CBT felt like an exercise in self-deception to me.
And what makes you think your current perception of the world is completely perfect and unbiased? Perhaps the problem is that you are convinced that you have the most accurate picture of the world and aren't questioning it.
To give you an example: Having to work for a living is beyond horrible. I have to spend the majority of my life slaving away just struggling to survive in a world I never chose to be a part of.
I can 'change my perception' of this, but no matter how I change my perception it won't give me my freedom. CBT's goal seems to be denying the problem instead of trying to fix it and convincing people this shit doesn't stink.
Perhaps you need to dig deeper to figure out what exactly it is about working for a living that you hate so much. If it just happens to be "all of it", what would you be doing instead if you didn't work?
Edit: I should also mention that I too work for a living and I enjoy it for the most part. I get paid to work on interesting problems and spend time with coworkers who I like. There are annoying things but overall it's a net positive in my life. So I know, given my own experience, that it is absolutely possible to just enjoy working for a living.
Confused. Nobody is 'holding a gun to your head'. So don't work?
Oh! The money is sweet. Now we're starting to understand. Money is needed to get resources from other people, in order to do those sweet things that we 'feel like' doing.
So the work resentment seems simply to be a rather primitive envy, to have things without making them or working for them.
> in order to do those sweet things that we 'feel like' doing
You mean like not dying ? So basically, it's work or die. We have a word for that, it's called slavery. But wait, in our capitalist system I get to choose my own slavedriver, wow, that changes everything... NOT.
If you get a dog, you're expected to take care of that dog for it's entire life. Yet, if you produce a child it's somehow acceptable to abandon it after 18 years and expect it to take care of itself. It never asked to be born, yet it has to deal with the financial consequences of a decision someone else made. It's like taking an 80+ year mortgage and expecting someone else to pay for it after 18 years.
If you're going to have kids, you should take care of them for their entire lives.
Then what do you do when your parents die? And someone else is supposed to take care of your parents while they are taking care of you? At some point, people need to take care of themselves. Maybe some aren't ready at 18 to be out there on their own, but you need to take responsibility for your own life at some point.
Do you find people often disagree with your views on life? Is it possible that your reasoning is potentially being made on imperfect information since depression filters out all the positive aspects of everything?
The money should be there (e.g. in a trust fund) before conception.
> And someone else is supposed to take care of your parents while they are taking care of you?
Yes, their parents, obviously.
Nothing really changes relative to now for people who want to reproduce, instead of paying for themselves they pay for their children. Only people who are childfree benefit, which is a nice incentive to reduce the population.
> you need to take responsibility for your own life at some point
No, I do not. I didn't create this life, how can I be responsible for it ?
> On a related note, you should know that depression causes cognitive distortions.
Sigh, well if you really want to be depressed, I suppose it's a free country. Speaking as someone who used to be depressed, all that depressive realism stuff is total BS. When you completely filter out all the positive aspects of everything and focus on the negative only, you're just not seeing the complete picture.
I’m not doing CBT anymore. I used to for autism related anxiety issues but I stopped with therapy after my psychologist told me there was little left he could do for me.
Basically, psychology is just modern day quackery.
As I do not have autism, I cannot relate to your viewpoint. It is possible that psychology is not going to help you - but it did help me and has helped many people, so I wouldn't be so dismissive of it. My advice for you after days of going back and forth on here: you should try being a bit more open minded. I've met a lot of smart people who are right about a ton of things related to their area of expertise who think that this competency carries over to other areas where they are less knowledgeable. It's best to avoid being one of those people.
My own experiences with depression have made me think you’re both partially correct.
I feel like happiness is about learning how to deceive yourself. It’s about learning how to put a positive spin on everything, and internalise it.
I struggle with this because I don’t want to deceive myself. But then I’m probably deceiving myself in the opposite direction with all sorts of negative thoughts.
