Quote:
Originally Posted by lurkette
If you can't get to a therapist, I highly recommend " Feeling Good," which is sort of a do-it-yourself cognitive therapy manual. It points out the known "distortions" that underlie the thinking of many people with depression and anxiety. You have to be kind of disciplined, though...I found that when I was depressed, I was sometimes too depressed to even read the damn book. You also have to be willing to step outside the patterns of your usual thinking and admit that the things you think are true ("I suck, I'm a failure, this might work for some people but I'm REALLY broken") are just symptoms of the disease. |
So I finally picked up this book. I read the first two chapters and completed the test. I guess I'm around 50 out of 100 on the scale, which is on the borderline for severe depression. I started with a score of 53 but thought maybe I was exaggerating my symptoms (they've been around for a long time). I managed to down rank to 48 or so. It doesn't really matter because I'm a far cry from "mildly depressed". The book's author suggests that we can expect to drop below 10 (which is not depressed but not happy) and to spend much of life "happy" at below 5. I don't remember if maybe I ever ranked below 10 let alone 5. Maybe childhood. Maybe never.
To me I can't imagine even cutting my score in half to 25, which is still in the upper end of mildly depressed. Do most people really live most of their lives at scores as low as 5 or 10? I can't imagine it. All this tells me is that I don't think I know what it feels like to be happy, even in a clinical sense. I know "happiness" has lots of idealism attached to it but is clinical happiness what most people have? I think that since it's been so long that I've normalized my depression.
I'm not sure if I'm encouraged or discouraged at this point. I hope to force myself to continue with the book. It sounds promising and it's the closest thing I'll get to cognitive therapy at this point.