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Originally Posted by Omkazn  My question to members of this board and steve and erin, is what are your insights or possible perspectives on what happened to me? What do you guys believe could be the cause of my sudden doubt, my subsequent depression. I've been exhausting myself to figure out why this happened to me, many therapists have said its because of my dependency on him, or that i have a co-dependency disorder, or that i have low self-esteem. Others have said its because of abuse suffered at the hands of my parents, or perhaps i have a narcisstic personality, the list is endless all with varying degree of truth. But i feel that what i touched upon during that first semester of college was none of these. I've read countless books on spirituality, child-abuse, self-help books. All of them have a sliver of truth and validity, but none seems to be as complete as it was the work with this first counselor. I've all about given up on this quest as i have not come any closer to my answer. It seems what i seek is not something that i can be achieved by quantity, but rather quality and so i seek some quality advice, perspectives from the smart people of this board. |
I think I've got a good idea of what's going on in your head based on the information you've provided.
What's going on here is that after the counselor's advice you made some changes in perspective that produced some good results. Over time though, this charge faded, and you came back, looking for another "hit", so to speak.
Your first mistake was identifying the counselor as the solution to your problems. I don't know how many people have realized, internalized, and actualized this truth, but the fact of the matter is, the counselors don't atually "give" you anything.
People go to counselors as if they are missing something essential - something vital, not knowing what it is, believing that the counselor will help them get it back. The reality of the situation is that what they are looking for lies within them the entire time - it's just a matter of bringing it out. The only thing the counselor does is talks the person into bringing it out of them. He is a salesman selling the hidden qualities a person may not even know they had to themself. It is when one comes to this understanding that they can unlock that hidden potential within them.
You don't need the counselor, but rather to understand what it is that happened which empowered you to improve upon yourself - that you realized your internal reality controlled much of your external reality. Take charge of the internal and the external should improve as well. There's an old saying that life is 10% what happens, 90% how one reacts to it. It has been my experience that the saying is pretty accurate.
People search for things like confidence, happiness, etc. outside themselves like they are some treasure to be found - like it's something external that they are lacking. That is false. The fact of the matter is, it's all internal and a matter of bringing it out. Happiness in particular. People in general have a flawed perception of happiness. Happiness to many is a new car, or an XBOX-360, money, and other material objects. The problem with this approach is that the hapiness they experience is fleeting. It goes away quickly and they're off looking for that next object that will give them that moment of happiness again. That's one approach. The other approach is to realize that it is internal. Happiness is like a personality trait. It's something people have. This is why some people can be happy in situations where others would have killed themselves long before then, and why some people can have everything they want in this world and still not be happy.
It looks like something similar happened here. You got all charged up, everything was going good, and then as was previously described, the effect was fleeting and now you're off looking for something that will get that back for you. It's something within you, so you don't need to look anywhere outside yourself.