I turn 38 tomorrow. My business has won some awards in its first two years. I got majority placement of my teenage son and he’s doing great in school and life.
This was an incredibly important thing I realized after getting married and buying my house. I used to worry that I'd never find love, or that I would never be financially stable enough to own my own place. Now that I've done both of those things, I've found new things to worry about.
There was never a concrete set of things that worried me I could overcome and become happy. My problem is with my thought patterns. No matter how stable and secure I become I'll always find something to worry about because that's what my brain does by default.
Living with anxiety is being stuck in fight or flight mode. Even if I have nothing to worry about, I'll pull something out of nothing. Therapy has helped me to recognize that I don't have to give all my thoughts equal weight and it's OK to ignore my gut feeling sometimes.
I feel like many people who are unhappy try to latch onto some external thing, usually something difficult to change, to blame for their unhappiness. Understandably, it's easier to feel like a victim and wallow in self-pity than it is to undergo the painful and scary process of self-improvement.
Outsiders who don't understand what we go through dismissively say, "It's all in your head, just get over it." To an extent, they are right. A mental disorder is by definition in our head, and we do need to deal with it, or resign ourselves to misery. It's not nearly as easy as they would think, though. It's like being told not to think about bears. You probably just thought about bears, if only for a moment.
Ultimately, the first step to overcoming things like depression and anxiety is recognizing that the problem is internal, that there is no amount of good fortune that can make you feel better. Failing to realize this, one may begin to feel guilty, like they don't appreciate all the good in their life, compounding the issue.
Overcoming anxiety and depression requires one to identify and work around the flaws in their thought patterns, as well as their response to those thought patterns.
Here's a list of cognitive distortions: unhealthy, irrational thought patterns that color our thinking without us realizing it. Personally, I struggle most with 1-5.
TL;DR
No amount of external good fortune can "fix" depression or anxiety. The problem lies in the way we fundamentally perceive and respond to the world, and in order to overcome it we must recognize and address that fact.
niceshootintex on December 19th, 2018 at 16:05 UTC »
That’s what people don’t understand. Everything could be great in your life but you feel depressed. It sucks.
zensouth on December 19th, 2018 at 16:21 UTC »
"I was happier when things were worse" is a thought I've had many times. Has to be studies on this somewhere.
Edit: wow thanks for all the responses. Good to know I'm not alone, and now I've got some great resources.
BrohamesJohnson on December 19th, 2018 at 16:53 UTC »
This was an incredibly important thing I realized after getting married and buying my house. I used to worry that I'd never find love, or that I would never be financially stable enough to own my own place. Now that I've done both of those things, I've found new things to worry about.
There was never a concrete set of things that worried me I could overcome and become happy. My problem is with my thought patterns. No matter how stable and secure I become I'll always find something to worry about because that's what my brain does by default.
Living with anxiety is being stuck in fight or flight mode. Even if I have nothing to worry about, I'll pull something out of nothing. Therapy has helped me to recognize that I don't have to give all my thoughts equal weight and it's OK to ignore my gut feeling sometimes.
I feel like many people who are unhappy try to latch onto some external thing, usually something difficult to change, to blame for their unhappiness. Understandably, it's easier to feel like a victim and wallow in self-pity than it is to undergo the painful and scary process of self-improvement.
Outsiders who don't understand what we go through dismissively say, "It's all in your head, just get over it." To an extent, they are right. A mental disorder is by definition in our head, and we do need to deal with it, or resign ourselves to misery. It's not nearly as easy as they would think, though. It's like being told not to think about bears. You probably just thought about bears, if only for a moment.
Ultimately, the first step to overcoming things like depression and anxiety is recognizing that the problem is internal, that there is no amount of good fortune that can make you feel better. Failing to realize this, one may begin to feel guilty, like they don't appreciate all the good in their life, compounding the issue.
Overcoming anxiety and depression requires one to identify and work around the flaws in their thought patterns, as well as their response to those thought patterns.
Here's a list of cognitive distortions: unhealthy, irrational thought patterns that color our thinking without us realizing it. Personally, I struggle most with 1-5.
TL;DR
No amount of external good fortune can "fix" depression or anxiety. The problem lies in the way we fundamentally perceive and respond to the world, and in order to overcome it we must recognize and address that fact.