Perspectile Dysfunction

Posted by fxckfeelings on January 21, 2013

For all the lip service people give to the importance of truth, your average person is willing to work a lot harder to preserve a bullshit notion than admit what’s real, and that’s not just true for college quarterbacks. Depressed people prefer to listen to their rotten emotions telling them a hundred reasons why they’ve failed, no matter how many victories they’ve achieved, and people with bad habits can find a hundred reasons for thinking they had no choice, despite the many avoidable fuck-ups they’ve fucked up. That’s why thinking is better than just believing, so you can follow a simple moral procedure, add up what you’ve actually accomplished given what you do and don’t control, and give yourself good advice, fair judgment, and a break from all the hard work that defending bullshit requires.
–Dr. Lastname

In 2011, I was working two minimum wage jobs seven days a week, trying to cram in a social life while getting over a REALLY bad break up. Eventually, I gave up trying to fix it myself and started going to therapy once a week for 8 months. A year later, I got a better paying job, had free weekends, a new boyfriend, our own flat, an OK social life, BUT I sometimes still feel like it’s 2011 in an emotional sense. I still feel emotionally drained, exhausted, suffer low self-esteem and spend most days trying to not fight with my boyfriend over dishes. I then start feeling bad because I think I am not being grateful for the fact that my life did change for the “better.” I know I suffer from depression– have done since I was about 8 due to having a very abusive father, and long story short, I moved out when I was still in high school (about ten years ago). I thought therapy would help but it seems to have brought other problems to surface. Anyway, my question is, at what point should I stop trying to find happiness and just be happy and what does that even mean? Everyday is very different– one day I feel like buying a one way ticket to anywhere that will have me & leave everyone and everything I have behind, and then the next day I am dancing around the house feeling like I won the lottery. It’s starting to drive my boyfriend crazy but he tries to accept me as I am. So extreme are two days that I am not sure I know how I feel anymore about anything. My goal in 2013 is to stop getting upset/stressing about things that do not help my situation and to learn to relax more and enjoy just being. How do I achieve this seemingly easy task but which to me seems like a very very difficult algebra problem?

While many Christians ask themselves “What Would Jesus Do?,” we often ask our readers to ask themselves “What Would A Friend Say?” While Jesus’s imagined answers are often similar, it’s hard to imagine going out to a bar with Jesus after work and kvetching about your life, so “Friend” seems to work better.

That said, if you told a friend about your struggles—depression, irritability, past-trauma—they would tell you that they’re sorry you’re hurting, but that it’s worth taking time to appreciate all you’ve accomplished, despite what you’ve gone through. Like Jesus, they would not judge.

And it’s worth considering your hypothetical friend’s opinion, because your opinion of yourself is filtered through depression, so only the negative seems to get through, and it’s almost impossible to focus on all the good you’ve done.

So while it’s too bad you go through mood swings and are often irritable and unhappy, it’s remarkable that you continue to make a living and get ahead (which means you’ve successfully managed to keep your lows and highs out of your work) and found a guy who accepts you and likes living with you, even when you’re unhappy and devaluing your life and relationship.

I’m not saying you should feel lucky or count your blessings (it’s not lucky that you suffer from depression, and you’ve been blessed with few good things, depression included). I’m saying you should be proud of yourself because when you’re depressed it takes a lot of skill and will-power to get to work every day, smile, focus, not kill anyone, and then have so much to offer your boyfriend that he wants to live with you in spite of your misery and self-doubts. You’re doing very well, you just happen to feel like shit.

So stand up to those negative thoughts with the truth, so you’ll remember who you are, what you’ve achieved, and what’s good about your partnership. That’s also what you want to be talking about, to yourself and your boyfriend.

Additional therapy may help you, if you can find someone who does cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and who is, by nature, a positive coach. Don’t dwell on the sad stuff you can’t change, but on the positive things you’ve done while ignoring your pain. You should also avoid focusing on relaxing and just being. It would be nice if you could do that, but often you can’t, even if you study for three years with the Maharishji. Instead, try relaxing as much as you can by exercising, using other techniques (biofeedback, self-hypnosis), and exploring the possible impact of medication, including mood stabilizers like lithium in case the highs mean they’ll work better.

