Depression and what it's really like

what right thinking person can believe this crap? this is yet another case where following intuition was the right way to go.

this Louise H4y crap seems fucking dangerous, I can't believe she's been pushing on me to get with this. this is yet another "aha!" moment where I realize I'm in a fucked up situation by ignoring my inner warning flares... which started like, second session. she has helped me, though, and I ignored most of the weird crap she's been trying to suggest to me, so it ain't all bad. anyyyyyway.... back to regular programming.

It's incredibly frustrating to have this one area of your life that just consistently rears its ugly head and really undermines all of the good things you have going on. Like I know parts of my brain should be "just STFU and be thankful for the good things", but that tactic hasn't been working as of late.

ok, ok, one last bitching from me before I get back to work on myself, i'm feeling way in the dumps now and just need to get it out. i'm getting so damn sick of being a weirdo and never really fitting in anywhere. my whole life i just wanted to jam a railroad spike into my head so i could be like everyone else. i'm so sick of having to hide who I really am and not having any kind-of environment where I can really be me and express myself. like, i need to work my butt off and take the initiative to find my place, but i've experienced so damn little of it I don't even know where to begin.

at my job, and most jobs i ever worked at, no matter how much progress i make in therapy i'm never going to really fit in and there's a low ceiling to how much i'm going to be able to get along with people. or environments like this. or places like where i grew up. which is pretty much the mainstream majority kinda thing. i guess i need to accept that. huh. well that blows. i wish there were more people like me out there :{

woah! think i'm starting to make sense of this. sorry for typing out all this crap here, feels like i'm inside a black hole atm.

i'm getting so damn sick of being a weirdo and never really fitting in anywhere.
soon you'll turn the corner and join the rest of us who feel that way and are ok with it :)

you're gonna be ok. have you thought about art therapy of some kind? this made me think you might enjoy it i'm so sick of having to hide who I really am and not having any kind-of environment where I can really be me and express myself.

what is art therapy, exactly? honestly i feel most at home when i'm at some bizarre music show or experimental "happening"... i always leave stuff like that feeling rejuvinated. i used to take friends and girlfriends to stuff like that and they'd always say, "that was really weird, man, i don't know..."

I meant like making art therapeutically -- using art as a medium to discuss things, I guess? Pouring your heart into noises or shapes and colors or cutting up magazines or whatever floats your boat!

hmmm ... that could be fun. creating stuff is this totally essential part of myself that i feel like i'm missing right now. i used to write, draw, and make music like crazy from about age 7 til graduating college, then i died inside when i went into ADULT WORLD 5000. thanks for the suggestion.

i'm getting so damn sick of being a weirdo and never really fitting in anywhere.

xp - I know the feeling! Suerte to you.

hey spectrum, sorry to hear you're feeling so low. fwiw, i can relate in a lot of ways. i'm feeling more worthless & alienated than i have in ages, genuine black hole shit, but i've been on the other side of it, and i know that feeling like a "weirdo" (or w/e) can be pretty damn great, too. liberating, empowering, kind of thrilling when you make it work for you, not against. i mean, everyone i've ever loved has been a stone cold freak. god bless 'em all.

thanks contendo, it's good to know i'm not alone. good luck getting out of the black hole, it's not a fun place to be.

funny, what makes me weird in the 'burbs were actually huge assets for me in NYC, i just wasn't ready to be uhhh ... accepted yet, i guess. i should think about moving back there, i just wish it wasn't so damn expensive.

grass is always greener man, don't discount yourself too much

i talked about this feeling different stuff with my therapist and I don't think she believed me. she thought i was looking for ways to reject people or something. which would be all fine and well except for the fact that I've spent my whole life trying to "belong" with your average red-blooded American, and it failed miserably every time. i always made 100% of the effort and it was never reciprocated, on top of me losing my identity in the process.

like, good idea to keep myself open to people and relate to them to the best of my ability, cuz we're all human beings and all, but that's what i'm bringing to the table here. ugh. i'm starting to feel really confused and weird after every session now.

like, this is one of the central reasons why I think there's something wrong with me and that I'm a pile of garbage, and I feel like she's telling me to do the very things that led me down that path in the first place. i don't know, I'm not sure if she knows the whole story and is just going on common sense as she knows it ... i'll figure it out.

yeah, my therapist was right, this is all my fault and i'm not trying hard enough. i feel like total shit right now. maybe I really should find a new therapist, or maybe I'm completely nuts. i don't know anymore. hurrrrrrrf.

you're definitely not alone

I'm not an incredibly social person within my interests, but having different friends who relate to different things helps. Or even a family member or coworker you can at least vent to about your frustrations with no expectation of commiseration, necessarily.

having something like ilx is nice in that it's a sort of support to know that there are other people with diverse or fringe interests doing things

there is definitely a relatable core to human interaction, but for some of us, the baggage of the small talk and things that people use as shortcuts to casual conversation -- sports, fitness hobbies, shuttling kids to soccer practice, church -- are the things we're just not into.

