Can You Think Yourself into a Different Person? (2015)
mosaicscience.com
mosaicscience.com
I stopped being grouchy and snippy. Or at least at first I stopped expressing myself this way to them. I was determined to end this trend, no matter what. After a few months (literally) of me not raising my voice, unless it was totally and completely justified (which I discovered was very rare) I could then say to my kids (and wife), I expect you to talk nice and decently to eachother, and as soon as they accused me of being grouchy, I pointed out that I hadn't been for months, and something changed, everyone started to listen to me, even when I talked quietly.
I've become a morning person, I started jogging about 5 years ago (I hated exercise), I stopped eating white sugar in 1995 (because it was controlling me like a narcotic), and I have worked on many of my other bad habits and traits. I think anyone can change anything. And I really like reading about other people's successes in self change as well.
Everything from quitting smoking, losing weight, success in work and relationships brought back from the brink of destruction. We just need enough of a reason to do something, and then we can do it.
The trick seems to be, can you make up your own reasons? I know we can. (also I defeated crippling life long depression, food addictions, weight loss, and few other things many people want to label "diseases" we have no cure for or control over, I call bologna on that, we can change anything.)
Please be cautious about making such statements. I respect your experience and success at changing things for yourself with this model. I don't for a second doubt your sincerity. But the belief that a depressed/addicted person could get better if they just tried harder is part of a very dangerous feedback loop when you are down. You can't control everything you experience or the feelings you have. You can, sometimes, control your interpretation and response to those things, if you are careful. You can do everything right and still not be able to break the cycle. We're all different, I'm glad this worked for you but it doesn't necessarily follow that your approach would help others.
Of course, because those thought-patterns increases stress and self-burden, this can lead to never-ending cycles where the person is literally rendered incapable of breaking out of the cycle.
How much time do you spend thinking about your own problems vs other people's problems.
One of the first things I considered that changed my life was to worry about other people more than myself. If you do that, it's not possible to be depressed. If you try this and it doesn't work, keep worrying about other people more than yourself until it does.
Depression is a recursive self sadness. No one I have ever met, heard of or read about was truly depressed because of other people's problems.
Yes, they are based on chemicals. Also, did you know that by smiling and being nice to people you can add chemicals into your body that make you happy?
And yes, chemicals affect everybody differently. But it's scientifically proven that you have control over your feelings. Unless you have some incredible toxin overload, or you have a glandular problem, you can do something about depression without a doctor.
Unless you think that people who have chemical addictions like smoking and drinking also don't have control over themselves in a similar way?
(edit: @baddox - https://www.quora.com/Can-anyone-really-quit-smoking )
Edit: > Would you say when your eyes become bad just try harder and work on yourself,
I learned from a Swiss airforce fighter jet pilot about eye exercises to help with vision loss. (maybe it's common knowledge, but that's where I heard it) So I guess it depends.
I do that think, in fact.
Sure it will: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/248433.php
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/isnt-what-i-expected/20...
Google for more results...
Also, I agree that it's not simple, and that probably more than anything, these people need friends in their life that care about them, and let them know it.
This is true, and why it's common to tell someone who looks miserable to smile - it really is a two way thing, emotions affect expressions and expressions affect emotions.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-for...
These days of course a person is likely to take offence, thereby making themselves more miserable than they already are, or maybe feeling righteously offended is as close to happiness as they ever get, in which case the desired outcome has been achieved anyway!
Talking about chemistry in your brain, running does wonders about that
Semi /s
But I think doing anything at all to change your place in life will make you feel better.
The common wisdom is that when your eyesight deteriorates, you should just accept it and buy glasses, or maybe have laser surgery done.
You can however improve your eyesight (of course within some natural/physical limits) by doing functional eye exercises.
In Germany it's called "Funktionale Optometrie", some googling tells me it's "Behavioral Optometry" in English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_therapy
I know about it because my wife has been doing it for 2 years and no longer wears contact lenses at all.
It's another example where you are not just some helpless individual stuck with certain traits, but that you can actively change and improve yourself and your life if you're willing to put in the effort.
For example, if you slipped and twisted your ankle, you wouldn't ignore and think there is no solution. You sit down and hold your ankle and then limp to bed, get rest and stay off of it until it was better. Even if you didn't want to.
But problems of the heart, our feelings and our minds, they seem to get in the way of doing things that would actually help you get better.
So, maybe you just have to believe other people and try something new. Because just maybe there's hope, and doing something different for awhile can make something better eventually.
Sure, this advice might have worked for you, but only because the fog had lessened enough for you to be susceptible to the advice.
It is not the fault of people within the fog that the advice doesn't work.
All I was doing was telling you about the viewpoint from within the fog. Just because it looks like a lie from the outside, does not mean that that is so.
Anyway, to answer your first question: I spend most of my time taking care of other people. I spend very little time taking care of myself. This should, of course, change; but that is difficult to do.
The answer your second question: I lack enough memory right now to answer this question.
During puberty I had a lot of problems: depression, low self-esteem, difficulty with social problems, some social anxiety.
When puberty ended, the fog lifted and I was granted new insight into my life, and many of the problems severely lessened to the point where they do not bother me as much now.
It wasn't that the problems did not exist, it was that I needed a widefocus lens on my problems when I only had a macro lens. The ability to see more context helped me deal internally with those problems, and see that much of the stuff that I was hyper-focused on, didn't really matter in the long-run.
There isn't a way to force someone to change this, and stating that those problems were not real, is of very little help to people with those problems, especially when I distinctly remember it taking most of my energy keeping them at bay.
If you're lucky (and to continue the analogy), the person might have the right lens so that they can pull it closer and see a bigger picture, and slowly drag themselves out of it.
