@ p0ck3taces you make a lot of great points, a couple obvious ones and some that I just don't feel are correct/relevant - For the sake of not bothering with platitudes like "great point" "I agree" etc I'm going to concentrate on the points of contention:
Any facts of subjective experience are going to be just that - subjective and as such subject to personal interpretation.
But maybe you missed the part about how every time come home I'm CONVINCED this time will be different - it's quite true. After having spent over half a year in a great (mental) place it's actually usually quite hard to conceive of things going back to how they were last time I was "home" . But actually I use that term with more than a little irony as I fully FEEL like Asia is my home now and Aus is just a place I go every year for (once again ironically enough) a change of scenery and to catch up with friends and family I miss and want to see again. More often than not my trip home is motivated by desire, I WANT to come home and I always feel like it will be different.
Now sure, at some deep level the mind does control everything, I wouldn't even be surprised to discover that Yogis and other hardcore meditation type dudes are able to cure even cancer in themselves with the correct types of focus etc. The universe is just energy, the more we discover about it the more it seems matter is just an illusion. Our minds create our realities, this is obvious but reality also shapes our mind - it's a synergistic whole.
Maybe you don't mean it this way buy your attitude on the whole comes across as something like "just stop whining and start looking at things differently - that's all it takes". Now you might even technically be correct, that is "all" it takes. But the problem comes when folks have got themselves so deep in a downward spiral of thought patterns that looking at it like this just doesn't cut it.
Someone mentioned that depression tends to be a "smart person" affliction, and without getting into definitions of intelligence I tend to agree. And the thing is most smart people will sit and think about why they are feeling this way, they will actively try to "look at things differently", it's actually the first thing you try and try and try and try and try when you realise that your shit state of feeling has become too much of a pattern. Well it was the first thing I tried, for years.
However I think for some it's like putting someone at the bottom of a level 22 (in Australian grades) climb and saying "just climb that cliff dude" some people simply don't have any idea how to go about it, they have no idea what techniques to use, others may lack the finger strength to climb it. It may be as simple as "just climb it" but it can also be as hard as getting to the moon if you haven't got the skills to climb. Yet get a top rope on there and a belayer with a bit of strength to haul the climber past the sticking points and suddenly an insurmountable problem can be climbed.
I'm not sure anyone is really saying that are they? I know I came close in my previous paragraph but I'm not and have never said they are helpless victims floundering about with no ability to help themselves, but that doesn't mean that sometimes they don't require an impetus to start acting differently. It doesn't mean that some help from others (that aren't telling them it's all in their head) isn't going to make the difference.
In an effort to "help myself" I tried a lot of the things Grind talked about in his post - now maybe they are a cure all for him but for me they were just temporary band aids. Yeah it can be hard (impossible) to focus on problems when you are racing down a tree run, ducking under branches where any small slip could leave you as a person shaped blog of goo on a tree trunk, or doing over 200kph in an rx7 on the M1 one at 2am with your head stuck out the sunroof - but once you get home and the adrenaline fades, for me so did all the "lack of thought" and the original patterns of thought that spurred on the adrenaline seeking behaviour reassert themselves.
Eventually I found my solution in travel and weed. I'm sure it wouldn't work for others, because they may have different patterns of thought they are stuck in and their minds/bodies may behave differently to mine. Some may not have the means or like me a job that allows that as a lifestyle choice so they will have to find something different. However if it gets bad enough then just getting to a doctor to get some advice, or getting some therapy, or talking to other people IS themselves helping themselves.
Maybe they've tried all of those things, maybe they've exhausted all the options they can think of short of medication, isn't then the seeking out of said medication once again them trying to interrupt the usual pattern of thought - isn't that exactly them helping themselves?
Yet again...you seriously think I haven't done that? When you spend half the day laying around in bed, feeling like shit and having no idea why you feel like shit about all you do is "look into yourself deeply" and question why it is you are feeling this way, what is different etc.
See here I think we get to the root of our difference in opinion, you talk about "where they are at in their self discovery process" as if it's a linear thing, like everyone is going through what you went through and so ergo the solution to everyone else's problem is exactly what yours was. But people are different, thought patterns are different, bodies are different, problem's are different, the causes of problems are different. What worked for you may not work for others, yet you seem to have decided that there is only one best way to tackle the problem of "depression" that's what worked for you. Everyone else that decides to try something different, like medication or whatnot is "wrong" in your view, anyone that doesn't just "will themselves to happiness" is someone misinformed or going about things the wrong way.
And like I said this attitude of "just do it" can be the most frustrating thing to hear others say because maybe they've just spent the last 5 years telling themselves EXACTLY that and when things get bad enough that they finally get to the stage of trying something different, talking to someone else they get this same, vaguely condescending tone back from them that they've given themselves all these years - to no effect. What do you think the chances are that they'll then bother to seek out the advice of others with different views?
