Depression and what it's really like

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

For starters, finding a therapist who doesn't just help you make realizations, but also gives you a plan to make changes was key for me, and it sounds like it might be for you. I'm lucky that my first therapist was a good fit, but I've talked to friends who've done therapy where they felt there was too much discussing, not enough practical application. My therapist was big on making me set achievable, incrementally harder goals for myself, and I think that's the right approach for most people. Huh that kind of makes him sound like a life coach or something, but he never told me to do anything unbidden - I would always bring up my problems/goals first, and we would work on what was preventing me from taking the next step, etc.

Yeah the single most effective therapist I've ever had actually gave me concrete instructions on how to step forward--"here's what I want you to try this week." All the others would let me talk out the hour, nod, and show me the door. I didn't even realize the degree to which it was a problem until I recognized the contrast.

The thing I regret is that the first guy did set me a task in the first session, but I sort of half chickened out and half didn't see the point (because he hadn't related his task to the problems I was upset about at all), and he immediately labelled me as uncooperative and didn't set any more tasks and for the rest of our sessions we played petty semantic games on the theme of "you clearly don't want to change because you didn't do that one task, so let's not even bother"

though I mean I was 22 at the time and I guess every 22y/o feels like they are being labelled and pettily one-upped all the time and I probably did get kind of petulant so, you know, decade later, maybe I can finally tackle things properly now

It has to make sense to you as well, it can't be all action without talking through the plan either. Frankly, that guy sounds awful. Any therapist that assigns you a task without being able to convince you why you should do it and THEN gets mad that you didn't do it is doing a bad job. That's like shit I expect parents to do, and god knows how many of our problems stem from our parents to begin with. :)

i thought one of the big rules of talk therapy was to avoid judging?

i mean from the therapist side

Yeah the single most effective therapist I've ever had actually gave me concrete instructions on how to step forward--"here's what I want you to try this week." All the others would let me talk out the hour, nod, and show me the door. I didn't even realize the degree to which it was a problem until I recognized the contrast.

― hoospanic GANGSTER musician (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, May 3, 2013 12:02 PM (8 hours ago)

otm. had a great session w my therapist this afternoon, and came away with three concrete steps to take this week. i do a lot of talking, but she's really good at pointing out the weak links and rationalizations in my thinking, helping me see that the demons are a lot smaller and more manageable than they seem when shrouded in denial.

It's now official and paid for and everything: I am going to be that sad, creepy old college student! Hooray/I want to die! That is, assuming I can get anywhere after two summer terms at community college, get financial aid, find some way to support myself after quitting the job that's been consuming ten hours of every day and most of my will to live for the last four years, etc.

I am going to be that sad, creepy old college student!

honestly, this has got to stop. you need to stop telling that to yourself, stop calling yourself that, etc.
all of my students are working adults and i don't find a single one of them sad or creepy. just let it go for your own good -- getting through school is hard enough without constant negative self-talk!!

actually, for accuracy's sake, not all of them are working, but they're all "nontraditional students"
some of them have kids in college, in fact!

also, congrats!!

Going back to school is always awesome!

congrats, TT, that's awesome.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

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I know there's nothing wrong with being a non-traditional student, but how am I supposed to accept that I lost my entire young adulthood first to freakishly severe social anxiety and b) to full-time work? I mean, I'm happy that I'm going to finally make some progress toward STARTING to atudy at a real, non-bullshit college as opposed to the open admission, glorified job training programs that have been my only option until now, but I've spent the last decade deferring the important social part of being young and I'm turning fucking thirty in just a few months without experiencing any of it and now I've deferred it so long I never will

And this . I can only open up enough to even express myself if I'm completely irresponsibly drunk, and there's nothing I or anybody else can do anymore to make it right

How are you supposed to accept xyz? I'm not sure. That's a really complicated question! I'm just saying that fixating on that part of this process is not doing you any favors. It's your right to fixate on whatever you want, but if you want things to improve (and it seems like you do) it seems pretty essential to stop being so hard on yourself about the past.

today i told my roommate i was going to class, then i laid silently on the floor for three hours, then i climbed out my bedroom window and walked around the house and came in the front door and said class was "pretty good"

:{ at least you still have some pretense to dignity.

me, i'd just sit on the couch in a stained t-shirt drinking beer and watching steve harvey's family fued 'til flies were buzzing around me.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/files/2010/11/Steve-Harvey.jpg

yeah i think like half of my emotional stress now is caused by pretending i don't have any. my dignity tho is only in my roommate's eyes, not mine or god's or the guy shuffling past the house while i climbed out who obviously has much worse problems than i do

fwiw i have v. much enjoyed your comments on russian history, among others

dignity is for suckers

thanks mookieproof! that specifically is kind of a relief.

For all the good posting here will do me, I should probably go shout at a brick wall instead (and, hey, maybe I'll give this a go at lunch), but sometimes I need some sort of outlet between therapy sessions, for lack of anyone else to talk to about these things. Despite being pretty happy with most aspects of my life right now, I'm just finding myself crushed more and more under the weight of not having any people in my life I can really consider good friends. It's like I have a great orbit of my immediate family and then a really periphery orbit of people that are basically acquaintances, people I get along with well when I see them but that I don't think either them or I would really consider us "friends". It's that big gaping space in-between those two orbits that is weighing me down.