But assuming that everybody is capable of that is extremely harmful, and can feed those problems. Example: Telling someone with a low valuation of themselves that they need to 'just try harder' is both callous and can feed the beast that says that "see, you can't do it because you're worthless".
It is both unsympathetic to the problems that are faced, and puts you in severe danger of making the problems worse.
If I didn't get help from some people, I would never have recovered. I didn't make my life better in a vaccum. I hope any issues you have in your life get better, and that at the very least I can offer some small amount of encouragement.
If things are not well with you, or anyone, sometimes that is just life, and life can be hard. But if you go and look for someone who has it worse than you, and somehow is still happy, we have to ask why and how, otherwise we may miss an opportunity to gain it for ourselves and those around us.
My mother treated my father very poorly, and she consistently blamed him for her unhappiness. But I found that if I make the people around me happy, even when I am not, sometimes it comes back around to me.
Do you take care of other people happily or out of duty alone? Just taking care of others may seem like a selfless act, but it can also be because of emotional abuse coming home to roost. I also took care of my mother, and she taught me as a child that being abused was normal, and that I should take care of her more than anyone else. So that is not what I meant simply by "worry about others more than yourself". I meant that sadness for your own problems makes you more sad, but sadness for other peoples problems causes you to act to help them. This was a barometer I used to determine which kind of sadness was affecting me, and which I should reject, and which I could do something about.
> If you do that, it's not possible to be depressed. If you try this and it doesn't work, keep worrying about other people more than yourself until it does.
Maybe my wording was poor, but it's a simple fact that you can make your own problems worse, no matter what they are. Therefore, the opposite must be true. No matter what you problems have, you can improve them.
I just found that after having people around me destroy themselves and other people I had to start looking at why. All of them talked about themselves and their own problems. All of them. There was no exception.
I think that if you are truly honest with yourself, and in the midst of your deepest depression you analyze "what am I thinking about right now", you find it's yourself.
When I put a gun in my mouth, it wasn't to end my friends pain, it was end my own.
I was getting straight F's in school, so I was dragged into my school's counseler's office for evaluation. And the advice this trained counseler gave me was "You need to be more selfish." Even in the depths of despair, with no hope in front of me, as a kid, that advice seemed worthless and stupid.
It took me decades to work out of depression (where my answer in some part in my head was suicide) and anyone who tells you they have a quick answer is either selling surgery or pharmaceuticals. And the entire time I had to tell myself things like "don't go down, there's nothing there that's good." Even if I didn't want to believe it, and I wanted everything end, I kept repeating it because it was true. I had been at the end multiple times, and there was nothing good on the other side.
So, yes, my statement was simplified, but it's true. Find the thing you can tell yourself that you will believe, even in the darkest times, that will remind you of where you need to go. For me, it was to stop thinking about myself. Because it only made things worse. And I think that on some level, thinking about other people, and not focusing on yourself, has a usefulness for everyone.
I don't agree with "just try harder", I think something needs to change, sideways. I've never changed anything in my life by the "just try harder" method, I think it's bunk. If that is what it sounds like I am suggesting, I want to clarify that it is not.
I am saying look for the answer and don't give up until you find it. Try something small to change your path. Just one day, when you would normally complain, don't. Instead, find something good in the situation. And just keep making tiny, small possibly changes.
After awhile you may be surprised what will happen. You may start to see that some people in your life actually care about you, where before you thought they were against you. You may find new friends or notice the sun shining, when normally you would be looking at the ground.
When I decided that I didn't want to hurt (physically) anymore, just sitting at a desk all day, I decided (not a "try hard") to start running. I ran decided 10 minutes a day is more than I was doing, and it was a start. And I timed my morning activities and found I wasted 10 minutes consistently, and it seemed an easy thing to achieve. So I ran 10 minutes in crocs and my pajamas (fleece pants). I gave myself no excuse, I just did it. I did it 6 days a week for 3 months. And it changed my life.
The year before I couldn't barely pull my kids around in a sled, that winter, I not only pulled them around for a couple hours, I chased them around and wore them out. From 10 minutes of the lamest running you would ever see.
I got up to a mile in 10 minutes. (you can almost walk a mile in 10 min) I lost weight, my physical pain went away (general aches from sitting for years) and I learned that if you try to be like the buff nuts on youtube, you will likely lose. But you _can_ do 10 minutes a day. Anyone can.
I have a friend who is 85 spends a few hours in the gym a day now. He started getting wobbly and almost falling over. The doctor told him he needed a walker. Instead, he started doing balancing exercises and walks just fine now.
Will any of this help everyone? Nope, but I think most people can benefit from people like my friend. He showed me it's possible, and I believed him.
I know you can "do" something different in your life. Maybe you can't change your thoughts and feelings right away. But you can physically alter your habits and actions. And from that, many things are possible.
Yes, anything is more than nothing, and it will make a difference. But you can't ever quit, it has to be a permanent change, or things will revert to their previous state.
They say you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Well, you can choose those people, so choose wisely.
The false logic goes like this: if I could improve my situation then I have been doing something wrong and therefore I am a bad person. But, calling me a bad person because I have a problem is counterproductive and insensitive so there must not be anything I can do. Or: possibility of improvement leads to blame/guilt. Blame/guilt are bad therefore improvement must be impossible.
This circular logic is flawed because it assumes that we start out life with all the information we need to live well. Life is a learning process and we can improve ourselves with out blaming our past or present selves for not knowing better.
One way I started facing some of my problems was just to ask other people how they fixed theirs. Sometimes I liked to just hear stories of people fixing problems I have never had. (like quitting smoking) I heard stories ranging from "My boss said he'd pay for my seminar fees if I joined him at this anti-smoking retreat. And my husband copied everything I brought home from that, and we both quit smoking together." The husband said the thing that helped him was to go through the routine (or rite) of smoking, but without the cigarettes. He'd go outside, stand there for a bit, pretend to open a pack, pretend to smoke one, taking deep breaths. And then go back inside.
