panther's lair

to recap- my list has so far contained working on anger, frustration, and guilt. moving forward now...

4. sadness and depression- one of my biggest, most long lasting problems. i have, since i can remember, had problems with depression (and anxiety and low self-esteem...). according to my book, you feel sadness and depression when you have thoughts of loss. it makes sense this year- i have lost a job, a student, a good friend, my dad...you can also feel it when you fail to achieve an important personal goal. makes sense how that can lead to low self-esteem, or how low self-esteem can lead to depression. it's really one big, ugly cycle. so my depression this year makes a lot of sense, but i have apparently felt a sense of loss my entire life. what exactly did i lose, or did i feel like i lost, to make me struggle with depression my whole life. i imagine a lot of it is that i take any little loss very seriously- everything i did that wasn't perfect (which would be everything i do...i am a non-functioning perfectionist) would be viwed as a failure to achieve a goal. one b on a history test meant that i sucked at history. being unable to make a basket in basketball meant i was a horrible athlete. hurting someone's feelings meant i was a horrible, mean person. one thing i know i need to do is to start being proud of what i do achieve, i need to stop always focusing on what i don't do right, or on how i mess up, or on what i lost. i need to focus more on the things i do well or on how i do sometimes help others out. i need to find a way to learn to truly believe i am a worthy person. the fact that i no longer desire to be dead is helpful to me- i take it as a sign that i am worthy of being alive, at least. i didn't always think that. i just need to keep working in that direction. with depression, comes a feeling of hopelessness. a feeling that your life will never get better, and that nothing you do will help. you have to actively fight against that- you have to make a decision to try to believe that you can be happier. it is hard to think that when deep down you feel like your life will always be messed up. ah...faulty thinking.

on a side note, but a relevant one, i have always desparately wanted to be intelligent. i have never been very athletic or artistic or musical, so i guess i turned to what i thought i was good at- school work. however, in some ways- i am not good at school work. i have always admired people who have read all the classics, who are well-versed in the great philosophers, poets, and all that. the problem though is that i have always needed someone else to interpret what these things mean. for example, i love shakespeare when i see it as a play or movie, or when my old english teacher would explain what it all meant. reading it- i am left with absolutely no clue what the story is about. when i read most poetry, or shakespeare, or philosophy i feel like i get as much out of it as my cat would. i don't know- my reading comprehension could use some serious work. anywho- this has always made me feel stupid. especially because i tend to like to surround myself with intelligent people, people who do have a firm grasp on the english language. in many ways, i think this has helped foster my low self-esteem. i always felt like all my friends were so much more intelligent than i could ever be.
the funny thing is that i am now starting to question that basic belief that i have held so long. i want to thank all of my students for this too- it has been through teaching that i have discovered that i may actually be pretty smart. i just don't learn through books quite as easily as many others- but that doesn't mean that i don't learn (for cripes sake, i was salutatorian at my high school graduation, i graduated college with honors, and i have a masters...what more do i need to do to show myself that i am not an idiot). it just means that my talents, skill, and strengths are elsewhere. i always really believe that of my students- that they are smart. i have had so many students now that grew up feeling stupid- because they have a hard time learning by reading too. but you also learn by doing, by watching, by listening. most of my knowledge comes from simply watching other people. anywho, all this to say that my feeling stupid is a large part of why i have been so depressed my whole life...my parents never made me feel stupid- they always acted like they thought i was very bright and they were proud of my school performance. my grades, my teachers- none of this should have indicated i was stupid. i even hung out with the other "good" students in school- (at least, when i would hang out with anyone they tended to be a good student, but i was quite the loner especially in middle school and early high school). however, it is only now, after teaching so many other people, that i might be starting to realize my own potential.

