to realize this stuff could be related to that. always hard to hear co-workers, friends, people, talk about spending time with their parents, or how they couldn't live without their family. feels like there's something missing here and i get quite jealous and resentful. don't even know how to deal with this, tbh.

I definitely wish I had a more loving & close family. I try to be that family for my siblings to make it a bit easier for them..

i come from a really small family and i don't have any close relatives out here. i'm tight with my parents but i'm lacking the huge warm "family" experience that a lot of people have.

saw a doctor today and got a prescription for paxil. though nothing's really changed and i still wish not to exist, i feel good, as though i've taken a positive step. otoh, it's gonna be two months before they can schedule me w/ a therapist. the suckiness of poverty cannot be overstated.

the suckiness of poverty cannot be overstated.

absolutely, but it's not like having money makes the depression go away -- it just makes the resources easier to tap into.

"i come from a really small family and i don't have any close relatives out here. i'm tight with my parents but i'm lacking the huge warm "family" experience that a lot of people have.

― arvo peart (get bent), Friday, September 7, 2012 2:28 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Exact same for me.

me too
getting over it has been a long process, but feeling bad about it has not yielded a family so i am done with that

i'm trying to get over it, but it's like, that situation, but without the parents ... they're simply missing some piece of their humanity that makes relationships possible. coming to terms with the fact that things'll never change, and maybe it'd be a good idea to treat this like some kind-of disability from birth that takes extra work to overcome.

Family can be support but they can also be part of the problem I find, as far as guilt and self-esteem issues

also it's not going to change since you can't make a loving family materialize, yknow? might as well just absorb it, digest it, and give the bad feelings a viking funeral.

The family in my head, and my forceful avoidance of them, hurt me far more than the actual family in another state ever could.

I find a piece of paper and a pen to be the best therapy there is - if you have the time and a quiet place - I write out my thoughts and if they are fucked up I can notice it better

"i come from a really small family and i don't have any close relatives out here. i'm tight with my parents but i'm lacking the huge warm "family" experience that a lot of people have.

― arvo peart (get bent), Friday, September 7, 2012 2:28 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Exact same for me.

― (✿◠‿◠) (ENBB), Friday, September 7, 2012 1:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I come from a larger family, but I'm lacking the warm "family" experience as well.

actually my extended family is quite huge and it never really seemed all that great to have such a thing - mostly the greatest thing is to have people who accept you for who you are

"i come from a really small family and i don't have any close relatives out here. i'm tight with my parents but i'm lacking the huge warm "family" experience that a lot of people have.

― arvo peart (get bent), Friday, September 7, 2012 2:28 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Exact same for me.

― (✿◠‿◠) (ENBB), Friday, September 7, 2012 11:53 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my fam is all back east and a bit scattered (dad in rochester, bro in chicago area, mom in illinois stix), my wife's family here is pretty small and going through some grim aging stuff + her grandparents just moved up to the bay area, leaving just her parents. and all of her relatives here (distant ones, but fairly numerous) and family friends are between the ages of 65-90. the family experience here is weird, not cold, lukewarm maybe.

hey this whokle "lacking thing" - that's part of depression too. you project this ideal family experience onto other people and minimize their problems and then maximize your own.

"every happy family is exactly the same, every unhappy family has its own problems"

maybe it is the depression affecting it, there's this thought that these feelings can't be overcome or something and it'll never end ... which i get with a lot of things. even today just confronting this stuff honestly i feel a little more at ease. i think i'll start tackling that dr. burns book this weekend.

good for you

I've been really struggling again as this year has worn on... this month, September 2012, marks three years of my attending weekly group psychotherapy, and I'm facing the feeling that, after all that time, nothing has really changed at all, and a hopelessness that it never will.

this is it? 35-70 more years of this bullshit? i don't want that.

i just don't understand why i even bother with it, feel like i've seen or done everything but travel the world and all of it turned out to be shit.

i wish i could say something useful but this is kind of exactly where i am, so.

However far or fast you run, you can never escape yourself.

It's an age-old, well-known reality, but then "cliches happen!"

"three years of my attending weekly group psychotherapy, and I'm facing the feeling that, after all that time, nothing has really changed at all, and a hopelessness that it never will."

Perhaps a different therapy would be better for you

i agree latham, it's okay to shop around for a therapist / therapy that makes you feel better

I have talked to people who said they went to therapy and it was shit - I mean I guess therapists are people too, making mistakes, and since its kind of one of those "art and a science" things maybe there should be some kind of like matching service to match clients with the right therapist or something

I haven't gone to therapy, but I can't imagine it's a cure-all ... no matter what we have to work through, we gotta do it ourselves and nobody else can make that happen... help, yeah, but help only works after we do the heavy lifting, which can seem like a catch-22.

I know several people who've been in therapy for years and they just keep getting worse, unfortunately. The value I see out of therapy, for me at least, is just having someone to talk to about these things... I imagine it'd be a cathartic experience. Of course, issues may vary.

I think there is allot of theraputic value to having someone you trust listen to yoru thoughst ina non-judgemental way - just venting it out - and also to having someone question yoru beliefs too

no matter what we have to work through, we gotta do it ourselves and nobody else can make that happen... help, yeah, but help only works after we do the heavy lifting, which can seem like a catch-22.

Well, you're right, that IS a catch-22. I'm not depressed and I've never been to therapy so take this however you like but that seems like the kind of defeated thinking that keeps you from starting to do anything. And also like the depression talking.

What I'm saying is distortionalertsiren.jpg

Huh, maybe depression's more insidious than I thought, here I was thinking this is good sense. Sure as hell hasn't helped me, though. I think I'll refrain from giving advice for a while.