Who would think to do that on their own? Another guy I worked with said "I quit because my wife asked me to." There was a deeper story there, but he was a man of few words. None the less, he noted why another guy couldn't quit smoking in our work place. "Jim, he will never quit. Notice how when he tries to quit, all he says to himself is 'Man I really want a cigarette', he won't quit."
There are all kinds of subtle clues to human nature, and your/mine thought processes hidden in discussions like this. Watching some people fail and some people succeed. I found that with all the things I faced, that if I keep looking, and don't quit, I always find an answer to my problem that I can actually do. The conviction comes from my belief that it's possible and this gives me encouragement to act.
And, no I don't have to be careful about saying things like this. I think it's an extreme failure of our modern society to side with those very, very few that truly have a physical disability that causes their emotional problems (ie, brain damage) compared to vast majority of people that simply have emotional damage, something that can be overcome with personal responsibility and having a reason to change.
In my case, I valued my relationship with my kids and wife more than the physical satisfaction I got from yelling at them.
If you choose to yell at your family, and blame a non-fixable disorder, so be it, maybe in your case, or someone you know, that's possible. But that person needs to get professional help. If that person reads my writing, they don't get any value from it.
But for everyone else, I hope they can see that real change is possible, and ignore all the neigh sayers that will give them an excuse not to try.
Word to the wise, if you give yourself an excuse, you will take it. For people that simple can't change how they act, they should check them selves into an mental health institution now, and get some help. Everyone else can truly and absolutely change themselves.
You just need to value the person you want to be more than the person you are.
It's not "very, very few". Numerous medical conditions involve changes in emotional functioning.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/07/4928710...
This one is from 2011: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42298789/ns/health-mental_health/t...
Please tell me that either socialmedia use it outside our personal control, or the news is mad with false reports about social media causing depression (or at least making it worse).
So, if a simple choice to not use social media can affect your state of mind, how much control do "physically healthy" people have over their lives?
Not necessarily false, but out of proportion with the quality of available evidence. Blowing preliminary or otherwise limited results way out of proportion is a routine problem with science stories in the popular news media, to the point that one journalist/scientist published a (real but intentionally flawed) troll study specifically to demonstrate how bad the problem is [1].
Basically, the popular news media is a pretty poor source for new scientific findings, especially for anything that relates lifestyle to health.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/28/410313446/wh...
Well, you have a good point there. But often times the truth takes a long time to come out. And comes out in bits over years. For example, I quit eating white sugar in 1995, and for many years people got literally angry with me because I wouldn't let my kids eat the stuff, or I wouldn't eat the dessert. They thought I was insane or the worst parent ever.
Today, there are other parents in our community who do the same. Doctors have told a number of my friends to not eat processed sugar because it damages arteries, etc...
With social media? Listen to Simon Sinek, he explains the pheonomen on the biochemstry and drug feedback in our bodies from social media and how bad it is for our youth.
One day I saw my oldest daughter sitting with a bunch of her friends. They were all ignoring her because they all had ipod touches, it broke my heart, so I let her get one. It was a big mistake I didn't repeat with my other kids. She got hooked on social media and is barely just now (after years) starting to get away from it.
But I agree, the news usually messes up health related information.
That argument is literally just you trying to insult/offend people. Maybe you stopped yelling at your familly, but you are still solving disagreement with insults - that pretend to be fact based but are based on lack of knowledge about mental institutions. I find yelling better, as long as I can yell back. It is less under the belt.
Society does not side with people who have problems, except in very few circumstances anyway.
I agree, most of the shrinks I dealt with were a mess, and could hardly help me.
>That argument is literally just you trying to insult/offend people.
I didn't mean to, and I regret posting that, as I really don't believe that it would help. And yes, I meant it as an argumentative point, that if you can't control your own actions, your likely a danger to society. Which really isn't a good argument to make in this context, and was a low blow.
>...you are still solving disagreement with insults...
The thing I taught my family, that didn't get mentioned here yet, is that I taught them how to be wrong and sorry. This solves almost every problem in a relationship.
I did it openly in front of everyone in the family. And when I screw up, I gather my family together in one room, and I openly apologize in front of all of them. I state clearly what I did wrong, and that I was sorry for it. I don't make an excuse for it, I just say sorry.
It doesn't mean there aren't fights, that will never change or end as long as life has difficulties and stresses. It means that our fights are more about what is actually wrong, not about being personally hurting towards the other person.
And when I go over the line, I apologize, and now everyone else in my family does this too.
>Society does not side with people who have problems, except in very few circumstances anyway.
Not in a good way, but society certainly likes to give excuses for keeping our problems as they are, or blaming someone else for them. Or at the very least, making us feel like we can't solve them ourselves or with just our friends and family.
To be fair, they may well think you are referring to them, because of your words here and how you don't seem to acknowledge the reality of their condition:
> also I defeated crippling life long depression, food addictions, weight loss, and few other things many people want to label "diseases" we have no cure for or control over
Sometimes really all the person can do is avoid suicide for another day. That's the only choice available. To keep living or not. Traditional logic is not available to the suicidal person at that point. Only depression logic, and as the saying goes: depression lies. People who love their families end up feeling that their family would be better off without them dragging them down and instead of asking for a hug, they kill themselves. Depression blinds you to what your options really are, and what the truth is. You can't rationalize your way out of it with facts because depression destroys facts and replaces them with the conviction that you aren't worth anything.
> But for everyone else, I hope they can see that real change is possible, and ignore all the neigh sayers that will give them an excuse not to try.
