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Originally Posted by onesnowyowl
I'd have to agree with this assessment. If clinical depression were the case, you probably would have had some difficulty with it before your 22nd birthday.
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That's not always the case. My first depressive episode happened when I was 29. Rather than relying on our educated guesses, you might try taking an online depression screening test like
http://www.depression-screening.org/...eeningtest.htm
or seeing a physician/therapist who can assess you to see if you are clinically depressed, and can help work out the best solution for you.
Another helpful thing is looking at where you are using "cognitive distortions," a type of automatic thinking that is generally logical on the outside and fucked up on the inside:
Cognitive distortions are logical, but they are not rational. They can create real difficulty with your thinking. See if you are doing any of the ten common distortions that people use. Rate yourself from one to ten with one being low and ten being high. Ask yourself if you can stop using the distortions and think in a different way.
1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see your self as a total failure.
2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
1. MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out
2. THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR: you can anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the binocular trick."
7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn't, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him" "He's a Goddamn louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
10. PERSONALIZATION: You see your self as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
http://www.uwec.edu/counsel/pubs/defn.htm
When you're stuck in a negative thought pattern, it's often useful to look at the following questions:
1. What's the situation (just describe the absolute facts, e.g., my boss said "you didn't turn in the report I asked for on time", or I didn't pay my electric bill on time)
2. What automatic thoughts am I using (e.g., "I'm a failure and my life is out of control"
3. What cognitive distortions am I using (e.g., labeling and magnification)
4. What could I ask to challenge this (e.g., what areas of my life are in control? What have I succeeded at?)
5. What would be a more realistic statement? (e.g., I was late with the assignment; my system for paying bills is not working)
I find this exercise IMMENSELY helpful when I'm most down on myself. It helps to provide some distance and a realistic perspective on whatever situation I'm dealing with. I hope this helps.