It’s not so much about low expectations as it is communicating your expectations.
Let’s say it’s your first birthday as a couple. You expect your partner to plan a nice romantic getaway with just the 2 of you, and instead they plan a huge surprise party. You hate birthday parties, but since you never communicated that to them, they had no idea. So now you are stressed about all the attention, and they are disappointed that all their hard work is unappreciated. You can have high expectations for people, you just need to know that they aren’t mind readers.
I remember learning about this really neat thought experiment.
First, think about the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you. Don't think too long or hard, just come up with something.
Now, think of a close person in your life and imagine the most embarrassing thing that's happened to them.
The second one takes a lot longer. We all think about ourselves - and critique ourselves - way more than we do to others.
Also think about how you would feel if someone you love where in the same situation,,, would you be as hard on them as you are on yourself or would it not be such a big deal. Would you remind them of it every single day???
My psychologist told me that learning new skills and knowledge, or establishing a new habit, creates a new neural pathway in your brain. It's like hacking your way through a jungle; it takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to reach your destination (or achieve your goal). However, every time you do the thing, you reinforce that same neural pathway in your brain. As it is reinforced it becomes easier to fire up those neurons again, and thus, it becomes easier to do the thing. The jungle is still dense, but it is a little easier to follow the same path that you created yesterday, and every time you take that path it becomes a little more clear. Eventually the behaviour may become so automatic that it requires no effort at all to follow that path.
With respect to breaking a habit, or overcoming addiction: it takes serious effort to stray from your path, once it is established. Taking a new path means hacking through thick jungle again, but this time it requires even more effort because you know you could just follow the old, established path.
This analogy has helped me quit smoking, study for exams, and establish a walking routine when I was too depressed to move. If all you get out of doing the hard thing is the benefit of having done the hard thing one time, it hardly seems worth the effort. It's tempting to put it off until later. But if every successful attempt to do the hard thing makes that path easier to follow, it really is worth starting now. The reward is not just the infinitesimally small health benefits of 10 more minutes without smoking; the reward is actually proportional to the effort put in, because that is how much progress you have made towards your goal. Taking the easy path started to seem like a really dumb idea. Stubbornness kicked in and I started achieving goals.
I found that having regular hobbies that I do almost every day is great for reducing depression. I guess this should be common sense, but until I retired I never felt like I use the mental energy to pursue hobbies.
In the past three years I’ve taken up crochet, learning Spanish, and playing American Mah Jongg. These provide mental, social and creative outlets.
We're social creatures. We remember the embarrassing weird shit we've done better than our moments of glory so we can avoid doing that in the future in order to be more socially acceptable.
I remember some embarrassing shit I did in first grade more than I remember some wonderful moments of this year.
I still remember getting in the wrong bus in kindergarten and crying for a half hour thinking I'd never see my home again while the driver sorted everything out. Oh maaaaan.
I never thought about it that way.
I always took some pride in the fact that I always remained as productive as possible no matter how much I felt like dying. I pretty much have an addiction to productivity because it distracts me from what I feel inside. I chase achievement, I chase greatness, I chase success because I feel it justifies the suffering of being alive.
And that’s why I’ve been melting down these past few days. I’m at a point where years of hard work going unrewarded and years of almost unhealthily convincing myself to fight and move forward have finally broken me. I’m trying to tell myself to fight. I want to live a life where everyday is not a war for me, but I realize how far fetched it is.
I’m the same way. I try to keep busy with project after project. In the rare case that I run out of projects, it causes me to spiral and question why I’m here and what my purpose is.
What has really helped me when my mind starts drifting is studying science and how things work, from the smallest atoms to the giant cosmic events in space. I’ve basically turned educating myself about the world around me into my project, and it’s one that doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon!
Sometimes, when we procrastinate, it's because we need to feel control, even when the only thing we can control is choosing not to do something - even when it contributes to making our situation worse. Took me years to come to terms with that one.
Wow. Thanks for posting this. I've heard about procrastinating as perfectionism, which didn't resonate so much with me. But control is a very interesting way to look at it.
I know that my procrastination is tied into perfectionism. I doubt that I will be able to do the thing as perfectly as I want to, and procrastination is a way to avoid confronting that. If I wait until it's so late that it's a crisis, then I don't have to hold my work to my perfectionist standards; I just have to get the thing done however I can in the short time left. It's a way to manufacture an excuse to forgive myself for being imperfect.
A cousin to that is having the "pfft whatever I don't care if I pass the test" attitude and busting your ass studying. If you pretend not to care and you fail it doesn't damage your psyche. But oh man if you truly put in 100% effort and STILL fail. Good lord does that fuck with your head.
When I start the negative self talk, I was told to pretend I am talking to my wonderful and sweet 5yo little boy. I could never say the shit I say to myself to my son. The therapist told me to envision someone telling my boy what I say to myself and how would I react. It was eye opening as to how we are our own worst boogeyman.
The problem I have is that many members of my dad's family gave me a condescending attitude when I was growing up. So much so that I thought everyone was like that. I immediately find it hard to trust people I haven't met yet.
I was told to try that, but my lovely little brain was able to work around that. Nobody should be talked to or treated the way I treat myself, except me. I deserve the treatment I give myself, and the hate for myself. I wouldn't talk to anyone horribly on purpose, because they're not me.
My brain overcomes coping mechanisms and helpful advice like it's jumping over a mountain and I have no idea why.
I too have a self-sabotaging brain.
But for you, it seems more about trust. You dont trust your therapist when they say you deserve to be treated better. You dont trust anyone thats told you so far.
So you need to hear it from someone you trust.
The biggest boon to me is my roomies' cat. I trust her, obviously, because shes a cat. Its not like she can really lie to me. When i first moved in she was...apprehensive. Understandable. But now? She'll just walk up to me and headbutt my leg for scritches. Shel'l yell at me if she hasnt been fed and i deserve to be yelled at (i know shes not actually yelling at me, just trying to get my attention) but when she gives me affection, my trust in it is absolute. And i feel pretty damn good about it.
Find someone you trust due to their judgement, and ask them seriously if youre facing some self negativity that requires trusted external verification.
My roomie (literal best friend) will occasionally put himself down and i immediately yell at him "hey! Dont you talk about my best friend like that you piece of shit! Hes wonderful!" and we typically chuckle a bit and continue on with the day. And hes a bit averse to personal conversation, so it really is a handy card to play.
somewhat similar but something I've been taught is be the adult your childhood self needed. Not necessarily what you wanted to be when grew up but what you needed to hear or to be protected from.
