The depressively optimistic moneysaving thread

Quasar

ab. I shall ask Martin to let me thank you a thousand times, if you can use your OP to work a miracle on a certain (ex)student who shall remain nameless...

meher

absolutebounder wrote: »

Why do some people feel they cant move on because they feel like a failure

Thoughts. Those thoughts, perhaps, need to be challenged and should be open to be challenged. This is one of the reasons why thoughts are examined thoroughly in Eastern philosophies that say that what we think is what we become.

alison99_2

Found you all, bet you thought you could hide from me!
I often have negative thoughts, but I try and banish them by replacing them with something pleasant that is happening in my life instead, so although I still need the AD's at the moment, I'm hoping that through positive thought and coping techniques, this depression won't have me beat again.
PS, I would also like to know why this thread was moved. Nice way to make us feel like outcasts. :eek:

absolutebounder

Quasar wrote: »

ab. I shall ask Martin to let me thank you a thousand times, if you can use your OP to work a miracle on a certain (ex)student who shall remain nameless...

Now Q I know Im good but not THAT good. You can lead a horse to water and all that but SP is like leading a camel that filled up at the last water hole to water:rotfl:

absolutebounder

meher wrote: »

Thoughts. Those thoughts, perhaps, need to be challenged and should be open to be challenged. This is one of the reasons why thoughts are examined thoroughly in Eastern philosophies that say that what we think is what we become.

I quite agree. We can learn a lot from other philosophies. healthy debate is good but it is often stifled here on DT. I originaly did not post this thread on DT because I dont think its the right place but it appears that someone has not read the thread and just moved it for the sake of it.
Certain illnesses are more prevallent in the west and so yes I agree that thought has a lot to do with sickness and so we should challenge malignant thought in a way they do elsewhere. our lives would be richer for it.

aliasojo

What I dont 'get' is how you can think good positive thoughts if you are depressed to start with?

I've never understood how some people all of a sudden 'find God' halfway through their life when they've been complete aethiests previously. I once asked a minister this and his answer was that (in his opinion) some people genuinely woke up one day and simply felt different. They attributed this to God coming into their life. Others woke up one day and decided they wanted their life to change and they simply chose to believe. It was a conscious decision and once they started saying they were going to believe, it eventually became self fulfilling and they did end up believing.

I'm not sure if I've explained that well, but the point I'm trying to make is that making a decision to believe in God is one thing but if a person is so low that all they feel is sadness and despair, where are they going to get the one happy thought from in the first place to start them off on a new path of being more positive, iyswim? They cant just decide to say they will think more positively if all they feel is screaming the exact opposite?

To me that seems like asking a non swimmer to swim 2 lengths of the local pool. You can teach a non swimmer to swim, but how to you teach a depressed person to be happy if their whole outlook is bleak?

I do believe in the power of positive thinking, I just dont understand how a very depressed person whould be able to employ this when the very nature of depression means their emotions and thoughts are not blanced.

I'm not talking about just 'fed-up' peeps here btw.

meher

absolutebounder wrote: »

I quite agree. We can learn a lot from other philosophies.

not just from philosophies, I recently read somewhere that literature too is used a lot to construct their accounts and not simply reflect on it - so it seems the art of communication with clients and narration of events will help everyone concerned to see the situation feelingly

that said I only meant to speak about the make-up of a healthy mind, I don't understand how a person who has been seriously depressed over a long period of time could be helped with just talking therapies

absolutebounder

aliasojo wrote: »

What I dont 'get' is how you can think good positive thoughts if you are depressed to start with?

I've never understood how some people all of a sudden 'find God' halfway through their life when they've been complete aethiests previously. I once asked a minister this and his answer was that (in his opinion) some people genuinely woke up one day and simply felt different. They attributed this to God coming into their life. Others woke up one day and decided they wanted their life to change and they simply chose to believe. It was a conscious decision and once they started saying they were going to believe, it eventually became self fulfilling and they did end up believing.

I'm not sure if I've explained that well, but the point I'm trying to make is that making a decision to believe in God is one thing but if a person is so low that all they feel is sadness and despair, where are they going to get the one happy thought from in the first place to start them off on a new path of being more positive, iyswim? They cant just decide to say they will think more positively if all they feel is screaming the exact opposite?

To me that seems like asking a non swimmer to swim 2 lengths of the local pool. You can teach a non swimmer to swim, but how to you teach a depressed person to be happy if their whole outlook is bleak?

I do believe in the power of positive thinking, I just dont understand how a very depressed person whould be able to employ this when the very nature of depression means their emotions and thoughts are not blanced.

I'm not talking about just 'fed-up' peeps here btw.

Good post and I know what you are saying. sometimes non swimmers discover they can swim by falling in the deep end. whether they do 2 lengths or just get to the nearest side is debateable but nevertheless when push comes to shove and all that.

Now Im afraid if people think I believe you can just think a happy thought and be better you are way off the mark. No kids are born with low self esteem or depression (sorry to the geneticists but this fact rather messes up the depressive gene theory). people get the stuffing knocked out of their self esteem by life , events and environment. the mere fact that you have gone in one direction to me does not mean that that cannot be reversed.
as you pointed out with your religious example beliefs can change overnight and that happens when the unconcious is no longer able to hold on to its original belief.
many people beliefs are founded on 100% accepting a nominalization. this is a word that is an abstraction like in my OP the word failure. You cant go to someone and ask for a bucket of failure. many people believe thay are failures when in reality they only failed at one or two things but their belief is they are a failure 100%.
Next problem is that if you believe something strongly enough you are likely to invoke the law of attraction and that belief may come true for you. It is a fact that hypochondriacs have more illness than normal.
Shatter the underlying belief of failure and positive thinking comes in to its own.

beachbeth

absolutebounder wrote: »

Im dying to know who and why it was moved

Wasn't me.

aliasojo wrote:

I do believe in the power of positive thinking, I just dont understand how a very depressed person whould be able to employ this when the very nature of depression means their emotions and thoughts are not blanced

I didn't think that changing the way I thought could help my depression or anxiety and I certainly didn't believe a book could help me either. However I bought a book by Claire Weekes, Self Help for your Nerves. This book stopped me having panic attacks believe it or not!

Oldernotwiser

aliasojo wrote: »

I've never understood how some people all of a sudden 'find God' halfway through their life when they've been complete aethiests previously. I once asked a minister this and his answer was that (in his opinion) some people genuinely woke up one day and simply felt different. They attributed this to God coming into their life. Others woke up one day and decided they wanted their life to change and they simply chose to believe. It was a conscious decision and once they started saying they were going to believe, it eventually became self fulfilling and they did end up believing.

It might be easier to understand if you thought of it as God finding them.