Personally, I have found it helps to just always try to take a pragmatic perspective: how is what I'm doing right now helping me achieve what I want in life? If you spend an hour thinking about how you suck at various aspects of your life, how is it making you feel? When you feel that way, are you in the best state of mind to achieve your goals? Absolutely not. So you need strategies to deal with those useless thoughts. Distract yourself with something else or reframe your thinking somehow. In the long run, the ideal would be to not have those unhelpful automatic thoughts at all (this is what therapy is for) but in the short run, they are there and you gotta find a way to deal with and manage them if you want to move your life forward. Meditation/mindfulness can be extremely helpful in this regard. I'd highly recommend "The Mindful Way Through Depression" to learn some techniques to help. The goal here should be to catch yourself sooner when you're thinking unhelpful thoughts instead of marinating in them for a long period of time (and creating a more negative effect on your mood) and learning a strategy to get out of that mode of thinking.
> If you spend an hour thinking about how you suck at various aspects of your life, how is it making you feel?
It doesn't matter how you feel about it. You need to focus on the bad things in life if you want to have a chance of improving things. Burying your head in the sand doesn't solve anything. Don't waste your time focussing on the good stuff, it doesn't need fixing.
If all you want to do is feel good despite everything around you being shit, why not just do heroin ? You'll feel great and it's a lot less effort than convincing yourself that black is white.
How is it that how you feel about yourself does not matter? It matters quite a bit. I also never said to bury your head in the sand and not improve anything? What I am saying is actually the exact opposite of that. Let me give an example: suppose you wanted to get in shape by going to the gym. You can sit around and think "I'm so out of shape", "I'm going to embarrass myself at the gym", "I won't be able to keep it up", etc. None of this is helping you with your original goal, which is going to the gym and getting in shape. Not only that, these thoughts are driving your mood down and making it less likely you will follow through on your plans, not more likely. These are the exact type of thoughts which depressed people deal with every single day. You can't just force them to stop occurring whenever you want, this is just what depression is. The ideal would be to change whatever core beliefs and assumptions are leading to these thoughts, but making that change with therapy can take a very long time. What you can do is take a more proactive approach early on to recognize these thoughts when they occur and deal with them every single time they come up (which will depend on how depressed you are). This may not stop the thoughts from occurring but you will have a strategy to keep yourself from self-defeating behavior.
> You can sit around and think "I'm so out of shape", "I'm going to embarrass myself at the gym", "I won't be able to keep it up", etc. None of this is helping you with your original goal
But they are true though. If it’s a choice between being miserable and acknowledging the truth, or being happy in a delusion of your own making, I’ll choose the truth every time.
I think people are being labelled as depressed way too often. In many cases it’s just a natural reaction to having a shit life. Anyone would feel like crap, it’s perfectly normal. The solution is to fix your life, not to convince youself nothing is wrong. If you don’t manage to delude yourself, if you see the world as it actually is, you get labelled as ‘depressed’. It’s not because you have to work 2 minimum wage jobs to make ends meet that you feel like crap, no something is wrong with YOU. CBT is basically a form of victim blaming.
You are very confused. I'm not saying those things aren't true. I'm saying they are just unhelpful. I'm not saying to delude yourself by saying "Actually, I am in shape", "I will never embarrass myself at the gym" or "I'll be able to keep this up forever". I'm saying, think more productive thoughts that will get you closer to your goal. For example, you say to yourself "I'm so out of shape. I hate how I look". What you want to do is catch yourself and ask "How are these thoughts helping me get in better shape?". They aren't. They are only hurting you. Going to the gym and working out is what will get you in shape, regardless of whether your thoughts are positive or negative. But thinking negatively all the time will sap your motivation and enjoyment of life.
Edit: I also want to acknowledge this:
If it’s a choice between being miserable and acknowledging the truth, or being happy in a delusion of your own making
There are clearly other choices here that you are missing:
- Think about something else that is not going to make you feel miserable. Take your dog for a walk, listen to some music you like, meditate. Relax, enjoy life.