Is the cd helpful at all beyond the magical thinking weirdness?

i can't speak to yr situation, spectrum, but lately i come away from therapy feeling like complete shit. it's not my therapist's fault, though. i'm being forced to confront and admit things i've spent years avoiding, forcing myself to do this. being stripped of the carapace of denial makes me feel miserable and worthless, a wretched bug exposed to unforgiving light. i understand the value my suffering, though. better to feel the full weight of my choices & situation than distract myself with numbing trivialities (hallo, ILX).

like you, i often feel profoundly, helplessly alienated. i'm convinced, however, that this sense of rejection is self-imposed, or at least the inevitable product of choices i voluntarily make. i know that i've been waging a war of passive refusal my whole life, letting shit slide, letting myself slide, dodging real responsibility. this is a kind of hostility, oppositional defiance, an infantile stage we're supposed to grow out of. i can't deny any of that. even if i don't know why i'm passive lashing out at the world, pushing it away, i can't help but see the pattern.

that may not have anything to do with what you're going through, but maybe it's the lens through which your therapist is viewing your situation? it's a very common diagnosis...

xp thanks, mh. ilx is totally cool like that, a safe haven for the weirdos of the world. i totally appreciate all the cool folks on here, and the support i've gotten here.

don't want to sound like a douchnozzle, but in kindergarten i was labled "gifted" by the school psychologist, and after researching some issues i had, websites kept popping up on that subject. here's a pdf outlining it ... maybe some y'all can relate. http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Articles/counseling/c230.pdf

I kind of feel like schools are getting better at some programs after determining that labeling kids in such a way sometimes seems prescriptive for kids, and if they don't necessarily learn new concepts (or things that require practice to master) that they're failing in some way. I spent years dodging things I felt weren't my strength and never learned persistence.

I got to be in a lot of really cool classes in elementary through high school, though. It was as if being good at normal education opened up the ability to work on creative or critical thinking education. Kind of the opposite of the way it should be, really.

I guess the relation to this thread would be this -- such labels can be prescriptive in a destructive way and a lot of life is determining that /everyone/ has the potential to be gifted or weird or an outsider in their interests and exploits and this isn't something that separates you from others.

hey contenderizer, that's a good point. i know my therapist is right to some degree, but this shit is so friggin complex it's really hard to deal with casually. i think i need to take a breather and really consider everything in an easier state of mind. like, put it on the backburner until I can get some chill time. trying to parse this stuff at work isn't really helpful. and i totally relate to what you're saying, so you're not alone.

i unno mh. the label didn't affect me much other than being aware people thought i was 'smart'. i brought it up because it involves way different things than just interests, exploits, achievements, etc. i sorta regret even bringing it up, it's a loaded issue because there's so much social status baggage behind things like that. i know i'll work it all out.

that's cool

it sure made me feel like I was a failure if I didn't immediately grasp all things

:{ sorry, i wasn't trying to be a jerk or anything. i feel like a butt now.

oh, no! I was trying to relate a bit but we all have our own problems to carry around. don't feel burdened by anyone else's. * thumbs up *

oooooh, ok. just assumed i was being an ass for some reason and totally misread it. reading it the other way, i feel the same way, too.

fuck i need to chill the hell out! thank god the weekend's almost here.

now i get what my therapist was saying. damn therapy can be hard. :S

hey, spectrum. it's really unfortunate that your therapist gave you that Louise H4y CD, bcz it really undermined your trust in her judgement, and loss of trust is kind of a 'game over' situation. it throws a shadow of doubt on everything she says going forward, at which point you're mostly thrown back on your own ability to sort things and her utility as a guide and assistant is greatly diminished.

when i sought the aid of a therapist i was very fortunate to get someone i trusted, who was sharp as a tack and always made good sense when she opened her mouth. it was mostly luck.