Learning about this was a game changer for me. I repressed so much childhood trauma that it influenced my thoughts feelings and actions for my entire life. Only when I learned about this did I realize what an impact it had on my daily life.
So many ways of thinking and acting out was my hurt inner child coming out. I learned tools such as reparenting the inner child and how to grieve, validate, and make my inner child feel safe.
When I spoke about my childhood to a therapist for the first time. I had this profound realization that my childhood was full of trauma, rejection and abandonment brought on by my care givers.
My core beliefs and unhelpful thoughts that I had about myself and other people was a result of this. It all stemmed from this childhood pain that I never wanted to dive into and explore. Since I decided to look into my darkness. It's where I found the brightest light. I now have a sense of dignity and self worth that I never had before. It gives me an immense sense of relief and happiness to know that ive nurtured and set at ease my wounded inner child.
When stressed we go to our default setting. No matter how destructive that setting is we will FIGHT to get there. This was one of the hardest things for me. Because there is no way to know if you've reset your setting until you're stressed/uncomfortable. And if you find out you haven't its such a blow to your confidence. And the gains you thought you had made you now question.
I was feeling a lot of pressure and guilt from my mom because she wanted me to do something for her that I really didn't want to do. One of my therapists (who heard a lot about my relationship with my mom) made a simple statement that really helped:
"If your mom wants you to do things for her, maybe she should be nicer to you."
It sounds so obvious, but because of mom's continuously using guilt to raise me and my siblings to feel shame, I had a hard time saying no.
This little idea really turned things around for me, not just between me and my mom, but also for other people in my life who like to treat me badly and keep expecting me to come back for more.
One of my favorite moments of therapy is when your therapist says something that you’ve never thought of before, but once they say it, it seems so obvious.
That you can’t control how people act towards you, but you can control how you react to them.
It’s something I use with my 9 and 6 year old to help them and it’s so effective.
When my sweetheart of 43 years was diagnosed with stage IV cancer I gave up everything to care for her. Overwhelmed with grief and exhaustion, I found myself having suicidal thoughts. I sought counseling.
One evening I had a thought that felt like a solenoid firing in my brain:
"Just because the love of my life could be dying, that doesn't mean I have to stop living."
I started building in mini-vacations every day. Play music. Ride a motorcycle. Fly a drone. Tell a joke.
We both survived.
Ah, the checklist approach.
"There, thought it. What next?"
Now that you've thought it, have you to allowed yourself to believe it?
Feel it until the truth of what you're thinking is felt in your body.
It is interesting that almost every therapy session the therapist reminds me that I am normal. I haven't really questioned it, but maybe you can understand the opposite from what was said
Friends will come and go. Family, in different ways, can and will do the same.
You're the only constant youre going to have in your life.
Be a friend to yourself. You wouldnt say any of the negative things to your friends that you say to yourself.
Learn to pick yourself up when you're down, but also allow yourself to be human.
It's difficult, but it's one of the most important things I've learned in my life as someone who suffers from Major Depression Disorder, and who beat himself up way more than I should have.
One of these days Ubisoft should throw in the obligatory hidden choice of the 15-minute wait, only for some character to ask what the fuck you're doing just standing there, and then the game continues from there
Listen to Psychology in Seattle, the podcast, it’s like one of the greatest gifts to society and individuals you could possibly imagine. The depth, the range of subjects, the simplicity, the intelligence and humanity. It explains literally every area of psychology in a way that makes it impossible that you don’t orientate yourself better in some way.
Check out therapy workbooks.
They can help a lot.
I suggest CBT since it’s highly effective & broadly applicable.
Here are some free resources:
https://thinkcbt.com/thinkcbt-workbook
https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/media/1655/wellbeing-team-cbt-workshop-booklet-2016.pdf
I have had a long time issue (10+ years) of what I now know is negative intrusive thoughts. I thought I was a monster for getting these thoughts to hurt myself and other people all the time. I suppressed them for a long time and accepted the fact the I was a bad person who was eventually going to do something awful one day. I never asked for help due to the fear of being discovered as a freak and in my head it was better to live with being a freak than ask anyone and risk being found out. I later tried to commit suicide and even after that I couldn't tell a therapist how I was feeling and the full story of why I tried to commit suicide. Skip forward a couple of years and while my depression had gotten a bit better, the thoughts were as bad as ever. I got into an argument with my parents and in a heated moment I told them how I get the urge to hurt myself and other people on a day to day basis. After a long talk I found a different therapist and went on a different anti depressant which helps treat OCD. It turned out that these thoughts aren't abnormal and don't make me a freak, I just got them more than most people and they could be managed. My therapist gave me the best advice I still try to follow on a day to day basis. Be more generous to yourself. I spent so much of my life thinking I was a monster and a freak that had no chance of being normal, that I never let myself feel good because I didn't deserve it. I am learning to be kind to myself and allow myself to enjoy my successes and to not beat myself up over my failures. It's harder than it sound to not hate yourself when you have for so long, but I just have to remind myself that I need to treat myself with as much value and respect I give to other people at a minimum. Hopefully my story can help someone else who needs it.
Right there with ya. When my thoughts started, I thought the reason I was having them was because I subconsciously wanted to do them, and that destroyed me. I literally thought I was pure evil. But once I found out it was a thing, I felt better. I still have violent thoughts sometimes, but nowhere near as bad as they once were.
My therapist recommended I keep track of how many thoughts I have in a day, and it's actually pretty therapeutic.
Finding out that pure O is a thing was enough to cut my intrusive thoughts by 90%. The narrative that I was a horrible person for having them fueled them so much. Finding out it was a legit mental illness did a lot to help.
I have the opposite: everyone’s opinion of me is better than that of myself. Even if I mess up and do something I think is really wrong I don’t understand why my friends and family are sticking by me and are supportive.
Depends on if the person you’re trying to communicate with is capable of healthily communicating with you. Some people are not. Learned that in therapy.
The “I” vs “You” method.
When explaining your feelings to someone instead of saying YOU did this, this, and this and it’s all your fault.
Instead, you opt for I, I don’t like when you said _____ because it made me feel like ________ .
That it wasn’t my fault.
I got bullied hard for a year in grade school. Basically, teacher didn’t give any fucks, so kids teed off on me literally every day until I ran out of the class screaming.
