![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dr. Bob on February 1, 2002, at 20:45:59
[reposted from http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020131/msgs/92524.html]
> > I believe this is when our faith kicks in. Why do people get cancer, etc., I tell my child all the time that "life's not fair". I know what you are feeling. When I get like that I try to remember that there are a lot of people that are really suffering. Please hang in there it will be okay!!!!!
>
> Renee
Posted by Willow on February 1, 2002, at 23:41:04
In reply to Re: Why Were We Chosen? « Reneeb, posted by Dr. Bob on February 1, 2002, at 20:45:59
Like I've said before I'm chronic, but with age and the help of loved ones including cyberfriends I'm dealing better. I think a large part of my problem was that I became ill when I was a teenager, didn't have coping skills.
Yeah any illness, condition, sucks! But we can always choose to accept it, cry about it, or even make an effort to better ourselves.
God has nothing to do with our own choices!
Wiley Willow
ps kazoo just say you are okay?
Posted by Dr. Bob on February 2, 2002, at 12:43:51
In reply to Re: Why Were We Chosen? « Reneeb, posted by Dr. Bob on February 1, 2002, at 20:45:59
[Posted by Michael D on February 2, 2002, at 6:10:19
In reply to http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020131/msgs/92551.html]
> > O.K., Really inappropriate response.
> >
> > I feel this way at times and am not "religious".
>
> I wasn't suggesting that it's part of a 'formal' religion. I would sometimes start to see everything as being 'caused' by some spiritual cause.
>
> Everytime I tried something and something went wrong, it was because some spiritual force was saying that I shouldn't be doing it. I was depressed because ... who knows why, but it was because of something I had done.
>
> It was a very self-destructive, almost psychotic, perspective of reality.
>
> You were right; it was an inappropriate response.
>
> Michael D
Posted by Dr. Bob on February 2, 2002, at 12:45:40
In reply to Re: Why Were We Chosen? « Reneeb, posted by Dr. Bob on February 1, 2002, at 20:45:59
[Posted by Michael D on February 2, 2002, at 6:15:46
In reply to http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020131/msgs/92563.html]
> > > Religious belief predisposes people to depression because it robs them of their rational intellect.
> >
> > Please respect the views of others and be sensitive to their feelings even if you think they're wrong. And please don't put them down. Thanks,
> >
> > Bob
>
> Bob,
>
> I don't think his statement was insensitive. Religion almost kept me from 'seeing' a lot of the problems in my life.
>
> Often disfunctional (children are 'bad' for just being who they are) parenting is supported by religion. Even though many people get to the point that they can question their parents, their projected guilt (projected as coming from 'God') can keep them from questioning the things they need to question to turn their life around.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Michael Dewolf
Posted by Dr. Bob on February 2, 2002, at 23:02:15
In reply to Re: Why Were We Chosen? « Reneeb, posted by Dr. Bob on February 1, 2002, at 20:45:59
[Posted by Elizabeth on February 2, 2002, at 12:52:51
In reply to http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020131/msgs/92545.html]
> > Yeah, I only hope that the mental health profession starts to acknowledge the reality that you will never find a depressed atheist.
>
> I'm afraid I have to provide a counterexample, namely myself. I've never believed in supernatural beings or other religious ideas. Depression runs in my family, and I've been dealing with severe recurrent depression all my adult life. S--- happens.
>
> I don't believe that depression is caused by irrationality. (There are plenty of happy people out there who lack the ability to reason. I think that a lot of people embrace irrational beliefs because the beliefs comfort them.) Depression can sometimes *lead* to irrational thoughts, though, and preexisting irrational beliefs or attitudes can make it harder to get better.
>
> -elizabeth
Posted by Dr. Bob on February 2, 2002, at 23:03:50
In reply to Re: Why Were We Chosen? « Reneeb, posted by Dr. Bob on February 1, 2002, at 20:45:59
[Posted by JohnX2 on February 2, 2002, at 20:28:28
In reply to http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020131/msgs/92442.html]
> Let's see, on my latest manic spree I came up with a thought
> that God intentially gave me this illness and sent me to crummy
> doctors so that I would research my illness myself using up
> my precious brain cells to study psychiatry and neurology
> and disseminate the information I learned to other people in
> similar situations via the internet.
>
> Sorry this crap happens to us.
>
> Regards,
> John
>
>
>
> > Why were we chosen as the ones to suffer? Why must I endure days on end of depression and anxiety? Instead of spending my time with hobbies, family, career as others do, I spend it with psychiatrist, social workers, pharmacists. I spend it trying to fix my brain. Oh, just to feel again .... to laugh, cry, love, daydream. No, just pain. This is the path God has chosen for me. Why I was chosen, will never know. Why I would trade my life for just one normal year of existence, just one year.
Posted by Noa on February 12, 2002, at 17:12:51
In reply to Re: Why Were We Chosen? « JohnX2, posted by Dr. Bob on February 2, 2002, at 23:03:50
These illnesses stink. We certainly did not choose to have them, but I also don't think this fate is chosen for us, or that we are chosen for this fate. I think of myself as just unfortunate, I guess.
Have you ever read, When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Julia Cameron?
Sometimes I am full of rage about my depression, while at other times I am able to see that I am not the only afflicted person on this earth full of people suffering from all kinds of horrible illnesses, oppressions, etc.
Hanging in there with the quest to find a treatment that works was important. There were awful and hopeless days, weeks, months and sometimes I marvel that I made it through because I did not believe then that I would.
Now, sometimes, I still feel the anger of being stuck with this chronic illness and the grief of all the lost days, months, years of my life sucked up by the black hole of depression.
But now that I am at a stable and better place, there are way more days than not that I feel grateful for the remission, for having medications available, despite how frustrated I may be at times with how "dirty" the meds are, how impatient I am for the day when I can take that one "clean", refined, targeted to just the right receptors, balanced just right for me, no unwanted side effects, pill designed for me based on accurate diagnostic procedures--despite these frustrations, I feel grateful most of the time, thinking about my poor paternal grandmother and her trips to the state mental hospital for her shock therapy that didn't really work for her anyway, and thinking about my poor maternal grandfather, who self-medicated with alcohol and died at a relatively young age from organ failure as a result.
Thinking about how, when I finally was able to find a good enough combo, I was able to go back to a relatively normal life. Not a perfect life, not where I want it to be yet, but a functioning, working, relatively ok, work-in-progress life.
But all of this might sound like BS read by someone who is in the throes of untreated or undertreated illness. Still--now I can say there is hope, despite being so hopeless before.
I know that I tend to get preoccupied with the "why" questions and the questions about the meaning of life--that urgent need to find answers to these kinds of questions--when I am depressed. When I feel better, I am less preoccupied with such questions, and able to just accept not knowing, perhaps because when I am doing better, I am busier living and doing and that ultimate "to be or not to be" question doesn't plague me and doesn't hang so urgently on the "whys". Does this make sense?
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Social | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.