But of course those others with different views are wrong because they don't share yours...right?
Any facts of subjective experience are going to be just that - subjective and as such subject to personal interpretation.
But maybe you missed the part about how every time come home I'm CONVINCED this time will be different - it's quite true. After having spent over half a year in a great (mental) place it's actually usually quite hard to conceive of things going back to how they were last time I was "home" . But actually I use that term with more than a little irony as I fully FEEL like Asia is my home now and Aus is just a place I go every year for (once again ironically enough) a change of scenery and to catch up with friends and family I miss and want to see again. More often than not my trip home is motivated by desire, I WANT to come home and I always feel like it will be different.
Now sure, at some deep level the mind does control everything, I wouldn't even be surprised to discover that Yogis and other hardcore meditation type dudes are able to cure even cancer in themselves with the correct types of focus etc. The universe is just energy, the more we discover about it the more it seems matter is just an illusion. Our minds create our realities, this is obvious but reality also shapes our mind - it's a synergistic whole.
Maybe you don't mean it this way buy your attitude on the whole comes across as something like "just stop whining and start looking at things differently - that's all it takes". Now you might even technically be correct, that is "all" it takes. But the problem comes when folks have got themselves so deep in a downward spiral of thought patterns that looking at it like this just doesn't cut it.
Someone mentioned that depression tends to be a "smart person" affliction, and without getting into definitions of intelligence I tend to agree. And the thing is most smart people will sit and think about why they are feeling this way, they will actively try to "look at things differently", it's actually the first thing you try and try and try and try and try when you realise that your shit state of feeling has become too much of a pattern. Well it was the first thing I tried, for years.
However I think for some it's like putting someone at the bottom of a level 22 (in Australian grades) climb and saying "just climb that cliff dude" some people simply don't have any idea how to go about it, they have no idea what techniques to use, others may lack the finger strength to climb it. It may be as simple as "just climb it" but it can also be as hard as getting to the moon if you haven't got the skills to climb. Yet get a top rope on there and a belayer with a bit of strength to haul the climber past the sticking points and suddenly an insurmountable problem can be climbed.
I'm not sure anyone is really saying that are they? I know I came close in my previous paragraph but I'm not and have never said they are helpless victims floundering about with no ability to help themselves, but that doesn't mean that sometimes they don't require an impetus to start acting differently. It doesn't mean that some help from others (that aren't telling them it's all in their head) isn't going to make the difference.
In an effort to "help myself" I tried a lot of the things Grind talked about in his post - now maybe they are a cure all for him but for me they were just temporary band aids. Yeah it can be hard (impossible) to focus on problems when you are racing down a tree run, ducking under branches where any small slip could leave you as a person shaped blog of goo on a tree trunk, or doing over 200kph in an rx7 on the M1 one at 2am with your head stuck out the sunroof - but once you get home and the adrenaline fades, for me so did all the "lack of thought" and the original patterns of thought that spurred on the adrenaline seeking behaviour reassert themselves.
Eventually I found my solution in travel and weed. I'm sure it wouldn't work for others, because they may have different patterns of thought they are stuck in and their minds/bodies may behave differently to mine. Some may not have the means or like me a job that allows that as a lifestyle choice so they will have to find something different. However if it gets bad enough then just getting to a doctor to get some advice, or getting some therapy, or talking to other people IS themselves helping themselves.
Maybe they've tried all of those things, maybe they've exhausted all the options they can think of short of medication, isn't then the seeking out of said medication once again them trying to interrupt the usual pattern of thought - isn't that exactly them helping themselves?
Yet again...you seriously think I haven't done that? When you spend half the day laying around in bed, feeling like shit and having no idea why you feel like shit about all you do is "look into yourself deeply" and question why it is you are feeling this way, what is different etc.
See here I think we get to the root of our difference in opinion, you talk about "where they are at in their self discovery process" as if it's a linear thing, like everyone is going through what you went through and so ergo the solution to everyone else's problem is exactly what yours was. But people are different, thought patterns are different, bodies are different, problem's are different, the causes of problems are different. What worked for you may not work for others, yet you seem to have decided that there is only one best way to tackle the problem of "depression" that's what worked for you. Everyone else that decides to try something different, like medication or whatnot is "wrong" in your view, anyone that doesn't just "will themselves to happiness" is someone misinformed or going about things the wrong way.
And like I said this attitude of "just do it" can be the most frustrating thing to hear others say because maybe they've just spent the last 5 years telling themselves EXACTLY that and when things get bad enough that they finally get to the stage of trying something different, talking to someone else they get this same, vaguely condescending tone back from them that they've given themselves all these years - to no effect. What do you think the chances are that they'll then bother to seek out the advice of others with different views?
But of course those others with different views are wrong because they don't share yours...right?
)