It doesn't help that I read a couple articles a few weeks ago about how difficult it is to make friends after 35 and I pretty much hit all of the demographic ticks that allegedly make it even harder (male, relatively set in a career, being a parent). I'm just slowly coming to the conclusion that I will never again have anything resembling a close friend and I find that incredibly depressing. Its just become pretty clear that if, especially as a male, you don't have a really solid group of friends after college, you're basically pretty much screwed.

I had a whole bunch more random bullshit typed out here, but it made me sound even more pathetic, so I'll just leave it at that.

Hey jon. Is it possible/easy for you to check out activities locally you'd be interested in? I realise having young kids limits you t timewise etc, but doing something, anything, in a group gives at least a common start.

Telephone thing- i've applied to go back to college today, and i'm 7% older than you. Lots of ppl dont make the best of college first time round, and most of them wont have had reasons as valid as yours. In any case, you can only start from today with it- im hoping having a bit more life experience, and knowing what i want now and why i want it, make up for at least a couple of the intervening years.

Luck all.

I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to find some sort of activity to do, but I'm striking out left and right. The vast majority of groups I've researched in my area are aimed, from what I can tell, at retirees, because they all meet right in the middle of the work day. The only things I've found that seem to line-up with my age group are either sports groups (which I'm absolute shit at and wouldn't enjoy) or singles groups (obviously not). The options for working people who aren't interested in sports are pretty much non-existant.

Lots of ppl dont make the best of college first time round

Arguably the only way to know how to get the most out of university is to have gone there once, messed it up (like me), and gone back a second time after a few years (which I haven't done, but maybe given the right circumstances, like having money).

good to hear about you guys going back to college, i'm still mustering up the courage to go back after dropping out a decade ago

Ha jon, i was hoping you dug a sport. ps being shit at it doesnt matter, but obv not enjoying it is not much good to you.

I like sports! Just am really terrible at them. I've joined a few leagues in the past that were supposed to be "just for fun", but inevitably someone takes it way too seriously and the fun just immediately evaporates.

Sucks, in the movies one hype montage would sort it out but irl getting really good at sports takes at least idk a week

Okay for real lol, I needed that this morning.

what are things you do like to do? Do you find it easy or hard to introduce yourself and/or talk to new people?

you go to music shows semi-regularly iirc, maybe you can volunteer at a non-profit or co-op music venue or festival?

I'm pretty good at introducing myself and I like to think I'm pretty good at making new acquaintances. I mean, I usually handle myself pretty well in new social situations and am pretty good at talking to new people. That's not really my problem, it's finding people I connect with on a somewhat deeper level that will lead to, "hey we should hang out and do X some time". In the past 3 or 4 years I've managed to meet a few people that I bonded with pretty quickly, but they all fizzled out after that intial meeting (one moved across the country, another flaked out on my, a third was always "too busy"). I just need to fin a situation where I can make more of those type of connections, because my week-to-week life has really limited chances.

volunteer work or some sort of class, maybe? those are things that people our age tend to do to make new friends, expand the scope of their lives beyond the job/family axis.

I just volunteered with a local community theater and really hit it off with a couple of people there, so I would second volunteer opportunities. Part of the problem with making friends after school is that outside of work, it's hard to get enough exposure to individual people that those deeper levels of connection form. (The other part is everyone is busier!)

it's difficult, man

Not much help, but I can relate, jon. I do a weekly evening class and I've met some nice people through it so I think that's a pretty good option but tbh I don't think I'm really about to take any of my acquaintances to the next level of "we should hang out, not at this class, and do something not related to the topic of this class".

That's partly because the ones I get on with best are a lot older than me, nearly my parents' age, and it feels odd, but apart from that tbh it's probably my failing rather than the class's, as I've never been good at that acquaintance->friendship conversion thing.

Regarding Vinnie's post, a coworker was telling me they volunteer as an usher at the local large-ish theatre, they've met a few friends that way and they get to see the plays (some of them touring plays with name actors) for free, so that's a potentially interesting perk if nothing else...

TT it's 12 years since I dropped out and I'm still too scared to go back, but I've got to say my uncle loved going to uni in his 30s. He missed out on it first time round as he married young, had a messy divorce a year or two later, had a string of dead-end jobs throughout his 20s, and was finally in his element as a mature student.

volunteer work or some sort of class, maybe?

I'm really trying to find one of these two things. Unfortunately the classes thing isn't working out, again any of the local community college courses I'd even remotely be interested in are during working hours.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

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― j., Thursday, May 9, 2013 11:42 PM

This is brilliant, yes. I was given this link by someone else a couple of days ago, and I should have shared it here, so glad someone else did. I've actually showed it over the last couple of days to people I've been alienating recently to go "this is what my head is doing, if only I was articulate enough to express it in a non-scary way".

that is a great link!

the thing that really got me there was the making fake faces thing. makes you feel like a sociopath.

i think everyone does that to some extent, non-depressed people just don't feel like they have to do it all the time

yeah. i mean, everyone does that when they don't really care about something. the awful thing about doing it all the time is you're doing it to all your friends.