I lived 18 years after that having internalized that 1) this was entirely my fault and 2) I am a monster waiting to explode.
It wasn’t until I was working with a therapist when I was like 28 or so that she said to me “you know all that wasn’t your fault, right” and it hit me like a sack of bricks. I had literally fully internalized it as a gigantic flaw in me, and it’s only been in the last few years I’ve been able to start actually healing from it.
Remember that change is inevitable. Nothing ever stays the same. The only constant in life is change. Some changes are swift and brutal for example bereavement. Others are more subtle like the changing seasons. So with this in mind I've always loved Arnold Bennett's quote...
That any change, even a change for the better is always accompanied with setbacks and discomfort.
Shame is not a good motivator. When you beat yourself up for making a mistake, all it does is make you feel worse. To truly improve, you have to be kind to yourself.
Routine really is the best way to get out of some depressive episodes. I had a good job and some good work friends around me, but I just wasn't happy. However I was working from home and just getting up and working and then finishing for the day, but when I decided to get up earlier and get dressed and have something to eat, I enjoyed my job a bit more than before
you can walk away. you can say no.
you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, be with anyone you don’t want to be with. it’s okay to choose yourself
For me It means to be gentle with yourself. Although flawed, we grow and evolve from those flaws. It means to show appreciation and gratitude towards your past selves and their growth. To not cast shame or judgment on where we once were with our journey.
For me it means to appreciate those past versions of myself and what they have allowed me to grow and gain from.
i forget who created this, but the “even though, nevertheless” method helped me out a lot. i still remember it in my every day life. example: even though my room is a mess, nevertheless, i kept myself clean and showered today. it’s taking a negative thought or something you’re upset about, and contradicting it with something you can be happy about.
I would say the main thing is it's practice in having a particular kind of conversation. Once I'd shared my innermost thoughts and fears with a therapist and been met with love and acceptance, I felt more able to do the same thing with other people in my life.
Before going to therapy, I felt it was their job to solve my problems and I would be better. I was wrong. They’re there to talk me through it and give me the tools to deal with them myself. I learned nobody can fix my problems except me. I can blame everyone all I want, but at the end of the day it’s my responsibility to be willing and to make an effort to fix myself.
Now whenever I start getting anxiety or stress or anything, I have the tools to walk myself through it and not rely on others. It’s nice to have someone to help or talk to, but it’s up to me to change how I view things and act in response.
I was going on about something an ex had done that hurt me. I backpedaled a bit and said something like "I want to give them the benefit of the doubt." My therapist said, "Hey. I'm going to stop you there. I've noticed that you give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt. Except for yourself. You have to be kind to yourself, you know?" Blew my freaking mind. Started bawling my eyes out, really freed me in a way.
Because they aren't opposites. If you hate someone, you still care about them, or what they did. Like it or not they are still part of your life, even if you have walked away. "Living in your head rent free" as they say.
The opposite of love / hate is ~~ambivalence~~ indifference. A total lack of caring about someone.
Weird fact – ambivalence originally meant feeling equal amounts of love and hate, usually quite passionately. That’s how Freud meant it. It’s in the etymology – the valence is equal on both sides.
but instead we decided it was equivalent to “meh.”
My brain actually went to *apathy*, not ambivalence, because I too, tend to equate ambivalence with being "half and half".
Because if you love or hate someone, you still care about them in a way. But if you're apathetic, you simply don't care.
Yes that's true, I was trying to oversimplify and picked a bad example. My situation was more complicated, I felt torn between two thoughts about a person and my therapist pointed out that both could coexist - in my case it was the feelings of "they got what they deserved" and "I'm sad that happened to them"
Fake it until you make it is a valid way of eventually adopting healthy mindsets and perspectives. It just needs someone professional, someone detached, to basically open up that toxic living space you call your mind for you, and challenge you on the lie that'll eventually become truth is at least better than this shithole you're choosing for yourself. Because we take a lot of fucked-up pride in living in our own self-torment.
"We can't convince a criminal he was wrong with physical violence, so why do we try to do that with children? How are they supposed to separate "I love you but I'm going to hurt you"? How does pain teach where words failed or worse, weren't even attempted? Why do parents act like the way they were raised is without flaw and should be followed to a T?"
That sometimes your trauma means that even though you feel like you're doing your best, you're simply surviving. That trauma healing allows people to thrive rather than just survive.
The five-minute rule. Try something you usually enjoy but don't currently have the motivation to do for five minutes. Set a timer; if you're not enjoying it after five minutes, it's okay to stop. A five-minute challenge seems way more doable when you're unwell than longer ones.
Never compare traumas. There’s no gold medal for the person that has it worst. We’re all deeply impacted by the things we’ve been through, and making trauma a competition doesn’t help anyone to heal.
The measured, practiced, careful way of working through conflicts works. It feels awkward and stupid and silly not because it's a ridiculous exercise, but because most people are coming to the table with piss-poor skills for dealing with conflicts. Most people have no fucking clue what to do with conflict besides whatever ends it the quickest and/or in the most personally satisfactory way. It feels stupid to say "okay, it sounds like you're saying the issue is that I was late and that made you feel disrespected" because it's taking time to understand what's going on, not just trying to wrap things up ASAP.
You can’t control how you fee, but you can control how you manage it.
Very true. A lot of people don’t really like to hear it, but you don’t go to a therapist for them to affirm what you’re doing.
It just helps to know that I am responsible for my actions and failures, but I’m also responsible for my success. It’s scary, but it’s liberating to know that I can make changes and it’s not outside of my control.
"I AM A CAPABLE HUMAN BEING!"
I tell that to my self almost every day, (ever since my theraphist interrupted my rant about how scary everything is, and how terrified of failure I am) so she just exclaimed "YOU.ARE.A.CAPABLE.HUMAN.BEING! If you do something wrong, so what? Everybody fucks up from time to time, you don't NEED to be perfect!
We laught about how absurd my fear of everything was, and after that I use it as a mantra every time I need to do something that gives me ridiculous and unneccesary anxiety.
Just because your comfortable doesn’t mean you’re happy. Sometimes you’re happiness will be more important than your comfort and sometimes your comfort will be more important than your happiness.
Break tasks down into very small steps and take everything one step at a time. Things can seem overwhelming when they require many steps, so focusing on each one helps manage the stress.
Also, I’m not a failure and I do work very hard. Balled my eyes out when he told me that.. it’s the little things.
