Break down your emotional problems into one liners...

[Locut0s]

Here's an exercise I just thought of. Break down your emotional issues into a single group of one liners. The fewer words you can use while still coming close to capturing most of your issues the better. Mental health issues are complex beasts involving many different facets; positive and negative feedback loops, your living conditions and financial situation, the people you live with, your past, your family, and much more all play integral roles. But for the sake of this thread forget about all of that. Try to take your core issues and distill them down into a handful of catch phrases or recognized diagnosed conditions.

For me my problems are:

Social Anxiety
Avoidant Personality
Perfectionism
Approval seeking
Depression

-----------

Secondary issues that arise from these primary ones include

Timidity and fear of rejection
Procrastination
Emotional Immaturity

What are your core issues and possibly secondary ones?

[Tobin S.]

1. About the only problem I have now is perfectionism

I was told that by a therapist a long time ago, but it took me a while to figure out what it really means in terms of my own psychology.

I'm doing a lot better with it now days, and it's not really a big problem compared to what I've gone through in the past. It can be beneficial in some regards. I think it's what compels me to get all 'A's in school.

[Locut0s]

3. Perfectionism is a HUGE problem for me...

In some ways it's one of my core issues around which everything else orbits. It crops up everywhere too, I have to be always on the lookout for it. True perfectionism isn't about compelling someone to get 'A's so much as you fucking HAVE to get A's in order to validate yourself as a person. Your very self worth is tied into getting those As. It also rears its head in lots of non academic areas too. You find you can't let yourself make mistakes in almost any arena, friendships, romances, hobbies, careers, exercise, everything has to be perfect in some sense. And true perfectionists often have a very uneven academic track record. The reason is that there is SO much emotional pressure they put on themselves to succeed that they can't support it for long. They get A+ after A+ then something comes along where they can't get an A and the whole house of cards comes crumbling down. At least that's how it works for me.

Ironically severe procrastination often goes hand in hand with perfectionism. I never developed good study habits all through high school and early college. I hatted the social aspects of high school and so I wanted to dwell on school as little as possible. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, I was intelligent enough that I never needed to really study much in HS to get strait As most of the time. I'm not saying this to blow my own horn, it's just an important part of my problem. I spent 4 years trying to get something out of university before giving up some years back (I'm back at it now). Again with little to no studying I'd still manage good grades most of the way through. But unlike in HS this only took me so far. In many classes I would now notice that I was getting slowly behind and after a while things would build to a head. I would get 2 or 3 months into a semester with a good head start, good grades and a positive outlook in the first few weeks. But the anxiety would build up day after day. I'd go to school more and more reluctantly every day. Eventually the anxiety, depression, and realization that I was behind would reach a peak, usually coinciding with some important assignment, and I'd just throw up my hands and give up. I would withdraw from all my classes and just give up. Rinse and repeat year after year.

I'm hoping with some of the life changes I've made and the positive momentum I've built up that this coming year will be different. This past year was one of the first years I managed to get through from beginning to end so that's a plus as well. I've burned so many fucking bridges in my life I can't afford to keep going down that path.

Perhaps you can relate. You said that you are doing better now days. What was your perfectionism like when it was bad?

[Tobin S.]

5. At my worst

I would judge myself harshly when I'd make minor mistakes. There is an aspect of my mind that is very hard on me. I'm always striving to make improvements in myself and to make progress. I'm trying very hard to succeed in life. It used to be with me that even minor foibles were cause for consternation. I'm learning to take it easier on myself now days.

[olddots]

2. Iam " the most depressed man in the world "

my core issues are just the secondary ones turned up higher .


I think if I leveled with my shrink he would start crying too so maybe the snappy one liner is I live because it has become a bad habbit I am too weak to break .

[Locut0s]

4. Don't knock yourself. You are a very interesting person dots!...

You are a caring, compassionate and great person! Depression is a tough beast to deal with, I know only too well. It seems it's always there in the background even at the best of times, a gray smog waiting to descend upon everything, smothering out the light. At it's worst it's like suffering from imagined emotional asthma, every breath seems like an effort, or being forced to carry around invisible weights with you everywhere you go. Every step, every effort seems like a chore. One of the keys I'm learning if that you HAVE to develop some form of outlet that relieves your depression, even if only for a few hours. You need the vacation from it to see and think clearly. For me my daily long walks are becoming that. When I was at my worst some months back and almost feeling suicidal I still had my hot baths which would take away the worst of it for 1/2 an hour or so at a time. If you can develop your own tool to relieve the worst of it, even for shot spans, you have a powerful weapon in your fight!

Here's hoping you feel better.

[Tobin S.]

7. Hot baths and long walks sound like healthy tools to use in your battle with depression.

Don't do what I did and drink yourself into oblivion trying to combat it. That just makes things worse.

[Locut0s]

8. I went a ways down that path too...

I have to be vigilant of it still. Sadly I'm one of those for whom alcohol works very well as a cure, at least temporarily before it destroys everything else. When I was at my worst I would come home and drink a whole 5th of vodka on the weekends and I was even stealing wine from my parents store in the basement during weekdays too. That was all something of a shameful period. I still drink casually at family dinner parties and the like but I have to monitor it and make sure I'm not letting it get out of hand.

Things like partying and dating are still off the table for me due to my social anxiety and lack of experience but I know for a fact that I could march out there and party and or date with a heavy buzz on. That's NOT a good thing, it means that I have to be ever vigilant that I'm not using alcohol as a crutch.

[Tobin S.]

6. I see you post in the lounge a lot as well as here

and what I see is a kind, funny, and compassionate person...as well as a depressed person. I know you might just be joking, but if you really aren't telling your therapist everything, you should. Just let it all go the next time you're in there.

[Locut0s]

9. Thanks Tobin!...

I'm not the only nice, king, compassionate person here, that description fits you equally well Tobin! Don't ever think differently or that you need to or should change.

I have mostly opened up to my psychiatrist. He's a hell of a lot better than my last one but I still don't feel fully comfortable with him. He's slightly condensing at times I think and his professionalism keeps him at an emotional arms length, which is necessary in his career but it doesn't always make one feel comfortable opening up. There are a few more things I'm definitely going to tell him next time that I haven't. One thing is that you simply don't remember all the things that you should tell him in just a few sessions. Lots of things occur to you later on that may be very important but may only surface after a few sessions.

Thanks.