I agree with you that the availability of an illness to be used as an excuse for poor choices comes with some baggage. And many people can improve their quality of life and relationships through making better choices in what to do, and allowing those better choices the time to accumulate into meaningful change. I am proud of you for improving life for you and your family.
In terms of professional help, I do believe it starts with taking and listening to a therapist and trying to create change based on thinking differently. It often works. If that fails, a trial-and-error journey with medication begins. If that also fails, the person is screwed until further notice, or they can try a bunch of experimental things. All of this is only possible if they can afford the costs of therapy and treatment, which is by no means a given.
I can see that. And I feel that sometimes a slap in the face really is what we need. People don't seem to like that idea, but it happened a few times to me, and some people will take that and turn it into a good thing and others won't.
I am speaking to the people who will accept the possibility that they can change. People who will never accept this will never change, it's that simple. Because they will always blame someone else for their problems. I have had people like this in my life, and they eventually come around to blaming you.
I found that for some people to get out of depression, they need to cut ties with these people, and find friends that will support them, not drag them down. Life is too hard the way it is.
>Sometimes really all the person can do is avoid suicide for another day.
I am intimately familiar with this. And I understand that's there's a point in time where words are meaningless. But if they are reading hacker news, I suspect it's possible they aren't there right now. In fact, by reading comments like this, it indicates they are looking for answers, encouragement or something, who knows.
When I was there, I looked for anything to help me through the day, or the moment. Sometimes it was cutting to make other pain dull, or finding a way to off myself that I think I could go through with. Anything. Drowning is how I would describe it. Logic to a drowning person is pointless.
But then, you have moments, where you are on the beach, you aren't drowning, and your fine. But you know where you will be again soon, and these are the times where you can look for hope. Find something to hold onto when you are drowning again.
One difficult choice I had to make was to not expect the people around me to take the weight of my pain. One of the worst nights of my entire life were when I was on the phone with a girlfriend who hung up to kill herself. I called her family and friends and found out the next day she was fine and she dumped me shortly after.
Despite all the pain I was in, I couldn't believe that someone could hurt you so bad and have no remorse about it. I realized then that if I expected other people to constantly be worried that I was going to off myself, that it would be the worst thing I could do to them.
So, using this knowledge, I started to face my pain, one little bit at a time. I didn't stop looking to suicide as an answer to my problems until I worked at this for many years. Always reminding myself the pain I would cause others.
It's a terrible lie that people believe that other's would be better off without them. And it may take a really long time to convince yourself of the opposite, but I know it's possible. The more you do for others, the more real this becomes. I made myself valuable to my family, with the intentions of doing the opposite of taking care of just myself, and over time I slowing learned to believe they value having me around.
I can say that even today, I don't have the same conviction many other people have of this. But I am not depressed (still have bad days, but I get out of bed and face it) and I no longer consider suicide. I have to say that it's my logic that helps me see the truth, it helps me stay on track, because my feelings can twist me all up, and I no longer want to follow them wherever they go.
I know many people can't afford professional help, but today, you can go on an internet board, call your parents, or a friend anywhere in the world and just ask them to say something encouraging. Anything happy or good.
The therapists I dealt with followed books and rules, my wife would just hold me for an hour. Which do you think made my day better? I know many people don't have a wife, or a friend to get help from. But there are many people out there that will help a random stranger through a moment of darkness.
Sometimes the answer to a problem is to just ask anyone for help.
I have found that there are people in the world that want other people to die. It's a terrible truth.
But telling someone they can face their problems, and having that person feeling guilt or worthless because of that is not the same thing.
Some people need more than just a few words of direction, they need active people in their lives helping them.
But it doesn't mean that many people won't benefit from hearing this.
That depends on who is listening, which is why, initially, I urged care to be taken in how we frame these things. On the internet we don't know who is reading or what they need to get better. At the right moment, for the right person, your advice could be just what they need, but at the wrong moment, it could add to their despair. Because we can't choose who is reading.
But then one day, it did mean something. And it was valuable. And the last thing I was doing when I was in despair was reading comments online. I was in bed curled up, or worse. Maybe you haven't had experience with severe depression?
Please provide an example of how you think you could protect people in the depths of depression by framing it differently, maybe I am wrong, and more people could be reached by a simple change or additional phrasing.
It seems like you don't know how your first post got me thinking "try harder" so I want to highlight the things you said that gave me this impression.
>I was determined to end this trend, no matter what. After a few months (literally) of me not raising my voice, unless it was totally and completely justified (which I discovered was very rare) I could then say to my kids (and wife), I expect you to talk nice and decently to eachother, and as soon as they accused me of being grouchy, I pointed out that I hadn't been for months, and something changed, everyone started to listen to me, even when I talked quietly.
- Your determination seems to be the key factor in how you tell this. You made a choice and tried really hard to to follow through.
> I've become a morning person, I started jogging about 5 years ago (I hated exercise), I stopped eating white sugar in 1995 (because it was controlling me like a narcotic), and I have worked on many of my other bad habits and traits. I think anyone can change anything.
- this is a list of great accomplishments but avoids expressing that any of this was difficult. Just that anybody can change anything. I disagree, but so far we are just talking about behavior changes, you haven't mentioned depression yet, so fair enough.
> We just need enough of a reason to do something, and then we can do it.
- This is where I think you are just plain wrong. It oversimplifies the situation. Dismisses the many factors that effect motivation and mental health.
> The trick seems to be, can you make up your own reasons? I know we can.
- this is your own personal framework that worked for you. To my mind, reasons require logic to be available to the person.
> (also I defeated crippling life long depression, food addictions, weight loss, and few other things many people want to label "diseases" we have no cure for or control over, I call bologna on that, we can change anything
- This is where you bring up depression, which was my main problem. You put quotes around "diseases" and call bologna on the whole list, again offering that that "anyone" can change anything, presumably using that single method you have described. "Have a reason, make a choice, be determined." It's so dismissive, and I believe it's inherently false, plus it also sounds like it's not even what you really think?