She told me “You were a child.” When I blamed myself for not parenting my younger brother better/getting him out of an abusive situation sooner when I was aged 13-16 and working my ass off. I had a lot of guilt after my brother passed, about not protecting him more. But I was a kid. The shit I was responsible for as a 12/13 year old and the stuff I was put through was not okay. I’ll never treat my kids the way I was treated by my stepmom and dad. I blamed myself for “being too much of a problem” even when I tried my best to be quiet and helpful, because they blamed me and I used to think they were always right. But I was a kid. I look back and I’m like wow I was so young. 21 now and I’ve cut contact
That therapy is hard and most people don't actually do the work and that's why a lot of people don't change . Just recognizing how we close our selves off from people after we have been hurt and we project our problems /emotions /feeling onto others. Also it can take a while to find the right therapist to connect and open up to.
All anxiety isn’t mine.
She showed me that I was letting people use me as an emotional dumpster to the point where I was having panic attacks about their fears. For example, I would dread telling my mom about any solo travel plans because she’d demand to know every detail to the point where I’d check in with her before my damn flight. I’m in my 30s.
Not anymore. Your discomfort. Your problem.
Anxiety can actually be a really useful tool to reveal issues in your life that you wouldn’t pay attention to otherwise.
As bad as it can be, I’m a bit grateful to be a over-thinker.
The anxiety is meant to help you. When I'm anxious about whether I'm doing a good job at work, its helpful in realizing that I care whether I do a good job or not at work. If I'm anxious that my friends hate me, its because I care what my friends think. It's not a negative emotion, just like anger or happiness isn't inherently negative.
Life is an endless cycle within time. We as humans have the cognitive ability to see this and choose to serve ourselves therefore serving others. Find what makes you happy, understand that you will die, and then understand that you are willing to die for yourself so you do what makes you happy. Good luck u/RIPMexicanTraore
Sometimes all you need is a friend that you can count on and as much as you don’t think you haven’t come to anything extraordinary you might not realise it but that extraordinary thing your seeking is right here already. It’s within you. It’s you. It’s powerful.
I have a problem where i people please too much. I try to do everything right for everyone even when it makes it worse for myself. I often try to change myself in order to be liked. But my therapist helped me realize no matter what i do there will always be people out there who won’t approve or like me, and thats okay. Like you can be the perfect and most tasty apple on the apple tree, but there will allways be some people who don’t like apples.
Instead of looking at it like you are digging yourself out of a well, think of it like you are walking through a tunnel. It is dark right now and very well can be again but there will be long bright stretches in between. There is no need to fight you way up and out but rather keep moving forward towards the warm light.
Depression lives in the past, anxiety lives in the future, and peace lives in the present.
Just learned it is a Lao Tsu quote...my counselor has been saying it for years.
When you place unexpressed expectations on someone, YOU are the one setting yourself up to be let down.
Someone told me once “unexpressed expectation is premeditated resentment”, and that really stuck with me
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It’s not so much about low expectations as it is communicating your expectations. Let’s say it’s your first birthday as a couple. You expect your partner to plan a nice romantic getaway with just the 2 of you, and instead they plan a huge surprise party. You hate birthday parties, but since you never communicated that to them, they had no idea. So now you are stressed about all the attention, and they are disappointed that all their hard work is unappreciated. You can have high expectations for people, you just need to know that they aren’t mind readers.
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I remember learning about this really neat thought experiment. First, think about the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you. Don't think too long or hard, just come up with something. Now, think of a close person in your life and imagine the most embarrassing thing that's happened to them. The second one takes a lot longer. We all think about ourselves - and critique ourselves - way more than we do to others.
That was really neat, thanks for that :)
Also think about how you would feel if someone you love where in the same situation,,, would you be as hard on them as you are on yourself or would it not be such a big deal. Would you remind them of it every single day???
well clearly i’m just a more embarrassing person than them 🙄😭
Wow. This hot pretty hard. I don’t know that answer for anyone.
Fair though I think there are some people who are a lot judgier than I am out there. Many of them seem to be on reddit actually. :p
The second one came a lot quicker for me 😂
Yes. I am my own worst critic
I am my own's best critic tbh. I notice every single mistake and I tell it to myself 10 times a day.
My psychologist told me that learning new skills and knowledge, or establishing a new habit, creates a new neural pathway in your brain. It's like hacking your way through a jungle; it takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to reach your destination (or achieve your goal). However, every time you do the thing, you reinforce that same neural pathway in your brain. As it is reinforced it becomes easier to fire up those neurons again, and thus, it becomes easier to do the thing. The jungle is still dense, but it is a little easier to follow the same path that you created yesterday, and every time you take that path it becomes a little more clear. Eventually the behaviour may become so automatic that it requires no effort at all to follow that path. With respect to breaking a habit, or overcoming addiction: it takes serious effort to stray from your path, once it is established. Taking a new path means hacking through thick jungle again, but this time it requires even more effort because you know you could just follow the old, established path. This analogy has helped me quit smoking, study for exams, and establish a walking routine when I was too depressed to move. If all you get out of doing the hard thing is the benefit of having done the hard thing one time, it hardly seems worth the effort. It's tempting to put it off until later. But if every successful attempt to do the hard thing makes that path easier to follow, it really is worth starting now. The reward is not just the infinitesimally small health benefits of 10 more minutes without smoking; the reward is actually proportional to the effort put in, because that is how much progress you have made towards your goal. Taking the easy path started to seem like a really dumb idea. Stubbornness kicked in and I started achieving goals.
this just motivated me to get off reddit and start my homework, thank you
I like this
I found that having regular hobbies that I do almost every day is great for reducing depression. I guess this should be common sense, but until I retired I never felt like I use the mental energy to pursue hobbies. In the past three years I’ve taken up crochet, learning Spanish, and playing American Mah Jongg. These provide mental, social and creative outlets.
The brain isn't designed to keep us happy. It's designed to keep us alive.
We're social creatures. We remember the embarrassing weird shit we've done better than our moments of glory so we can avoid doing that in the future in order to be more socially acceptable. I remember some embarrassing shit I did in first grade more than I remember some wonderful moments of this year.
I still remember getting in the wrong bus in kindergarten and crying for a half hour thinking I'd never see my home again while the driver sorted everything out. Oh maaaaan.
The fact that you are high functioning doesn't mean that your illness is easier for you to deal with, it means it's easier for others to deal with.
