When I was in intermediate school (11-12), and maybe even younger I dont really remember, I was pretty depressed. At that point I used to share a room with my older brother, but he would have been pretty old at that stage, so maybe it was younger than this. I'm not sure.. Anyway I used to dread going to bed. Cause that was when I was alone and probably the lack of sunlight didnt help, so what would happen was I would lie in bed awake with the radio on until my brother went to bed as well, and he would turn off the radio and I would pretend to be asleep but I dont think I did a very good job of it.
Anyway, at some point this stopped happening. I cant really remember a cause for this at all. But like, by the time I was 15 I had become almost like an exaggerated parody of an obnoxious optimist. And, at this stage of my life, I completely forgot that I had ever been depressed earlier at all. Possibly it was the optimism that helped me out of that state, maybe it had nothing to do with it I dont remember. I mean honestly I think my life was just better by then. But basically I could control my emotional state pretty well, and when I was getting frustrated or whatever, I could snap myself out of it if I needed to.
Ok, so then at university, I suddenly got depressed again. A bunch of people I knew, and my pet cat, all died in the space of a year or so, this is 2001 as well, so there was 9/11, and I was doing some philosophy ethics paper about various horrible situations like assisted suicide and abortions. And anyway, I really felt like shit. Oh yeah, this was when I suddenly remembered what my life had been like earlier..
But the real problem, was I believed that through positive thinking I could control my emotional state, cause I had been doing this all through highschool and it had never let me down. But, when I was getting more and more depressed, it just didnt help. And I panicked. So firstly I felt like shit, and I also had the sense of powerlessness on top of that.
Anyway, basically what I had to learn to do was to accept that when bad things happen to you, you are likely to feel bad. And that, if you are afraid of feeling bad, and being afraid feels bad, then you will continue to feel bad for a very long time.
This I dont know if what you are in is a similar situation at all. I mean, if I am being honest, I probably am closer to the feels like one is incapable of doing anything wrong end of the spectrum. So the purpose of this post isnt so much to help you as it is to show people that sometimes "have a positive attitude" is actually harmful advice rather than helpful.
I could close this thread, cause I gotta be honest, a lot of the advice here is bad. But I'd like to leave it open, cause it could be really helpful. What I think is much more useful than advice though, is your own experiences and what was helpful to you.
Have a nice day.
