The visit to my psychologist went well yesterday. I learned a few things -- some of which I could have done without -- about myself. I told her that I had been feeling a lot better during the past few weeks, but did not know why. She said she thought that my opening up to her last week about the sexual abuse I have had, probably took a great weight off of my shoulders. She told me that she wanted me to compile a list of things I wanted to accomplish as I continued seeing her. The list is supposed to cover things that bother me. I told her that I did not know what was causing my depression, to which she replied "Wow!" After I talked briefly about something else, she quickly brought me back to my comment regarding not knowing what was causing my depression. She then proceeded to tick off several items that she felt I have trouble dealing with, including both past and present. As I listened to her call off some of the items she had been referring to when she said wow, at first I could not grasp how some of them could be connected with my depression. Then, after thinking it over for a while (including last night), I began taking a good hard look at my life. I now believe that I have been in denial concerning a lot of them. Substance abuse is one of the items mentioned by my psychologist. I have been dealing with that for the last two years, and now feel that I have made a lot of progress with it. A few of the other things she mentioned, include my disability and the limitations caused by it, the loss of my job as a newspaper reporter, the deaths of my parents, my relationship with my brother and sister and their children, my feelings of abandonment, etc. I am honestly bewildered at how I could have possibly overlooked these as some of the reasons for my having depression. The realization that my psychologist had picked up on all of these was somewhat of a shock to me because I spent most of my time talking about other things. Quotes for Goals: “Goals. There's no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There's no telling what will happen when you act upon them.” Jim Rohn
Replies
Holy doodle! It sounds like you\'re smack dab in the middle of \'break it down\' land! It does seem a little unlikely that you didn\'t realize how those things contributed toward your depression. But then again, with how you were treated as a child, you didn\'t know you weren\'t supposed to be feeling what you were feeling.
That icky stuff can just stick with us.
Weeble hugs and Mojo.....
Holy Cow! If these are examples of what has been causing my depression, then I am in deep trouble. I just spent an hour thinking of things that have gone wrong in my life, and have somehow managed to come up with plenty of them. I don\'t see any way of ever covering them all, so I may be destined to be depressed forever. That does not make me any happier.
One step at a time, Jim. One therapist visit at a time.
I think in a lot of instances, there may be the original incident or trauma. Then, there are also lots of behaviors or things that go wrong in our lives that are connected to the original
incident(s).
Stay in the moment. Don\'t think about you being destined to be depressed forever. Sometimes we do not understand that through the use of therapy, sometimes unforeseeable resolution comes in a very different manor. In that way the outcome we fear...depressed forever...is never reached
Thanks for your comments. I feel that I just became overwhelmed when I looked back at my childhood, and then began making connections with what has happened to me since then. I can now see how part of my past has had some influences on later events in my life. It\'s funny how I didn\'t see that for myself years ago. It is just hard for me to see how many years I have wasted because of this. Maybe I have finally found a therapist who can actually help me.