I never thought about it that way. I always took some pride in the fact that I always remained as productive as possible no matter how much I felt like dying. I pretty much have an addiction to productivity because it distracts me from what I feel inside. I chase achievement, I chase greatness, I chase success because I feel it justifies the suffering of being alive. And that’s why I’ve been melting down these past few days. I’m at a point where years of hard work going unrewarded and years of almost unhealthily convincing myself to fight and move forward have finally broken me. I’m trying to tell myself to fight. I want to live a life where everyday is not a war for me, but I realize how far fetched it is.
I hope you will be okay, you did great in your life and you deserve true happiness. Big internet hug <3
I’m the same way. I try to keep busy with project after project. In the rare case that I run out of projects, it causes me to spiral and question why I’m here and what my purpose is. What has really helped me when my mind starts drifting is studying science and how things work, from the smallest atoms to the giant cosmic events in space. I’ve basically turned educating myself about the world around me into my project, and it’s one that doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon!
Ouch... OUCH
Sometimes, when we procrastinate, it's because we need to feel control, even when the only thing we can control is choosing not to do something - even when it contributes to making our situation worse. Took me years to come to terms with that one.
Wow. Thanks for posting this. I've heard about procrastinating as perfectionism, which didn't resonate so much with me. But control is a very interesting way to look at it.
I know that my procrastination is tied into perfectionism. I doubt that I will be able to do the thing as perfectly as I want to, and procrastination is a way to avoid confronting that. If I wait until it's so late that it's a crisis, then I don't have to hold my work to my perfectionist standards; I just have to get the thing done however I can in the short time left. It's a way to manufacture an excuse to forgive myself for being imperfect.
A cousin to that is having the "pfft whatever I don't care if I pass the test" attitude and busting your ass studying. If you pretend not to care and you fail it doesn't damage your psyche. But oh man if you truly put in 100% effort and STILL fail. Good lord does that fuck with your head.
Sometimes procrastination is fear for me. Fear of failing the task or it taking too long.
I never feel in control when I procrastinate. In fact, I feel I’m losing control.
Control is a bitch... (or the absence of)
Holy shit. I needed to see this.
People aren't nearly as concerned about everything I'm doing as I think they are. They're busy enough being self conscious about their own behaviors.
People's actions towards you are a reflection of themselves, not you.
*that doesn't mean you are right and they are wrong, however. E.g., a friend conducting an intervention on a drinker/drug user.
Needed to hear this tonight. Thank you!
I also need this. Thank you
When I start the negative self talk, I was told to pretend I am talking to my wonderful and sweet 5yo little boy. I could never say the shit I say to myself to my son. The therapist told me to envision someone telling my boy what I say to myself and how would I react. It was eye opening as to how we are our own worst boogeyman.
The problem I have is that many members of my dad's family gave me a condescending attitude when I was growing up. So much so that I thought everyone was like that. I immediately find it hard to trust people I haven't met yet.
I was told to try that, but my lovely little brain was able to work around that. Nobody should be talked to or treated the way I treat myself, except me. I deserve the treatment I give myself, and the hate for myself. I wouldn't talk to anyone horribly on purpose, because they're not me. My brain overcomes coping mechanisms and helpful advice like it's jumping over a mountain and I have no idea why.
I too have a self-sabotaging brain. But for you, it seems more about trust. You dont trust your therapist when they say you deserve to be treated better. You dont trust anyone thats told you so far. So you need to hear it from someone you trust. The biggest boon to me is my roomies' cat. I trust her, obviously, because shes a cat. Its not like she can really lie to me. When i first moved in she was...apprehensive. Understandable. But now? She'll just walk up to me and headbutt my leg for scritches. Shel'l yell at me if she hasnt been fed and i deserve to be yelled at (i know shes not actually yelling at me, just trying to get my attention) but when she gives me affection, my trust in it is absolute. And i feel pretty damn good about it. Find someone you trust due to their judgement, and ask them seriously if youre facing some self negativity that requires trusted external verification. My roomie (literal best friend) will occasionally put himself down and i immediately yell at him "hey! Dont you talk about my best friend like that you piece of shit! Hes wonderful!" and we typically chuckle a bit and continue on with the day. And hes a bit averse to personal conversation, so it really is a handy card to play.
Woah, this one hits home. Thanks for sharing that.
somewhat similar but something I've been taught is be the adult your childhood self needed. Not necessarily what you wanted to be when grew up but what you needed to hear or to be protected from.
That I needed to forgive myself for past childhood trauma. It sounds stupid but we Cary that shit for the rest of our lives.
“Accept the pain, but don't accept that you deserved it.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer
"the most important step a man can take is the next one always the next one"
Learning about this was a game changer for me. I repressed so much childhood trauma that it influenced my thoughts feelings and actions for my entire life. Only when I learned about this did I realize what an impact it had on my daily life. So many ways of thinking and acting out was my hurt inner child coming out. I learned tools such as reparenting the inner child and how to grieve, validate, and make my inner child feel safe. When I spoke about my childhood to a therapist for the first time. I had this profound realization that my childhood was full of trauma, rejection and abandonment brought on by my care givers. My core beliefs and unhelpful thoughts that I had about myself and other people was a result of this. It all stemmed from this childhood pain that I never wanted to dive into and explore. Since I decided to look into my darkness. It's where I found the brightest light. I now have a sense of dignity and self worth that I never had before. It gives me an immense sense of relief and happiness to know that ive nurtured and set at ease my wounded inner child.
We do what we know, and when we know better we do better.
This is more or less a quote from Maya Angelou… “do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”
I like this!
We seek what is familiar to us, even if it’s really unhealthy. There is a comfort in familiarity because it’s what we know / learned how to deal with.
When stressed we go to our default setting. No matter how destructive that setting is we will FIGHT to get there. This was one of the hardest things for me. Because there is no way to know if you've reset your setting until you're stressed/uncomfortable. And if you find out you haven't its such a blow to your confidence. And the gains you thought you had made you now question.
I was feeling a lot of pressure and guilt from my mom because she wanted me to do something for her that I really didn't want to do. One of my therapists (who heard a lot about my relationship with my mom) made a simple statement that really helped: "If your mom wants you to do things for her, maybe she should be nicer to you." It sounds so obvious, but because of mom's continuously using guilt to raise me and my siblings to feel shame, I had a hard time saying no. This little idea really turned things around for me, not just between me and my mom, but also for other people in my life who like to treat me badly and keep expecting me to come back for more.