5. anxiety and worry. this is another big one for me. i live my life in a state of constant worry. if someone is even a few minutes late, i start to worry that they were in a car wreck. if i have to go to the bank, i worry about talking to the teller. i worry if i have to ask a question. i worry about money, my cats, the boy, my wife, my car, my friends, my mom. everything. anything. according to the book, anxiety is due to feeling you are in danger because something bad is about to happen. that describes my life to a t. before going anywhere, i play out several bad scenarios in my head so that i will have a prepared reaction to most catastrophes. i spend so much time worrying about what might happen- it's a wonder i ever get anything done at all. little things (what movie do i rent? what if the one i pick sucks and everyone hates it?), big things (how is my mom coping now that she doesn't have my dad there anymore? will be be financially ok, ever?). i worry about every email i have to send, every phone call i have to make. i often worry to the point of not doing anything about it for weeks (ignoring the phone for several weeks at a time), and this is bad because by the time i do finally get the gumption to try to take care of the situation, it has grown worse. ah, procrastination- the enemy of the anxious. so much of my anxiety would be taken care of if i just dealt with each situation as it came up. running and hiding doesn't work at all- it just makes everything worse. the situation won't go away, and often continues to grow worse- so ignoring it only puts off the inevitable. also, the longer you wait to do something, the longer you have to blow it out of proportion, to let it build up so large in your own mind that you become paralyzed by the fear. the anticipation is usually so much worse than actually dealing with the problem too. at least, that is how it tends to be with me. so one way to start to deal with anxiety is to stop procrastinating. that is hard because it is often the anxiety that leads to the procrastination. so many downward spirals with mental illness. so my anxiety and depression are the two most important things to get a handle on. in fact, if i get my depression and anxiety under control, i would wager that my frustration, anger, guilt- all that other stuff will probably start to improve as well.

6. inferiority- yet another problem i have. also called low self-esteem. i have spent many years looking at others and believing that i am not as important, or that i don't matter as much. i never think i accomplish as much as others, i never think i am a very good friend. this is made worse by things like losing my job. if you feel like a failure before you lose the job, let me assure you that you won't feel any better about yourself after you do lose it. in fact, this makes me sometimes feel jealous of others (which then makes me feel icky- guilty, anxious and depressed). for example, i am jealous of my wife right now. she just got her phd, her family is so proud of her, she has plenty of classes lined up for fall, she is a great mother...that makes me feel jealous to a certain degree. i feel mostly excited and happy for her- god knows she deserves it! that is why i then feel guilty...ack! you see, all my problems get wrapped up together into a giant mess. so if i can learn to accept myself as a person, then i won't need to be jealous of others. i won't feel inferior. ack. overwhelming i tell you- it is hard as hell to change parts of your personality that you have had forever- but man i think it will worth it if i can do it.

anywho, those are the major things (emotional states) i am trying to improve. one way to do this is to work on fixing my twisted thinking. that is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy. change your behavior and thought processes and eventually your emotions, attitudes and feelings change too. one way to do this is to look for twisted thinking- and change that. i use all manner of twisted thinking in fact. so guess what- here on therapy hour- i am now going to go over the types of twisted thinking i engage in...i tell you, my plan is to work deeply through this book, and most of that will take place here. unless i fail and don't finish...but that isn't the plan. the plan is to keep plugging away.

so without any more babbling ado- here are the types of twisted thinking that i use to help keep me depressed, anxious, angry, and so forth. let's get them out on the table.

1. all-or-nothing thinking. this is seeing things as black or white, right or wrong. all or nothing. i don't always do this- in fact- when looking at other people's lives, i think i am damned good at looking for the shades of gray. when it comes to myself, i realize i hold myself to other standards that i would ever expect anyone else to live up to. i do this with food all the time- i think i will try to eat better and go on a diet. but then i have some cake one day- so that means i have blown the diet. it's over- i failed! now i can just eat what i want, and know i will never be healthy and thin. i realize that doesn't actually make sense. even if you mess up on your diet every day for a week, you haven't completely failed. you just try again the next day. this happens to drug users too- they try to get sober, but mess up after a few weeks and have a drink (or 12). so then they just give up and start using regularly again. our society encourages this to a large degree- when instead we should be encouraging people to get up, brush themselves off and try again. backsliding some doesn't mean all the work you did was for nothing. backsliding is normal. i don't think that is explained to people enough. when i was in therapy years ago, they never said that i might make some changes and become happier- but that there was a good chance that i might backslide under stress. had i really known that, maybe i wouldn't have had the attitude of "i tried to change already and i failed- so why bother?" i didn't fail before, i made a lot of positive changes (no longer suicidal or anorexic for example)- and i need to take credit for that while recognizing that i did backslide and need to try to move forward again. mental health isn't all or nothing.

2. overgeneralization- using words like always or never- this can be dangerous. a single event is seen as a neverending pattern. a great example of this is when i lost my job- i thought "i always fail at everything." i *always* fail at everything. that doesn't make any sense realistically, but that is what i thought and how i felt. and that did me no good at all. i need to start looking at each event just as they are- single events.

3. mental filter- this is when you pick out a single detail and dwell on it. this is what happens when reading student evals and they are all wonderful except one. someone like me can dwell on that one bad eval and obsess over it for days- and basically ignore the 40 excellent evals. i have already gotten so much better about that (i was much worse about this before)...so that is hopeful to me. i can see that some changes do stick...my work is not all for nothing.

more therapy hour later...