the good thing is that you've made a whole lot of progress and now know you can hack a path forward, even if it is tiring and hard work.

as for the whole 'fitting in' thing, i wouldn't put too much stress on it. people are broadly knowable and you probably already have a roughly workable set of heuristics for understanding them en masse. the deeper you go, the less certain it gets and the more tangled and occluded the motives become. becoming an adept in that realm is a lifetime's work for all of us. we mostly tend to specialize, by narrowing our focus to a small number of friends and family and letting the rest float along at a shallow, easy depth.

tbrr i think i would quit my therapist if she gave me louise hay stuff

and she's an acolyte of Louise H4y who believes the past isn't a factor in a person's psychological makeup and all problems can be cured by repeating positive mantras.

Holy shit! The Louise H4y CD she gave me features a very bizarre claim that bad thoughts cause cancer and ... leprosy!?#@

― Spectrum, Saturday, April 27, 2013 1:18 PM (5 days ago)

okay, wait, i missed this. your therapist is a moron, spectrum. i am sorry i minimized your doubts abt her. get the fuck out.

you'd think a therapist would get that if you wanted self-help you'd help yrself and that's exactly why you're at a therapist, sheesh

let's add to the doubt pile! yeah, that's a little strange. you kind of expect not to agree 100% with all that your therapist says, but...

yes! that's exactly right Aimless. thank you for popping in with that. it really is a problem, in the back of my mind i think she might be coming from that creepy new age perspective. i read up on that author when she gave me the CD, and her ideas are reprehensible imo, and sometimes i feel like that's where my therapist is coming from. whenever she lets out some weird new agey thing, she loses credibility to me.

one time she said that we get back whatever "energy" we put out to the universe and so we're all responsible for that "energy". I was sitting there like, "what the hell is this?" i was right the first time ... a million times ago ... that i should find a new therapist. and these issues started pretty early, I was just desperate for help and so I stuck with her, but I feel like I've progressed enough now to move on.

and that's a good point about fitting in. my life is pretty deserted of close relationships right now, so i'm meeting shallow co-workers and aquaintances with a depth that's just not appropriate for the situation. maybe i shouldn't worry so much about it and focus my very personal stuff more selectively.

you rock 8)

aggg, thanks for chiming in all, I think it's time I find someone new

yeah who gives a shit about most coworkers

personally, i expect my therapist to have his/her head screwed down tight, to be focused on what i perceive as real and important, and smart enough to cut through my self-justifications and evasions. basically a mechanic, like any other healthcare worker. i don't need a friend or life coach. i need a good, empathetic listener who understands the workings of human psychology (as they're conventionally/professionally understood) and can help me see the whole system.

fwiw, i recently started up with a new therapist, and when i first met her, she said a couple things that struck me as dull, meaningless, vaguely new age encouragement blather. nothing too weird, just obvious platitudes and unsolicited "we're in this together" type verbal hugs. it gave me a twinge of doubt, but she's cheap, and i was pretty direct about not wanting that kind of thing. she's been more dispassionate since, and her approach is p trad freudian, so i'm not too worried. but that's the problem w therapy. a hell of a lot depends on this person you barely know.

ahhhh, the idea of firing my therapist makes me feel like i'm laying on a cloud. i think she's been doing more harm than good at this point. thanks again all.

i know that i've been waging a war of passive refusal my whole life, letting shit slide, letting myself slide, dodging real responsibility. this is a kind of hostility, oppositional defiance, an infantile stage we're supposed to grow out of. i can't deny any of that.

oh man i can relate to all of this and have been thinking about it today, reading the "would you push a button and redo your whole life" thread, longing for a redo, but thinking "you could start being less of a fuck-up right here and now by working instead of reading ILX all day, and are you doing it?"

if you work it out, please come and tell us the secret. (I know: if you work it out you'll be too busy getting your shit together or getting too rich from selling the secret to tell us for free.)

it sure made me feel like I was a failure if I didn't immediately grasp all things

yeah this too, not that I was ever that smart but I got too many pats on the head as a kid to know how to deal with things which need working at (anyone read the Carol Dweck book on this topic?), or just adult life in general, where you're just meant to be doing ok without needing a fuss abt the brilliance of your doing-ok-ness to be made

tiny violin etc.

yeah, spectrum, Iagree with everyone abt moving on. Don't feel shy about kind of "interviewing" therapists before you commit to a new one. Ask about their approaches, tell them what kind of work you want to do, find someone you can respect intellectually.