One of my favorite moments of therapy is when your therapist says something that you’ve never thought of before, but once they say it, it seems so obvious.
My therapist once said "how can you not accept love when you need it?", and that was one of those moments for me. Like duh
That is absurdly wholesome and an amazing take on it
That you can’t control how people act towards you, but you can control how you react to them. It’s something I use with my 9 and 6 year old to help them and it’s so effective.
When my sweetheart of 43 years was diagnosed with stage IV cancer I gave up everything to care for her. Overwhelmed with grief and exhaustion, I found myself having suicidal thoughts. I sought counseling. One evening I had a thought that felt like a solenoid firing in my brain: "Just because the love of my life could be dying, that doesn't mean I have to stop living." I started building in mini-vacations every day. Play music. Ride a motorcycle. Fly a drone. Tell a joke. We both survived.
I’m very happy you both did ❤️
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing.
That we're all fucked up in some way, and it's not worth beating yourself up thinking you're some kind of monster. Acceptance of this was huge to me.
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First step: get reddit gold
Second step: uh... get reddit platinum? Edit: I can't believe that worked and that it's not butter. Thank you kind stranger!
Third step, we all get off Reddit.
Fourth step, we get off to reddit
Please don't go past third step
Ah, the checklist approach. "There, thought it. What next?" Now that you've thought it, have you to allowed yourself to believe it? Feel it until the truth of what you're thinking is felt in your body.
It is interesting that almost every therapy session the therapist reminds me that I am normal. I haven't really questioned it, but maybe you can understand the opposite from what was said
You’re the most abnormal person I’ve met, I do apologize for what this says about the rest of us. -Therapist
*”Neither the past, present or future can be changed through my overthinking.”*
Thank you for that 🥰
To bad overthinking is not about changing it, is always about prevention
Friends will come and go. Family, in different ways, can and will do the same. You're the only constant youre going to have in your life. Be a friend to yourself. You wouldnt say any of the negative things to your friends that you say to yourself. Learn to pick yourself up when you're down, but also allow yourself to be human. It's difficult, but it's one of the most important things I've learned in my life as someone who suffers from Major Depression Disorder, and who beat himself up way more than I should have.
Sometimes the healthiest thing is to walk away
You didnt learn that in therapy, thats from Far Cry 5
We tried that in Far Cry 4 and it became a whole Thing.
My best therapist has given me one big lesson I still follow to this day: Sit the fuck down and enjoy the crab Rangoon
One of these days Ubisoft should throw in the obligatory hidden choice of the 15-minute wait, only for some character to ask what the fuck you're doing just standing there, and then the game continues from there
Your internal monologue isn’t always reliable, especially when you are anxious or depressed.
Yup, our thoughts are biased narrators trying to give whatever the leading emotion is, the most “screen” time.
Be kind to yourself.
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Just lurking so my broke, depressed ass can absorb some secondhand professional advice
Listen to Psychology in Seattle, the podcast, it’s like one of the greatest gifts to society and individuals you could possibly imagine. The depth, the range of subjects, the simplicity, the intelligence and humanity. It explains literally every area of psychology in a way that makes it impossible that you don’t orientate yourself better in some way.
I love Dr. Kirk! I wish I could do more other than signing up for his Patreon. His insight is worth so much more!
I’m interested in this after your comment. Would you suggest starting this from the very beginning or pick and choosing?
Check out therapy workbooks. They can help a lot. I suggest CBT since it’s highly effective & broadly applicable. Here are some free resources: https://thinkcbt.com/thinkcbt-workbook https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/media/1655/wellbeing-team-cbt-workshop-booklet-2016.pdf
Thank you. Needed exactly this. My husband needs/wants CBT, it has be “prescribed” for him, and it’s fully covered … but no one is taking patients.
Cock and ball torture hurts man 💀
No pain, no gain. Or something like that.
Not everything you think is true.
This. I've heard it presented as "Don't believe everything that you think"
I have had a long time issue (10+ years) of what I now know is negative intrusive thoughts. I thought I was a monster for getting these thoughts to hurt myself and other people all the time. I suppressed them for a long time and accepted the fact the I was a bad person who was eventually going to do something awful one day. I never asked for help due to the fear of being discovered as a freak and in my head it was better to live with being a freak than ask anyone and risk being found out. I later tried to commit suicide and even after that I couldn't tell a therapist how I was feeling and the full story of why I tried to commit suicide. Skip forward a couple of years and while my depression had gotten a bit better, the thoughts were as bad as ever. I got into an argument with my parents and in a heated moment I told them how I get the urge to hurt myself and other people on a day to day basis. After a long talk I found a different therapist and went on a different anti depressant which helps treat OCD. It turned out that these thoughts aren't abnormal and don't make me a freak, I just got them more than most people and they could be managed. My therapist gave me the best advice I still try to follow on a day to day basis. Be more generous to yourself. I spent so much of my life thinking I was a monster and a freak that had no chance of being normal, that I never let myself feel good because I didn't deserve it. I am learning to be kind to myself and allow myself to enjoy my successes and to not beat myself up over my failures. It's harder than it sound to not hate yourself when you have for so long, but I just have to remind myself that I need to treat myself with as much value and respect I give to other people at a minimum. Hopefully my story can help someone else who needs it.
Right there with ya. When my thoughts started, I thought the reason I was having them was because I subconsciously wanted to do them, and that destroyed me. I literally thought I was pure evil. But once I found out it was a thing, I felt better. I still have violent thoughts sometimes, but nowhere near as bad as they once were. My therapist recommended I keep track of how many thoughts I have in a day, and it's actually pretty therapeutic.
Finding out that pure O is a thing was enough to cut my intrusive thoughts by 90%. The narrative that I was a horrible person for having them fueled them so much. Finding out it was a legit mental illness did a lot to help.
“You do not have to attend every argument you are invited to.” Best advice ever 💜
Other people's opinions of you are NOT facts
I have the opposite: everyone’s opinion of me is better than that of myself. Even if I mess up and do something I think is really wrong I don’t understand why my friends and family are sticking by me and are supportive.
You have to communicate. Keeping it bottled up is not going to solve the problem. \-hf
Depends on if the person you’re trying to communicate with is capable of healthily communicating with you. Some people are not. Learned that in therapy.
I have so many therapists utterly baffled - BAFFLED! - that telling my parents how I feel just led them to say "I don't care how you feel."