- Reframe your negative thoughts. For example, if I think "I'm going to embarrass myself at the gym, I might as well not go". A way to reframe this is "so what if I embarrass myself at the gym? I'm not an expert at lifting weights and working out and that is plainly clear by me being out of shape. If someone else doesn't like what I'm doing or the way I look, that is their problem. I'm trying to do something good for myself here and I'm not going to let other people get in my way".
- Stop thinking your negative thought and make an action plan to fix it. For example "I'm so fat and out of shape". This will make you feel shitty for a brief period of time, but writing down a real plan that you can do to resolve the problem will make you feel better. The plan has to be doable. A lot of people make huge plans that are very difficult to execute. To make a doable plan to resolve a problem, you first may need to break the problem down in to smaller chunks. Also, it is important to remember that it doesn't matter if someone else was able to accomplish the same thing you're trying to do with less effort. The only thing that should matter to you is getting the results you want.
- Tell yourself to worry about the problem later. Again, "I'm going to embarrass myself at the gym". Is this really a problem for you right now if you're not planning to go to the gym until tomorrow? It is not a problem for right now. Shelf it for later and do something right now that can make your life better.
- Question your thought. Back to embarrassing yourself at the gym. You're making an assumption that the fit people at the gym are going to see an overweight person doing something incorrect and they will ridicule you for it. In reality, it is very likely that some of those people in the gym were once in your shoes, overweight and down on themselves and lost as to what to do. It is perhaps equally likely that someone will see your efforts and come over and offer you encouragement and advice. You may even make some friends.
- One last thing can just be to accept the thought as reality and move on. The thought: "I won't be able to keep this up forever". Well, that is probably true, but does that mean you shouldn't try? Do you respect people who quit before they've even started? Your own internal response to this should be "I can't keep it up forever, but I can try my best because that is the type of person I want to be" and leave it at that. And you may even be wrong. Maybe you can keep going to the gym until you're 80. Or another thing to ask is if this thought even matters? Your goal is just to get in shape in the near future, not have a six pack in your 80s.
- "But thinking negatively all the time will sap your motivation and enjoyment of life."
The thing is that people are not always embarrassed, because they like to feel embarrassed. You'll get comments, snarky, clever remarks that will stick in your head. You'll get people staring at you, pointing at you, laughing behind your back just in earshot. They'll twist the truth, saying your lazy or dimwitted. Those things make you feel negative too. Now you'll say, "but you got to break the vicious cycle!", but that's so easy to say. Even if you've been through the same, your experience is completely different. People get depressed because they see the work ahead to break out of that circle, and if it's big enough they start to contemplate their existence in life. Because at some point you'll learn, that after breaking this vicious cycle, there's a next, and a next. And the reward is often too small. It also definitely doesn't help that some people have it easier only because of sheer luck, and those same people will be the ones keeping you down - "where you belong".
I think what it comes down to is self compassion - you have to care about yourself, especially if you believe no one else does. This is something that doesn't just happen. You have to practice self compassion and do things for yourself. Another approach to build some self compassion is loving kindness meditation. Once you have some self compassion you can forgive yourself for some of your own faults. As you said, some of us are lucky and some of us are unlucky. Just like it's not the fault of the lucky people that they had good luck, it too is not your fault you had bad luck. Best not to dwell on what you can't have - all you do is torture yourself for no reason - and just focus on what you can have.
Edit: regarding what other people think, it is best to just focus on what you know to be true and challenge anything that could be potentially untrue. If someone ridicules you, they're a jerk. But don't engage in any sort of mind reading exercises. It is pointless torture. Focus on what you want for yourself and don't let other people's opinions distract you from your goal.
You're right of course, and this is something I've recently began to learn for myself (thanks for re-asserting). I just think this is a very difficult lesson to learn, since it goes so much against our social instincts (as humans).
And what makes you think your current perception of the world is completely perfect and unbiased? Perhaps the problem is that you are convinced that you have the most accurate picture of the world and aren't questioning it.