You didn't, in the first post, mention anything at all about asking for help, or going through periods where you could not help yourself or change at the time. You only suggested that if the person thinks right, they can change literally anything.
People feel such guilt when they are engaged in behavior that hurts the people they love, and watch themselves make the bad choices in spite of knowing better. Family members wonder how their parent could ever sure by suicide, unless they hated their family. Etc etc. Reasons, alone, are not sufficient.
I think this is the issue with internet comments, my original comment didn't exclude anything either, the exclusion was assumed by many readers.
It seems the "try harder" is assumed almost universally if you suggest an idea that evokes emotions.
>You made a choice and tried really hard to to follow through.
This is a undeniable truth. All actions are based on a choice and follow through. Everything from choosing to brush your teeth and doing it, to choosing to get married and doing it. Why exclude difficult things from this simplistic formula? Because they are hard? Choose to quit smoking, and then you do. How you do it may vary, but that distils all instances of anyone quitting anywhere. (unless some bizarre instance of someone quitting smoking under duress? Even then they still have to choose and do)
How is it possible to change anything in your life with out the formula choose > do?
> this is a list of great accomplishments but avoids expressing that any of this was difficult.
Why would you assume it's not difficult? Because I failed to add this in the description of events? You assumed this.
>Just that anybody can change anything. ... behavior changes
Name a single behavior people cannot change. Go on youtube/google, and everything you'd ever consider changing you will find videos or stories of people doing it now or have already done it.
This is another absolute truth, not a subjective concept. Any behavior can be changed.
> It oversimplifies the situation. Dismisses the many factors that effect motivation and mental health.
Every event/action/change can be simplified, it doesn't make it invalid. Just because someone needs to take drugs to change their behavior doesn't mean that the forumla is different. Choose (take drugs) > do (take drugs) > choose (overcome depression) > do (overcome depression)
Do you believe a psychiatrist hands out drugs without a single action required of their patient? And if that patient chooses to follow that advice, isn't still a simple process? Whether it's hard or not does not change whether it's simple or not.
>this is your own personal framework that worked for you. To my mind, reasons require logic to be available to the person.
Explain how a person goes to a psychiatrist for help, but does not have a reason to do so. Or how a person tries to learn a foreign language without a reason, or go to work without a reason. You seem to be denying basic tennets of how life works in the basic sense.
You have to have a reason to do anything. Have you ever tried to do something truly random? I have tried as pure exercise in thought, it's not possible, you always have a moment of choice right before you do anything.
That reason is based on your thoughts. Which I would clearly lump "logic" and your mind together in the creation of reason and choice.
>It's so dismissive, and I believe it's inherently false, plus it also sounds like it's not even what you really think?
Again, this is an internet forum, with a comment made in a small box. It seems that it wouldn't be possible to discuss curing depression on twitter because you don't have enough space to qualify all of your concepts or back them up with sources to peer reviewed journals.
It's unfair to say I was being dismissive simply because I was being brief. And it's even more unfair to say something is false because it's stated simply.
I have a friend who is an alcoholic. He has an emotional attachment to being drunk, it helps him deal with his emotional pain. But by now, he has a chemical dependency to alcohol, and would likely get sick if he stopped cold turkey. But no way is it the same as a disease like cancer or the flu. He has poisoned his body, not infected it.
So, some people like to call alcholism a "disease" and divorce my friends responsibility from his daily choices.
I know for a fact that you can change what you think about. And that thinking about happy things vs thinking about sad things will affect your mood. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not true.
What made it easier was to see the pain I was causing my family by not facing my depression. It hurt them when I couldn't get out of bed for days. It hurt my wife because she didn't understand what was wrong with me and couldn't help me. I saw that and used it to give me a reason to start facing my depression. One of the many reasons I built up and saved.
I had many people in my life hurt me and justified it by claiming "they were in pain", so I needed to suffer to make them feel better. Well I was now on the opposite side of this. I was causing pain by being in pain and not dealing with it. That is being selfish. And that is how I felt when I was abused as a child by a parent, where their pain was more important to them, than worrying about my pain.
If I wanted to lie to myself, I could stay in bed, get fired and lose my house. But at one point, I stopped lying to myself and said, "I am being selfish, I am taking care of myself instead of my family." And when you stop lying to yourself, and choose to the see the truth, you gain a small amount of strength to do something about it. So I choose to just feel bad, get up, feel bad, go to work, feel bad, come home, feel bad, hug my family, feel bad, etc...
Then I'd fail again, collapse, drown, and have to start over. I had stopped cutting myself years before this, and hadn't actually attempted suicide since getting married, but I desperately wanted to go back to that time where I was closer to everything being over. But I had a reason to not fall that deep again. I knew where it leads, and I told myself repeated don't go down, don't down, you know what's there.
About 9th grade, one night I took a bunch of demerol (heavy pain pills) drank a bunch of wine, put headphones on with a repeating depressing song. Put a bag over my head and an elastic belt around my neck. And went to bed. I woke up with my feet falling through the bed, my breathing was deep, I was gasping but I could barely feel it. My legs fell through the bed, and then I was only hanging on by my arms, hanging over a dark hole. And faces came at me, swirling like a mist, over and over, twisting away and coming back. Then one came right at my face, I almost had nothing left to hold onto, and the face twisted into a horrific skeleton and screamed.
I ripped the bag off my face and floated back up to my bed and I could see my room again.
I tried overdosing multiple times, with all kind of drugs, ended up the hospital a few times. I was committed once, forcefully. I ate bleach, put guns in my mouth, sliced my wrists multiple times. And attempted to put myself into compromising positions where I wouldn't survive. In the wild without resources on the streets with violent people.