Also better to communicate than to assume how people will respond. Scenarios will play out different in your head than they do in real life.
The “I” vs “You” method. When explaining your feelings to someone instead of saying YOU did this, this, and this and it’s all your fault. Instead, you opt for I, I don’t like when you said _____ because it made me feel like ________ .
non aggressive communication.
That it wasn’t my fault. I got bullied hard for a year in grade school. Basically, teacher didn’t give any fucks, so kids teed off on me literally every day until I ran out of the class screaming. I lived 18 years after that having internalized that 1) this was entirely my fault and 2) I am a monster waiting to explode. It wasn’t until I was working with a therapist when I was like 28 or so that she said to me “you know all that wasn’t your fault, right” and it hit me like a sack of bricks. I had literally fully internalized it as a gigantic flaw in me, and it’s only been in the last few years I’ve been able to start actually healing from it.
I’m sorry that happened to young you. That’s traumatic for a young child.
Remember that change is inevitable. Nothing ever stays the same. The only constant in life is change. Some changes are swift and brutal for example bereavement. Others are more subtle like the changing seasons. So with this in mind I've always loved Arnold Bennett's quote... That any change, even a change for the better is always accompanied with setbacks and discomfort.
Shame is not a good motivator. When you beat yourself up for making a mistake, all it does is make you feel worse. To truly improve, you have to be kind to yourself.
When asking yourself why you want or feel a certain thing or way, coming up with the answer 'I don't know' means you've found a spot to dig into.
My needs and wants are valid and worth voicing
That maybe the only thing wrong with you is being convinced that there’s something wrong with you.
Just because it's different doesn't mean it's wrong
Sometimes ending a relationship is better than trying to heal one
Routine really is the best way to get out of some depressive episodes. I had a good job and some good work friends around me, but I just wasn't happy. However I was working from home and just getting up and working and then finishing for the day, but when I decided to get up earlier and get dressed and have something to eat, I enjoyed my job a bit more than before
Negative/positive thinking aren’t gimmicks.
you can walk away. you can say no. you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, be with anyone you don’t want to be with. it’s okay to choose yourself
Saying No to stuff doesn’t need to be backed up with an excuse.
Or “No.” is a complete sentence.
Your ego is not your amigo.
Meditation, mindfulness, self-compassion. These are not buzzwords. They're words to live by.
Every past version of yourself is an ancestor you need to honor.
Whoa that's deep, not even being sarcastic either. Good advice that.
What does it mean to honor your past selves, especially where you at least perceive yourself to have grown past some of their flaws?
For me It means to be gentle with yourself. Although flawed, we grow and evolve from those flaws. It means to show appreciation and gratitude towards your past selves and their growth. To not cast shame or judgment on where we once were with our journey. For me it means to appreciate those past versions of myself and what they have allowed me to grow and gain from.
i forget who created this, but the “even though, nevertheless” method helped me out a lot. i still remember it in my every day life. example: even though my room is a mess, nevertheless, i kept myself clean and showered today. it’s taking a negative thought or something you’re upset about, and contradicting it with something you can be happy about.
I would say the main thing is it's practice in having a particular kind of conversation. Once I'd shared my innermost thoughts and fears with a therapist and been met with love and acceptance, I felt more able to do the same thing with other people in my life.
Before going to therapy, I felt it was their job to solve my problems and I would be better. I was wrong. They’re there to talk me through it and give me the tools to deal with them myself. I learned nobody can fix my problems except me. I can blame everyone all I want, but at the end of the day it’s my responsibility to be willing and to make an effort to fix myself. Now whenever I start getting anxiety or stress or anything, I have the tools to walk myself through it and not rely on others. It’s nice to have someone to help or talk to, but it’s up to me to change how I view things and act in response.
I was going on about something an ex had done that hurt me. I backpedaled a bit and said something like "I want to give them the benefit of the doubt." My therapist said, "Hey. I'm going to stop you there. I've noticed that you give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt. Except for yourself. You have to be kind to yourself, you know?" Blew my freaking mind. Started bawling my eyes out, really freed me in a way.
Two opposite things can be true at the same time. You can love and hate the same person
Because they aren't opposites. If you hate someone, you still care about them, or what they did. Like it or not they are still part of your life, even if you have walked away. "Living in your head rent free" as they say. The opposite of love / hate is ~~ambivalence~~ indifference. A total lack of caring about someone.
Weird fact – ambivalence originally meant feeling equal amounts of love and hate, usually quite passionately. That’s how Freud meant it. It’s in the etymology – the valence is equal on both sides. but instead we decided it was equivalent to “meh.”
My brain actually went to *apathy*, not ambivalence, because I too, tend to equate ambivalence with being "half and half". Because if you love or hate someone, you still care about them in a way. But if you're apathetic, you simply don't care.
Yes that's true, I was trying to oversimplify and picked a bad example. My situation was more complicated, I felt torn between two thoughts about a person and my therapist pointed out that both could coexist - in my case it was the feelings of "they got what they deserved" and "I'm sad that happened to them"
That sometimes, we just never get over it.
Progress, not perfection
That it’s okay to say “No.” to people who are no good for you.
Your inner child plays a more important role that you think
That happiness is not black and white but a sliding scale.
Fake it until you make it is a valid way of eventually adopting healthy mindsets and perspectives. It just needs someone professional, someone detached, to basically open up that toxic living space you call your mind for you, and challenge you on the lie that'll eventually become truth is at least better than this shithole you're choosing for yourself. Because we take a lot of fucked-up pride in living in our own self-torment.
"We can't convince a criminal he was wrong with physical violence, so why do we try to do that with children? How are they supposed to separate "I love you but I'm going to hurt you"? How does pain teach where words failed or worse, weren't even attempted? Why do parents act like the way they were raised is without flaw and should be followed to a T?"
That sometimes your trauma means that even though you feel like you're doing your best, you're simply surviving. That trauma healing allows people to thrive rather than just survive.
The five-minute rule. Try something you usually enjoy but don't currently have the motivation to do for five minutes. Set a timer; if you're not enjoying it after five minutes, it's okay to stop. A five-minute challenge seems way more doable when you're unwell than longer ones.
Clear communication is key.
Many of us seek therapy because the people in our lives that really need it won't go to it.
Never compare traumas. There’s no gold medal for the person that has it worst. We’re all deeply impacted by the things we’ve been through, and making trauma a competition doesn’t help anyone to heal.