Remember, medication is not something you have to take and it’s not a sign of weakness, just a treatment that is relatively low risk, requires lots of patience, and offers some hope of improving most of your symptoms. Also, make sure you’ve had a physical exam, just in case you’re anemic, hypothyroid, or some other condition that causes fatigue and depression.

Keep up the good work, learn to give yourself credit, and take advantage of any method of low-risk symptom relief you can find. Remember, they’re only symptoms, they’re not you. So sayeth your online shrink, and so would sayeth your friends, and the Lord.

STATEMENT:
“I feel hopeless about the lack of progress I’ve made over the last three years—I feel as bad as ever—but I recognize that my thinking is trapped in feelings about feelings and that I’ve really accomplished almost everything I’ve set out to do. I will continue to separate my feelings from the reality of what I’ve accomplished and rate myself appropriately, while not giving up on finding additional relief.”

I’m a recovering alcoholic who is working hard on sobriety, going to meetings, etc., but I couldn’t resist giving my phone number to a good-looking guy I met at a meeting, even though my sponsor said I shouldn’t try dating until I’ve been sober for three years. Well, he turned out to be nice but kind of troubled and not much for follow-through, so our relationship went nowhere past the first date, and later on I heard he had a bad crack habit and might go to jail for B and E. I couldn’t help thinking though that there is nothing wrong in dating a nice, good-looking guy who seemed kind and could use my help. As a matter of act, I thought being kind to others was one of the higher steps to recovery. So I don’t understand why my sponsor is angry. She says I just don’t understand sobriety. Can you explain this to me?

Your AA sponsor doesn’t believe that all fun is bad and therefore it’s bad to have sex, or that you’re incapable of having a relationship. What she does believe is that sex and love, like drinking, can make it feel very good to do stupid things that you know deep down are going to end badly. Sadly, you’ve proved her right.

Not that going out with this guy at AA ended badly, thank goodness, but it was very, very high risk. The information you needed was right in front of you, but you didn’t want to look at it because you were too busy feeling tingly over the chemistry of attractiveness and the possibility of being a guardian angel.

Before adding up the risk of this relationship, ask yourself what you’re supposed to do about relationships in general. On a feeling level, we all want to be attractive to people we find attractive, and this need is so powerful and universal that we buy many billions of dollars of product and fiction to satisfy it. At the same time, you know nothing is more damaging to you than having truly loving feelings for someone who is out of control and can’t stop himself from raging, spending, and doing things that are all about him and have no room for you or anyone else. That kind of relationship can hurt you more than just causing hurt feelings or knocking you off the wagon.

So it’s your job to protect yourself from dangerous relationships, no matter how appealing or wounded-bird-rific, and your sponsor noticed that you weren’t doing your job. Do it now, and draw up a list of things a guy needs to have before the two of you have a fighting chance at a healthy relationship. Exercises like that are doomed-relationship prophylactics, reminding you to get enough information about any serious-relationship prospect to answer each question on the list before you allow your heart (and probably your body) to get involved.

The list doesn’t have to be long, but it definitely includes making sure he has no addictions (unless sobriety is well established) and can take care of himself and hold up his end of a relationship at the same time.

So don’t assume that sobriety will always prevent you from having fun. The message to take from your sponsor is that sobriety requires you to protect yourself from dangerous fun, and that there’s a part of your personality that will always want you to think less before doing more. That’s the part you’re learning to manage, and you still have a ways to go. At least it seems like you’ve got a smart sponsor to help you along the way.

STATEMENT:
“Sobriety feels like it’s going to squeeze all the fun out of my life, but I know that what happens when I put fun first is not so pretty or easy to live with and actually prevents me from finding a good give-and-take friend. I will stay sober and improve my sober thinking until I can do a competent risk assessment of a luscious prospect and act according to what I know, rather than what I feel.”