The Book :depression is a choice

Do you want to talk to them?

You can do it just like you are doing it here. You can also practice here. If you can explain they will understand. Everyone felt depressed in their life, so they do know.

Before you talk you need to know your purpose/what do you want out of it?

Personally I think they do want to talk, and wish you would open up, but they don’t know what to do. They don’t want to push you or piss you off.

You can say –
Guys I wish to talk to you about what been going on.
I was feeling depressed, and I struggle with it. I hate how I am and I wish to change it, but sometimes I don’t know how, at times I don’t know how to apply your suggestions. I wish you would listen to my problems first, and asked me how it is going. (Maybe that not what you want, so tell them what you do want.) What would really help me is if you could help me by reminding me that I can get trough it, that I am good person etc. …. (tell them what you working on, and what helped you)

1) tell how it is for you
2) tell what you wish for and want them to do

Yea, they can help you if you show them how.

Also as you become aware and stop your negative feelings and practice, it becomes easier. You don’t need 60 years to relearn, you can learn it as any other thing (the speed depends on your effort.) At some point you wouldn’t even have to work at it, you would naturally react positively, and problems won’t let pull you down. You can become different person, a happy one.

moramind wrote:... as an srtist, i should leave some things in the sketchbook, and bring some things to the show, sigh, i hate this topic, other mods, show me how to delete this if possible, i meant to say somthing like this, but in a differant way, one that made a lil more sense, eh? lol, anywho, yea:)

Moramind, Hi, do you see a little X by your edit at the top right of the letter you want to delete, by the way it's on the 1st page of this topic. Hit that and you should be able to delete your post. we dont encourage it, because then the thread makes no sense,

But if you want to delete the whole thread(if you are the author) let me know and I'll delete it.

Thanks OK. You sound like my counselor. Its just so much easier to shut up and stay in my head instead of puting a voice to how I feel. I know it won't take 60 yrs to change but some times right now its hard to even see the progress I've made.
I know that the rage is less and so is the parinoia, but like everyone else I want change right now!

Hi ekaye

Easier shouldn’t be good enough to stop you from doing what will help you. Why is it hard for you to talk to your family? It seems to me that you one of the relative type, who can get along with anybody. Though it is you string, it also you weakness, because you can’t say no, or stand up for yourself. And majority are negative people, you probably know your self that relating to them makes you feel worse. It is not just about defending your mind from negativity, in other places too; if you go against what you believe is right, you be angry at your self, won’t like yourself, and be confused who you are. If you want to change that, you got to disagree, or at least don’t get involved w/ these people. Anyhow, you got to practice how to say no, you definitely need it. I got no problem with arguing, if you disagree with me tell me. I don’t claim to be always right, maybe you are right. You can tell me why you believe so, and I will tell you why I believe. There is no loss, because if I look for truth, it doesn’t mater on which side it’s; as long as find it, I win.

You should give yourself credit for what you already got, because it will motivate you to do better. To make improvement faster, look how you failed/fallen in your weakness/did what you didn’t want to. Do you notice how when you got problem, you do things that worsen it? (For example person who feels bad about his/her weight start eating; person who feels depressed turns on “and nothing else matters”, turn something good and sing (U2 Beautiful day“ I know I am not a hopeless case”) Then think how you could do better or stop your self in the future, and then try to do it. For your rage go and exercise; punch heavy bag, or any exercise when you do it, you release your rage and at the same time doing something good for your body. Also, seek information how to improve your self; when you have hard time just pop cassette or CD and listen. Also, think what kind of person you would want to be/what kind of person you would be proud of being, and then identify how that person would do everything, and go act this way.

Alright OK, your too good. I agree with the fake it till you make it theory, and I know it works. Right now its just not worth trying. I've always worked with the idea that, everyone is right and there is nothing wrong with me. My mom always told me, "You'll do anything for attention". That message has always been in the back of my mind, I'm really fine, I'm just looking for attention. I always have tried to stay unnoticed because I didn't want to be attention seeking. Come to think of it that's why I didn't try to explain to my family how parilizing this has become.
Except on this site I can't even disagree with others who think they know just how I feel. If I hurt them or scare them off who would I have? And for the first time in my life I'm scared of life and what would happen if I were alone.
The bad thing about admitting you need help is you also have to admit that you can't do it alone. Up till all this happened I could do anything I had to do, and I didn't need any one to help me. If someone didn't like me they could just join the others who didn't and I worried over it then went on. Its not that way now.

It seems to me that you are fighting between your need for people/”attention” and opposite, being independent, not wanting help. First, children do need attention, without love infants die. Children do seek attention, and there is nothing wrong with that; think about it, there is not much they can do, and there is no love, except for parents and relatives. If you think about it every time person speaks or doesn’t “silent treatment”-we do seek attention. For example when your mother spook she wanted attention from you. You know, you should stop giving her your attention, because that message doesn’t help you. Thing is you are adults and you need to communicate. It is part of your responsibilities to your family. This is what separates a stranger from people you know. If you don’t talk to your family and share you life, they won’t understand you; they won’t even know who you are. Communication is vital part in all relationships, with out it usually people separate; obviously it can’t go well. If you want good relationship you have to talk, even if you are afraid. You steel have to take this risk. Nothing can go wrong if you care about person and don’t want to hurt him/her. You won’t be alone if you don’t want to. You can always apologize, or you can find new friends. Thing is different people believe in different truths, and no matter what you believe there is always someone who believes same thing. The key is to allow people to have different believes (if their values goes against yours, you better find new friends.)

