Posted by mair on June 13, 2002, at 16:54:32
In reply to Depression changes reality?, posted by dave40252 on June 13, 2002, at 14:41:51
I, too, know exactly what you're talking about and I think that sometimes it's a little more pronounced than what I think beardy means. For me it plays out in alot of different arenas, but most dramatically in my perception of my marriage. I don't think horrible things about my husband when I'm depressed (maybe a little sometimes), I think that he's thinking horrible things about me. My husband can sometimes seem distant; he's told me a ton of times that it's because he is preoccupied thinking about work. He tends to do alot of nonverbal pondering while he's doing something else like watching tv. When everything is ok I can seem to understand this. When I'm depressed I'm imagining that he is sitting there thinking about how awful it is to be married to me and that he wished there was some way he could dump me. I get both angry and despondent and have no real ability to express my feelings to him. I really travel to some extremes. We've discussed this once with my therapist and talked about me finding ways to telegraph to him that I really need extra reassurance, but that hasn't worked out very well.
My therapist calls this distorted thinking. When I'm depressed you'd be very hard pressed to convince me that my perception of reality is anything other than right on. The best I can seem to do for myself is continually remind myself that I don't always feel that way and that in better times I've been able to see thinking of this nature as a distortion. It's a really hard sell however.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:25289
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020531/msgs/25295.html