Quote:
Originally Posted by Angela  And part of generating the environment I'm talking about is a preference that treatment for such illness include a spotlight on the power of the person and her responsibility, rather than casting her as a victim. I believe that going towards feeling good is much more effective than going away from feeling bad. That's just me, though -- I'm no doctor. |
Well suppose I can't speak for anyone but myself, but my experience is the opposite- that taking too much responsibility for my own emotions was a big part of the problem when I was unhappy. I would initially believe any unhappines entirely an internal problem of not thinking happy social normal thoughts rather than maybe a problem with my external environment. I got better when I basically had to give up and stop trying to hold myself together in a situation I didn't want to be in (but thought objectively was for the best)- actually that could describe pretty much every time I've been varying degrees of unhappy- I feel much better when I break down and call myself a victim and force a change in my environment rather than just trying to tell myself that I can be happy under any circumstances. Dropping out of boring high school, quitting a scholarship program that would've landed me at an ethically questionable job, giving up on relationships where I just didn't like/respect the person enough, realizing I had mono and shouldn't feel bad/responsible for my exhaustion, giving up on forcing myself into traditional Christian faith when my experiences disagreed with it.
If I were talking to someone sad I think I'd listen for their external problems and try to let them see that they could be changed, rather than telling them that it's an internal problem with their negative thoughts.
BTW sorry for going off-topic with this- the original post wasn't about depression or any sort of mental pain at all- it was a response to the idea that we each create our own experience including the big problems in the world, and the starting point for talking about how to judge our overall impact on the world and our responsibility for it.