Posted by morganator on September 25, 2009, at 9:26:07 [reposted on September 27, 2009, at 4:01:47 | original URL]
In reply to Depression or existential despair? So lost..., posted by uncouth on September 23, 2009, at 18:55:14
Simply finding answers through God and prayer will not get you better. You need to find a way to find peace withing yourself through yourself and not just through God.
Have you tried-Therapy? Group therapy? Exercise? Finding things you are good at and enjoy and refining and developing them? Surrounding yourself with friends?
There must be things about yourself that you do not love that are competing against and winning the battle against the things about yourself that you do or should love. Have you taken time to try to figure out what those things are that you do not love about yourself and why you do not love those things. I do not believe depression can take full control of us if we truly love ourselves-if we love more things about ourselves than we do not love about ourselves. I am confused as to why this is not considered more and talked about more. The focus is way too often put on medication and chemical imbalance and genetics. For example, you could be predisposed to depression/bipolar, but if you have a talent that you love and have success with it is less likely that your predisposition will take the form of the morbid monster it has potential to. The same applies to having good relationships, having a well nurtured very loving childhood, having strong faith in God(I am agnostic by the way), knowing how to have fun with yourself and others, having high healthy self esteem, knowing how to treat your body and mind well through diet/exercise/yoga, etc.
One thing we have to understand is that anxiety and depression are a part of life, even for people that do not suffer from them clinically. The root of all of our anxiety and depression is death. So for those of us that are super sensitive and biologically predisposed to suffering and being affected, our feelings/questions about our existence is even that much more difficult to deal with. We do not have the typical shield that many have from the fear of the inevitable. Maybe I am not making sense but this is the best I can do right now. Ugh...
I believe that if we knew that we would never die and we knew that we would never grow old, we would have a much better outlook on life. We would feel like we had an eternity to work on what ails us. The future would always be bright, knowing that one day we would be able to beat down the grim gremlin inside making room for the person that we truly love to shine. I think aging and death is getting in the way. Sorry for sounding pessimistic. This does not mean that I do not believe that we can still find peace and happiness as we age. One way to heal is through our children. Of course, in order to do this we would have to heal enough to be able to attract the right person and be strong enough to maintain a healthy relationship with them. One problem is that many of us do not truly love ourselves. We have been deeply hurt in the past and are afraid of being hurt again. This results in a classic use of a coping/defense mechanism in which we sabotage our relationships. We hold on to our misery. We do so because we are afraid of being vulnerable. Because we were hurt and still are hurting, we subconsciously do not allow ourselves things that may make us truly happy and content. If we find ourselves truly content than we are suddenly vulnerable, and if we are vulnerable we can then be hurt once again. The one coping mechanism that allows us to stay in a state where we are unaware of the fact that we are doing this is the most powerful mechanism of all, denial.
poster:morganator
thread:918683
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090907/msgs/918683.html