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Comment by jordwest | Hacker News Reader

I'm working on pretty much all of the suggestions from the book so I'd highly recommend giving it a read if you can. Some big ones are moving closer to nature, spending more time with a close group of friends (at least pre-lockdown), looking back into my past for things I'd avoided thinking or talking about.

Also meditation was for me a pretty good mood improver, but it's more recently helped me uncover some painful thoughts and surface emotions that I'd essentially avoided without realising it.

Lastly, the value of exploring all these things with a therapist can't be overstated, if you have the privilege to afford it.

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I don't know the contents of the books, but nature and friends are great ones. Also teaching others, helping kids and people younger than you. I think you can get a lot from their enthusiasm and excitement for life. And it feels good to feel like you're passing on stuff you've learned to people who may be around after you're gone.

>looking back into my past for things I'd avoided thinking or talking about

For a long time I had many small and (apparently) inconsequential triggers which brought up past anxieties, or memories of the awkward and the nervous. Previously, I would remember such event and feel a brief stab of shame, etc. and then throw the memory back into the recesses of the mind to come back again whenever it felt like tormenting me. So a few a months ago I started catching these repressive thoughts - delibrately pulling them back after discarding them - and analysing them. I quickly realised that I had been letting them hassle me without giving them adequate thought as to why.

I think this is also relevant to some of the other comments about proactivity in challanging mental illnesses (not that I am qualified, or that it really covers anything or everything), in that the plunge into the icy and dark waters maybe harder to handle than the swim.

I find this to be a very frequent occurrence for me. What exactly did you do with those thoughts that made you feel better? Oftentimes I find that even if I face the thoughts head on it just leads to more shame.

For me, I try to dissect why they make me feel a given way.

I have come to realize that I have a lot of weird trust issues that stem from my desire to be perceived in a given way. Further analysis has helped me realize I want to be perceived that way because it's a defense mechanism for me - by being seen as the person who can fix anything, I feel better about things I can't control like pandemics and unrest. For me this also ties into how I self perceive my own value - being useful gives me value. This then begs the question of why I feel such a strong need to be externally validated...

And obviously your particulars are different but the goal is to open the dust covers and understand what is driving and controlling the mental machine.

This is where a good therapist can help, regardless of mental health. Having a third party to dissect the thoughts with you can give you a new perspective on the situation.

Generally the situation doesn't warrant shame, and there's underlying reasons for you feeling the shame about that situation. You can learn a lot about yourself from those.

A good friend can do the same thing, but even with the best of intentions not everyone knows how to non-judgmentally help you address issues without unintentionally causing more shame. Sometimes the reasons we keep these thoughts to ourselves is because we shared them in the past and were hurt by the response.

You discovered on your own what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy does

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