There's more, but I am sure you likely have stopped reading now. I was a young boy facing a horrific uphill battle. But I made it. And I can assure you, that no matter who you are, if you have changed anything in your life, it started at a clear moment in time, where you said, enough.
I'm sorry for all the pains you have been through.
Yes, people assume things based on how you express yourself, and what you choose to mention or not. This is normal. Especially when you leave room for ambiguity. What the other person gets from your words is the words themselves plus their own baggage and assumptions. This feature of language is a lot of the problem, and why I would encourage people to take pains to be more clear with their words.
I'm not really trying to argue with you. I'm trying to give you a perspective that I think you should consider, but instead what you do is react, if not overreact, to each piece of information. I don't want you to agree, all I want is that you maybe understand, and accept that people who are different to you might see everything, including your words, differently, and that you might want to accommodate those people even though they are "wrong" in your view.
By oversimplifying, I mean simplifying so much that essential steps are omitted, thus the simplification becomes untrue.
I'm not, of course, saying that choice and resolve are not important parts of change. Just that people who currently don't have the resolve to follow through on what they need to do, and can't see all the reasons, need to know that that is a part of what depression feels like. And they are not to blame for having nothing in the tank right then. You need choice, motivation, determination/trying hard and opportunity - either some spiritual fuel, a break in the fog, a close call that scares you, maybe the right medication or therapy, or just random luck, whatever it is that gives you a foothold and a little bit of light. You need to know that this opportunity is coming, eventually, and you can get yourself out. That clear moment in time you talk about can't be forced through deciding things.
Anyhoo, I hope I have managed to be clear enough about why I think your post is not effective as advice, and potentially harmful. I think Andy Richter does a decent job of tweeting about depression in this thread: https://twitter.com/andyrichter/status/931546890901925888
And I actually see a lot of writing that is brief but still strikes me as effective. Brevity itself is not your obstacle. You might just have a really strong conviction that you know best.
That is very kind of you, and I can say very few people say this when I have mentioned any of what I have gone through. It reminds me to do the same for others. Thank you.
>I'm not really trying to argue with you.
A problem with written communication..., I didn't think you were, and I am not trying to be combative in return. It's too bad this is too easy to assume, in both directions. I appreciate the statement.
>...accept that people who are different to you might see everything, including your words, differently
Is it even possible for anyone to read anyone's words and get the same meaning? After years of communication, failures and successes (I have taught at college level as well) I have found it utterly futile to attempt to try to communicate with everyone.
It's not physically possible. The phrase "word to the wise" encapsulates this understanding, some words are just not for everyone. And to say they should be is an unreasonable expectation.
>By oversimplifying, I mean simplifying so much that essential steps are omitted, thus the simplification becomes untrue.
There is no such things as oversimplification, if your goal is to simplify something to it's essence. Then you've achieved your goal. And that was my goal.
I have found that everyone is different (an argument I think you would agree with) and no solution is universal to everyone. So the actual "essential steps" you refer to, aren't actually the same for everyone. But the beginning is. To decide, and then to act. What to decide and how to act is different for everyone, but you must start.
How can you disagree with the need to start if you want to change anything? This is only an oversimplification if you think I am saying more than I am.
But getting started, in my experience is 80% (made up number) of the work. Why? Because by measure of difficulty, it's the hardest thing to do.
Why castigate what is a universal truth, utter simplistic, just because I don't add more to it? I have read dozens of self-help books over the years, and it didn't matter what they taught if I didn't start doing anything.
Also, if you start, fail, and start again, and keep doing that over and over, that by definition is follow through. So just start.
>Just that people who currently don't have the resolve to follow through on what they need to do, and can't see all the reasons, need to know that that is a part of what depression feels like.
They don't need follow through, they just need to start doing something. One tiny, itty bit of success of any kind is more than they have had in the past. How can you dismiss success, no matter how small? If they fail, maybe they feel bad, maybe they will start again sometime, and if they keep doing that, after awhile, who knows? But to not start ever because of preconceived notions? How is that going to help anyone?
I know what depression feels like, it feels like everything is hopeless, and nothing will work. The only way out is to just try something, even if you don't think it will work, and then one day it does. And the beginning of a new life starts at a very minute level. A tiny, tiny seed of hope.
>And they are not to blame for having nothing in the tank right then.
Neither of us has blamed anyone for anything. Why bring this up and imply I have blamed someone?
If I was going to blame anyone it would be people that either have no experience with depression, or are depressed themselves telling other depressed people they can't help themselves.
>You need choice, motivation, determination/trying hard and opportunity - either some spiritual fuel, a break in the fog, a close call that scares you, maybe the right medication or therapy, or just random luck, whatever it is that gives you a foothold and a little bit of light.
Or a comment on the internet that strikes you the right way? You can't expect anything more from a message board like this, can you?
>You need to know that this opportunity is coming, eventually, and you can get yourself out. That clear moment in time you talk about can't be forced through deciding things.
Not all the time, but sometimes it can. And what I found with depression is your heart deceives you. On days when you are down, the reality is most likely everything is fine. So I found that reminding myself of what reality is helped me ignore my sadness and get moving. Depression saps of the ability to act, and there are myriad of ways to get yourself to act. Everyone is different, and everyone will have a different way of getting themselves to start moving, even when they don't want to.
You have to have something to hold onto that is solid and unmoveable when you are in an imaginary despair. Seeing people in actual despair helped me deal with this by saying to myself, "you're fine, you are still breathing, just get up." Someone else will say something else to themselves, this is a minor detail. But either way, you have to start doing something.
>Anyhoo, I hope I have managed to be clear enough about why I think your post is not effective as advice,...