Cooperation is good thing, I think that is how we majorly different from animals. We are community, when one person discover something, whole nation finds out and use it, and others modify and make it better. We all grow, and advance, make life better for each other, because we take help. There are many things that you already got help on and keep getting, and because of it you better. We all need each other. Get all the help you can; it’s mistake not too.

Anonymous wrote:a total woo woo quackery book. if the author was injected with reserpine, the author would then become depressed, and feel very stupid and bad about his entire paradigm of thought being wrong

now THIS Sis a post that makes some seroius sense top me. i think that i think that yes ins ome poeple people tend to dwell onc ertain feelings and it hink that can lead to depresionas so sometimes depressions can be made be worse by ur own actions and sometimes it can be made worse by the environment around you. it is important for u to realize this becuase there are more than one facterz than can contribute to the psychologiocal disease of depression. there are more than one things that goes in to it, and i think that the author is not right in thinking that it is alla choice. if you alter ur state of mind it can alter ur mood, but it is hard to alter ur state ur mind if the conditions around u are not correct correlatd.

Hi O.K. I've been rereading all our posts through May. I've been off in the land of grandkids and InLaws. I followed your advice and worked at talking. It made a difference! The Dr. also started me on Arcept in May. I don't know if it is making the difference or if my other meds are kicking in but my head is so clear now. I've read my mental state through this thread and I can see growth there. I'm not cured but I'm better for right now. I still think this author is a idiot but the title sure has brought a lot of us together to voice our feelings about "choice"

Anonymous wrote:You are entitled to your opinion and I am to mine. Thought, I may add your belief limits you, and mine helps me. Why do you defend side that does you no good? Through learning about it I don’t think it is mental disease. Just because lots of people named it mental disease doesn’t prove it is. I look at results in contrast of what I want. People on your side dependent and unhappy with side effects. On my side people actually could get out of depression and start living.{Now how could that even be possible if it was mental disease? I can bring up lots of interesting facts, but the thing is, if you want to be on pills you will be on pills.

I do believe you get horrible consequences for not controlling it. Like I said if you don’t control depression it controls you. I even believe that you can get to the point where won’t be able to control your thoughts (go crazy), and that you could even die. (You saw results in your life.) I do believe that you brain change, that depressed person have chemical imbalance; I think you can change all that if you get out of your sheet. I mean how can anyone expect to feel good while thinking sheet? Emotions are reflection of what you are thinking, and if person depressed they choosing bad thoughts. If you been there for a while of course it would be hard for you; you got used to it and it became your habit and getting out is hard as getting out from addiction. Obviously in life of every person there are good memories, but depressed person picks out of bad and good memories bad ones and they pay for it.

I never said it was easy; in fact I said it was hard. And that is precisely why people don’t want to do it. You can compare this with obesity. Everybody know how to get out of it-exercise and eat healthy, but instead people drink pills and do operation. Drastic measures for simple things just like with depression. It treated as disease. Imagine if it was thought as disease, no one even would try work on cause (as in depression).

First of all, don't say you understand what it's like to be depressed, because you don't. The side of which you are on about this arguement proves it. What you went through wasn't depression, it was imaginary depression. People who are ACTUALLY depressed cannot just "choose" to feel a certain way and just stop being depressed, and even if they could, what value would that give to the authenticity of their emotions? I would much rather face reality and be very sad than be very happy but only because i'm ignoring reality. I would achieve a sense of pride by being strong enough to not feel the need to ignore reality, and being able to endure it. But i do admit that when you are depressed there are often things you can do to help yourself, such as exercise, meditation, diets, etc, but you must keep in mind that these are things you can do to HELP yourself, not CURE yourself. It is very rare that something other than therapy and medication actually cures you. There are even cases where none of these things work at all, people who are basically uncurable, as unfortunate as that is. And stop generalising people who suffer from depression. You can't just go: "Oh, look, he cured his depression by just making an effort to cure himself. Now do the same thing. If he did it, you can too!". Things are wayyyyyy more complex than that, and the fact that you don't understand that yet is further proof that you have no idea what depression is like, and i'd even go as far as to say human life in general. Have you ever stopped to think that there may be a REASON someone is depressed? That people who are depressed may have ACTUAL ISSUES they need to fix? Seems to me like you've been living in a little delusional shell your entire life. Oh well. Someday you will come out of your shell and realise what the world really is, and will realise that pushing back depression is not a cure in any way and that believing so is ignorant and naive, not to mention delusional. People have issues that they need to work through to get out of depression. It just works that way. And i hope you consider yourself lucky that i didn't bash you in my post, because you sure as hell deserved it. I think it is extremely offensive that you frame people who suffer from depression to be irresponsible, lazy attention whores when in reality, you are the one with the problem. You deform reality for it to accomodate you. You pretend it's as easy as thinking positive to cure yourself of depression. Are you aware that depression MAKES you think negative? In closing, I really hope you feel bad about the things you've said in this thread.

Actually, i take back what i said about you having been through imaginary depression.. what you went through is probably what we commonly call "having the blues" and assumed it was depression when really it wasn't, because depression is serious and often pretty intense and persistent and cannot be cured just by thinking positive, unlike being "down" or "having the blues".