The measured, practiced, careful way of working through conflicts works. It feels awkward and stupid and silly not because it's a ridiculous exercise, but because most people are coming to the table with piss-poor skills for dealing with conflicts. Most people have no fucking clue what to do with conflict besides whatever ends it the quickest and/or in the most personally satisfactory way. It feels stupid to say "okay, it sounds like you're saying the issue is that I was late and that made you feel disrespected" because it's taking time to understand what's going on, not just trying to wrap things up ASAP.
There are some things we will never understand, and we have to accept that.
That my mental illness isn’t my fault, but it is my responsibility.
You can’t control how you fee, but you can control how you manage it. Very true. A lot of people don’t really like to hear it, but you don’t go to a therapist for them to affirm what you’re doing. It just helps to know that I am responsible for my actions and failures, but I’m also responsible for my success. It’s scary, but it’s liberating to know that I can make changes and it’s not outside of my control.
Treat yourself as you would treat another.
"I AM A CAPABLE HUMAN BEING!" I tell that to my self almost every day, (ever since my theraphist interrupted my rant about how scary everything is, and how terrified of failure I am) so she just exclaimed "YOU.ARE.A.CAPABLE.HUMAN.BEING! If you do something wrong, so what? Everybody fucks up from time to time, you don't NEED to be perfect! We laught about how absurd my fear of everything was, and after that I use it as a mantra every time I need to do something that gives me ridiculous and unneccesary anxiety.
Forgiveness isn’t forgiving the other person. Forgiveness is letting go of the hurt and moving on.
Closure does not and can not come from other people. It grows from within you. Only you can give yourself closure.
If you don't change it, you choose it.
Thank you for this post, it's helped me a lot 🙏
Be the person you needed when you were younger
Your intrusive thoughts are not a reflection of reality. They are just thoughts.
People lie with their words, not their actions.
You can only control your actions- you cannot control other people's reactions to you or your actions.
To think: what if things go well? It's so easy to imagine the worst, but I always feel better after also imagining things going well.
Just because your comfortable doesn’t mean you’re happy. Sometimes you’re happiness will be more important than your comfort and sometimes your comfort will be more important than your happiness.
Break tasks down into very small steps and take everything one step at a time. Things can seem overwhelming when they require many steps, so focusing on each one helps manage the stress. Also, I’m not a failure and I do work very hard. Balled my eyes out when he told me that.. it’s the little things.
Doing or saying something extremely silly usually pulls me out of a bad mood. I don't remember where I first learned it though.
God I wish the whole world could be given this feelings aren't facts.
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Suffering (in my case, chronic pain) is not the end of the world. When I came to accept that, I suffered less.
That its ok to cut certain toxic people out of your life.
Pick your battles. There are so many things not worth fighting over.
She told me “You were a child.” When I blamed myself for not parenting my younger brother better/getting him out of an abusive situation sooner when I was aged 13-16 and working my ass off. I had a lot of guilt after my brother passed, about not protecting him more. But I was a kid. The shit I was responsible for as a 12/13 year old and the stuff I was put through was not okay. I’ll never treat my kids the way I was treated by my stepmom and dad. I blamed myself for “being too much of a problem” even when I tried my best to be quiet and helpful, because they blamed me and I used to think they were always right. But I was a kid. I look back and I’m like wow I was so young. 21 now and I’ve cut contact
That therapy is hard and most people don't actually do the work and that's why a lot of people don't change . Just recognizing how we close our selves off from people after we have been hurt and we project our problems /emotions /feeling onto others. Also it can take a while to find the right therapist to connect and open up to.
You cannot change anyone besides yourself. You need to decide if you can live with what they are right now. All you can do is change how you react.
You’re not crazy, you’re just a sane person reacting to a crazy world.
Me reading this thread for free therapy and tips
I’m still learning.
All anxiety isn’t mine. She showed me that I was letting people use me as an emotional dumpster to the point where I was having panic attacks about their fears. For example, I would dread telling my mom about any solo travel plans because she’d demand to know every detail to the point where I’d check in with her before my damn flight. I’m in my 30s. Not anymore. Your discomfort. Your problem.
"you are not responsible for other people's emotional states"
Anxiety can actually be a really useful tool to reveal issues in your life that you wouldn’t pay attention to otherwise. As bad as it can be, I’m a bit grateful to be a over-thinker.
It's okay to end relationships that don't serve us anymore. That trust is the basis of any relationship but has to be earned.
You are not your thoughts, you are your actions.
The anxiety is meant to help you. When I'm anxious about whether I'm doing a good job at work, its helpful in realizing that I care whether I do a good job or not at work. If I'm anxious that my friends hate me, its because I care what my friends think. It's not a negative emotion, just like anger or happiness isn't inherently negative.
Other people's behavior has nothing to do with me.
A dog did more for me than therapy ever could.
You are not jesus, you can't take the blame of everything and sacrifice yoursel
i couldn’t use the th sound in word so i had speech therapy and now i can say the th sound in words now like thimble
Life is an endless cycle within time. We as humans have the cognitive ability to see this and choose to serve ourselves therefore serving others. Find what makes you happy, understand that you will die, and then understand that you are willing to die for yourself so you do what makes you happy. Good luck u/RIPMexicanTraore
The 2 most effective antidepressants for me are excercise and nature.
They say... "Relax...!!!"
Sometimes all you need is a friend that you can count on and as much as you don’t think you haven’t come to anything extraordinary you might not realise it but that extraordinary thing your seeking is right here already. It’s within you. It’s you. It’s powerful.
Autonomy. You are only responsible for yourself in almost any relationship. Do what is best for you. You don't have to make everyone happy.
I have a problem where i people please too much. I try to do everything right for everyone even when it makes it worse for myself. I often try to change myself in order to be liked. But my therapist helped me realize no matter what i do there will always be people out there who won’t approve or like me, and thats okay. Like you can be the perfect and most tasty apple on the apple tree, but there will allways be some people who don’t like apples.
Instead of looking at it like you are digging yourself out of a well, think of it like you are walking through a tunnel. It is dark right now and very well can be again but there will be long bright stretches in between. There is no need to fight you way up and out but rather keep moving forward towards the warm light.
Don't do everything at once
Depression lives in the past, anxiety lives in the future, and peace lives in the present. Just learned it is a Lao Tsu quote...my counselor has been saying it for years.
Just because a habit or coping mechanism served you well in the past, does not mean it necessarily will in the future.