I can see it was not effective to you, but can you provide actual proof that not a single person got anything from it? There are quite a few upvotes. I don't know what they mean, but I suspect other people disagree with you, not just me.
>...and potentially harmful
Here's the crux of your comments to me. Please demonstrate to me how I could harm people by telling them they can change their lives. To make a decision. To start something. To seek an answer. To find hope and not give up.
Depression can lead to death. I am sharing that you can turn things around, with real proof, and my own willingness to back up everything I have said. And to even remotely suggest that I could harm someone that is on the verge of killing themselves by saying "don't do it, there's hope", verges on insanity.
>https://twitter.com/andyrichter/status/931546890901925888
Andy Richter is responding to the claim that "depression is a choice" and he says in reply "Oh really? Well “go fuck yourself” is a directive."
Is depression a choice? No, I don't think so at all. I think the causes of depression are so varied as to be almost impossible to define. Everyone from homeless drug addicts to succesful CEOs can be depressed. But then I know for a fact that there are homeless drug addicts and CEOs that that are happy and not depressed. Why? Who knows.
But I know that I have seen homeless people overcome their depression and drug addiction and find hope and a future. Unless you are completely cured of depression, you can't see what is on the other side until you get there. Just like an alcoholic can't see what it's like to not drink anymore. So unless you have been completely depressed at the end of your rope, and then gotten to the point where you will never, ever consider suicide again, you can't see what those people see. I requires belief and acceptance that maybe what those people see is worth seeing yourself.
>You might just have a really strong conviction that you know best.
I said what worked for me. I have repeatedly acknowledge everyone is different and will have to do different things to change. And that there is a universal truth about change, that it starts at a single point in time with a decision followed by action.
Trying to assemble Ikea furniture using only a spoon also does not succumb to "just trying harder" but no one paints that as a moral failing.
We must continually learn new skills appropriate to our situation, not just try harder. This is a theme even in ancient history and religion, but it's still true. When it comes to being organized it was a revelation to me to read Marie Kondo's book and Organizing Solutions for People with Attention Deficit Disorder: between the two of them, I realized that I could build my living space to facilitate being neat or organized, working with my brain rather than "just trying harder" to be neat.
It is not good to be lazy, but I think we sometimes teach people that some topics are just hard for some people and so you might as well give up because trying harder won't help. No, sometimes your math teacher or textbook actually suck; sometimes your living space is organized for a different kind of brain; sometimes you're depressed because you're eating an allergen every day or because your manager truly is terrible and there are things you can do to change it without trying harder.
Do agree with, "We're all different, I'm glad this worked for you but it doesn't necessarily follow that your approach would help others," and that applies to my comment as well.
"trying harder" to have more willpower is an oxymoron.
But, it doesn't mean you can't do something to improve anything in your life.
But I found that usually people that are stuck end up thinking "it won't help me", but how do you know for sure? Sometimes you can't just do some new thing a little, sometimes you have to do it for a long time before you see results.
And, you are always right by saying "this may not work for others, just because it worked for you". But there are some universal things that work for everyone. If you eat you live, if you stop eating you die. If we starting working our way up from there, the logic tree splits and gets more complicated, but no matter what, you will be on the same branch with someone else. No one is truly alone here in their problems, we just need to find those other people, find out how they succeeded. Asking for help is a good start.
It's not about trying harder, it's about trying better, and with support. Habits of mind are tremendously powerful; yes, there is a biochemical component to addiction, but there is also a psychological habit component.
As far as I understand, this is part of what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is designed to handle. A CBT practitioner works with the patient to come up with specific goals and a specific strategy for achieving those goals, including building and reinforcing new habits of mind.
Some people, like the GP, get lucky and figure it out for themselves. But in general that's not something you are expected to be able to do on your own.
> I call bologna on that, we can change anything.
As you said, you grew up with a snippy and grouchy mother, and you were snippy and grouchy yourself. Then, in a different context, you stopped being snippy and grouchy and you were still OK.
My conclusion is that you haven't changed, what changed was the context. First you were a child dealing with his s&g mother, then you were a parent responsible for his children. Context activates or inactivates parts of personality, like a colored cloth shines through a diamond sitting on it - the color doesn't come from the diamond itself.
My theory about personality is that it has an "active" part and a "dormant" part, which change depending on context. Each context (usually each person you are dealing with) activates a different subset of your personality. Some people bring the worst in you, other people bring the best. With some you don't like yourself, with others you love yourself.
Besides context, personality appears to change with improved self-knowledge - as you age, you encounter more situations that shine light on your personality, as conditioned by the external context. You still have the same personality, but you know it better.
The best way to control your personality is to control your external interactions and know yourself, not to force yourself to be different. Change context, change personality.
Yes, but I was crappy parent for 10 years, not just a short time. I raised a daughter to adulthood poorly, and I have regretted it and have had to make amends.
So context didn't change at all. What changed was I saw the future of a family that treated each other badly, and I was so desperate for that not to happen, I was able to change myself. I had to change how I treated people, and then they changed around me.
Also, I can confirm with full confidence that when my wife and I were first together, I was not grumpy and snippy. She told me that was one of the things she really liked about me, was how calm and reasonable I was.
Perhaps, the family part coming along could be considered a context change as kids came into the picture, the stresses of life, etc... and this brought out the "dormant" grouchy person.
But I have found that every person has a limit. Everyone can go crazy, turn crabby, or become mean and selfish under the right circumstances. But not everyone will fight against it.
Rigid world views, reactions and motivational structures are maladaptive in human society because they leave their hosts vulnerable to manipulation by more flexible people.
And I agree that "reasons" and motivation are the main driver for change. I think smoking is a great analogy, because everyone it's now "objectively" bad. I used to smoke, but I would convince myself that it's OK. "I don't smoke that much", etc.