^ word for word

yeah, I think it's what I need to do. she doesn't want me to talk about my past, she seems really uncomfortable with my emotions, and now that I'm thinking about it, her logic is sorta ridiculous. this week i wanted to talk about what it was like growing up and being sensitive and unconventional for a guy ... my whole life people considered me sort-of eccentric, and not even in a bad way generally, but she said "you aren't that way because there are guys doing yoga down the hall."

and I'm thinking, what the hell does that have to do with anything!? not to mention yoga's a fashionable trend, for men and women. on top of going against the very experience of my own life ... people have said to my face that i'm weird and different! most of the time it was positive, but still, i hate when people dismiss me, and i wanna get a handle on this shit.

so i'm realizing all this help she's been giving me, i think that's me. after closely examining her thinking it actually seems pretty flawed, which isn't a shock if she's on board with louise hay.

If she's outlived her use for you then you should certainly start talking to her about ending the therapeutic relationship. I suspect you'll manage this better if you focus not on what she's got wrong so far, but instead on how you are going to move forward -- because that seems to be the framework with which she thinks about therapy.

It sounds as though she's the kind of therapist who considers focusing on the past to be (for want of a better word) self-indulgent: the impression I get from this thread is that you want to talk about your past and how it's snarled you up, and she wants you to focus on learning behaviours and a mindset that she thinks will adapt you better to the future. As far as I understand it, this impatience with self-reflection is pretty typical of CBT. You seem to want something more classically psychoanalytical. You have strong ideas about how your past self has informed your present self, but you still feel that you need to talk these out with someone -- because you want to explain yourself? because you want to be explained? because you think that you can go back and untangle these original traumas so that their echoes won't affect you so much? That might be a good thing to think about, when you're considering new therapists. This seems to have been a useful learning experience for you: you're working out what it is you want out of therapy, and you've decided that therapy is good for you. I reckon that if you frame the conversation in terms of those positives it might make it easier to get across to your therapist that you're confident in your decision to switch.

thanks, that's pretty helpful. honestly, though, I think it's gross that my therapist is pushing that louise hay crap on people, her ideas are dangerous and irresponsible. if it was just CBT I probably wouldn't be so icked out about it. guess it doesn't really matter for me in the scheme of things, though, i just need to get out of there before she mucks up my brain even more.

oh, man, i forgot to say that the most important thing is that you clearly don't respect her and her love of louise hay and that's the number one reason to get out asap!

(though i doubt she could really muck up your brain: you seem to know your own mind pretty well.)

yeah, she was helpful in the beginning, truth be told, but after looking into louise hay and the type of stuff she's into, the actual meaning of the ideas she was giving me are totally friggin bonkers!!! there's a basic common sense to them, but the conclusions i think she was getting at are something i am not down with whatsoever. i'm lucky enough that i ignored that aspect of it and went on my own tangents... which honestly seemed to throw her off a little.

oh man i can relate to all of this and have been thinking about it today, reading the "would you push a button and redo your whole life" thread, longing for a redo, but thinking "you could start being less of a fuck-up right here and now by working instead of reading ILX all day, and are you doing it?"

if you work it out, please come and tell us the secret

Yeah what contenderizer said pretty much describes me as well. I wouldn't say I've worked it out, but in the past couple years I've made a lot of strides, to the point where it's not my overriding mentality anymore. Some part of my ego was what was preventing me from doing things, I was afraid of failing or looking like an idiot. It was hard to figure this out because I was very good at telling myself I had things I was good at and things I was bad at, and I could get by just focusing on the few good things. While really I was neglecting huge aspects of my life. As it turns out, I can be good at things I thought I was bad at, it just took admitting where I was and getting the appropriate help. I don't know where the solution is in this or whether it applies to anyone else, but it was the realization I needed. Therapy helped a loooot.

Thanks Vinnie. Any tips on exploring this with therapists? I've been meaning to get back on the therapy wagon but am aware it hasn't really worked for me in the past.

I've had two long-ish-term attempts at therapy, and I had trouble selling this as an issue worthy of concern to the first guy. The second did, to her credit, say "it is because you are afraid of failure and you should just press on and do things anyway", and I would say "yes! yes, I am afraid of failure and must press on and do things anyway" but have no real idea of how to start doing it and keep doing it, while not really being able to isolate any specific reasons why not to discuss with her