But that was because I wanted to smoke (circular logic). My reptile brain convinced me that it was OK.
Likewise I think many people convince themselves that their behavior is OK, because their reptile brain wants to keep doing it. But the first step is just to admit that what you're doing is not OK, even if you "plan" to keep doing it. If you admit it to yourself for long enough, you might eventually get the motivation to change.
There are people I have met in way worse circumstances than me, and they made it. I found the more I looked for answers, the less excuses I could give myself unless I wanted to just lie to myself and believe my own lies.
Maybe also think of your experience a little with the outside view which is "For 50 years society has been trying to figure out how to reproducibly cure depression, aggression and weight loss. Millions of people, and tens of thousands of scientists having failed at creating a reproducible way of solving these problems. Over those years several hundred people have achieved those goals and thought that their results were reproducible. None of them to this day have reproducibly solved any of these problems. One new person solves these problems for himself and believe his results are reproducible."
Now there are two possibilities. That one guys stumbled across a reproducible solution to weightloss, depression, and aggression that once it is studied will lead to a new gold standard of therapy for each of these problems.
Or that guy found a unique solution to his own problem that will probably not be reproducible or scale.
If it's the second then maybe think that your very impressive experience with change is not universal.
Yes, I found my solution. And what I think it means is that others can find theirs. Is that impossible? Or to lower the bar, is it even unreasonable?
I was at a point where I felt like nothing was going to change, and I simply had to believe other people saying "things can change" and "don't give up". And I want to pass this on to others, that they can.
Anyone can run 10 minutes a day, anyone. And I truly believe that if you are overweight, but otherwise healthy, you will lose weight by exercising and improving your diet.
But when it comes to personal issues, especially behavioral or psychological ones, there's a good chance even the description of symptoms is not consistent between individuals. Whatever facts and metrics doctors and researchers have available are far removed from the subjective experience of patients.
A more useful lens IMHO is the belief that one can change ones own thoughts and behaviors. I'm not claiming it's universally true, but I'm damn sure if one doesn't believe one can change then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not an excuse to judge others for not always being the best person they can be, it's merely meant to give a little bit of self-empowerment. I acknowledge it doesn't work all the time, and it's all too easy to twist into self-flagellation, but claiming some agency in ones own life experience is something that can help a lot of different people in a lot of different ways.
There are components to depression that make it less and less tractable as it advances. Sometimes personal responsibility is the last thing you need; other times it is the first. To nurse a starving person back to health, it is important to feed them, as much as it is for them to /regularly/ exert themselves to an extent they can manage. That can be as little as brushing their teeth, to start. And that daily regularity can only be achieved with nutrients - real and analogical!
The internet seems to be awash with bootstrap psychotherapeutic approaches to depression -- do your CBT, do mindfulness. These can work, but they do involve a load; often there are social components to depression that reduce load-bearing capabilities significantly, and this fact should be recognised. As efficacious as those treatments otherwise seem to be.
You are the one who found the answer. You did the work, you didn't give up until you found a solution. Does it really matter what the solution is? Maybe in a broader sense, some solutions are better than others. But I am advocating that things can get better because our choices and actions, and you can do it. And you stated that you have.
If you read my other comments, you will see that I agree with you. That people need help, they can't do it on their own, I certainly didn't.
But no matter what happens, no matter how much help you give someone, if they don't do something also, nothing will change for them.
“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.” ― Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum
I don't think it's completely as simple as he says, but anyone can improve themselves.
I like that quote, I will pass it on to my father, he likes L'Amour. ty.
I thought it was just my brain getting older, but I've since realized that I'm still quite plastic, it's just a more implicit process than I figured and being consciously preoccupied with it is counterproductive.
It feels more like changing the momentum of a rolling boulder, or the moon tugging on the ocean to make tides. Understanding that the part of me that I feel I have most control over plays a limited if crucial role in what I become has made life a bit less stressful and my thinking a bit more effective.
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.
I find that most changes are a matter of the size and strength of the training dataset. Either you have to go through a lot of repetition, or a few incidents immediately followed by major negative or positive reinforcements.
It works.
Making the decision that will change your course or keep it the same isn't physically easy, which is why I think so many people get emotional over this discussion.
• you can change the way you think. It takes a lot of effort, time, and motivation - but it’s within reach. Small improvements lead to bigger ones over time.
• diet, excersize and good sleep are all involved. You can’t eat junk food, sleep poorly, and expect to see much of a difference.
• making good decisions is a large part of the process. Eat well. Sleep well. Put yourself in the right situations. Don’t put yourself in the wrong ones. If you’re afraid of speaking in public, speak in public. If you need to be more organised, buy a planner (app?) that will help you with your organisation. Etc
To me, a lot of it seemed to be grounded in common sense. Seems to be well regarded/reviewed too, for anyone interested: https://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/047...
1. One changes
and
2. One can purposefully change in particular direction
While the former is (I believe) obviously true, the second may not be.
While I don't doubt brains change, the question is, can we purposefully change it in a particular manner to achieve a particular end.
The article spends a lot of time talking about neuroplasticity which addresses the first claim, but not the second.
1. One can purposely modulate some particular functions of the brain
and
2. One can purposely modulate all functions of the brain
On the other hand works of Paul Ekman and others have shown that consciously and wilfully changing facial muscles changes the emotional state of mind.
There's a decent book on the popular history of it - 'a symphony in the brain' I think it's called.
Drop me an email if you want to hear more.
Now my awareness is like an open hand, fingers spread. I see a lot of stuff that was invisible to me before. My world is bigger. I am out of my head.
I'm not saying its perfect. And obsession calls like a siren. But you could say that I am aware of the options now, and can choose intelligently, where before I was only aware of one option and called it reality.
The technique that I use is what the Buddhists call Vipassana.
Discussion from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10587031