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Ok, I just have to ask this question even though I don't want to.
Have you ever been diagnosed with clinical depression?
*Sigh*...they offered me medication because they thought i was suicidal and I said no. So they gave me a breathing exercise and told me to sit with it instead.
They said my depression was situational and another counselor diagnosed me with Panic attacks.
Misty,
Careful of this line of thought. It leads to a sense of irrational entitlement.
I will guarantee that those people you think are so charmed have something not so charming going on.
We all need to learn to appreciate the lives we have been given and the love we do have.
On the spectrum, there are those worse off and better off-mostly by the hard work and efforts people do or don't put into their lives.
To be honest, I just don't compare my life like that anymore. I'm actually grateful for the pains and challenges I've had to encounter because what I've found is that I've grown as a person, my perception and view of the world has expanded. "Tragedy" made way for expansion of perception and I was given an opportunity to further experience life, people, and the things in it. I value my scars because had they not been etched onto me by life and mistakes, I never would've have known the vast amount of tools, gifts and talents that existed within my soul.
*Sigh*...they offered me medication because they thought i was suicidal and I said no. So they gave me a breathing exercise and told me to sit with it instead.
They said my depression was situational and another counselor diagnosed me with Panic attacks.
Situational is not clinical. I can see panic attacks arising out of a situational depression. If depression is situational, I can see either getting a little help temporarily from a medication OR just seeking support from friends and family.
That is a far cry from clinical depression where sometimes people must take medication for life. Plus, there have been people in very good situations who are clinically depressed. A good and quick read is "Darkness Visible" by William Styron.
This says it better than I can:
Quote:
For people who have never experienced the devastating depths of major clinical depression, it may be difficult to empathize with the life and death struggle these patients wage from within the depths of their spirits. Well-meaning friends and family members may mistakenly attempt to encourage the depressed patient by offering preachy platitudes and pleas that lack depth of perception and compassion, such as, "Life is hard sometimes, you can't let it get you down," or "It can't be as bad as you think," or "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps," or "Everybody gets the blues from time to time." These mistaken "helpers" often confuse clinical depression for situational depression (which is less debilitating, usually temporary, and often explicable through environmental factors, such as the recent death of a loved one). For professional caregivers and loved ones who may be struggling with their own responses to a patient's depression, Darkness Visible provides invaluable personal insights, and therefore plays a significant role in dismantling those experiential barriers that allow the "healthy" to separate themselves from the "sick."
Misty,
Careful of this line of thought. It leads to a sense of irrational entitlement.
I will guarantee that those people you think are so charmed have something not so charming going on.
We all need to learn to appreciate the lives we have been given and the love we do have.
On the spectrum, there are those worse off and better off-mostly by the hard work and efforts people do or don't put into their lives.
No one was ever promised anything.
Irrational entitlement? Could you please elaborate on this?
There are degrees of charm. I'll take charmed in the higher number range please.
And I am offended by the statement I bolded. Tell it to the women in Afghanistan who are stoned to death or the women in India who have had acid thrown in their faces. Tell it to someone born in the projects who ends up using drugs to escape the misery, does time in prison, gets worse and winds up a lifer.
As for me, I have done the best I can. I put forth the effort to get an MBA and learn a second language (which is required for just about every job where I live now). So I don't think I've lived the life of a slouch exactly.
However, I have had the misfortune of running into a few sociopaths along the way which has really thrown me off course. Maybe someone else would have been more adept at dealing with these kinds of people, but I wasn't as by the time you know you're dealing with one it's usually too late.
Sometimes it looks like someone has it all together, but everybody has their set of problems.
Someone you are looking at as the ideal, may wish they have something you have. Some mention Dolly Parton. Don't you think she would have liked to have children? She also recently lost one of her best friends since childhood to cancer. We just all do the best we can with the hand we are playing.
We are all due a little down time sometimes. But we should treasure the good things and let go of the bad. Some of us just don't go around telling everyone our problems all the time.
Irrational entitlement? Could you please elaborate on this?
There are degrees of charm. I'll take charmed in the higher number range please.
And I am offended by the statement I bolded. Tell it to the women in Afghanistan who are stoned to death or the women in India who have had acid thrown in their faces. Tell it to someone born in the projects who ends up using drugs to escape the misery, does time in prison, gets worse and winds up a lifer.
As for me, I have done the best I can. I put forth the effort to get an MBA and learn a second language (which is required for just about every job where I live now). So I don't think I've lived the life of a slouch exactly.
However, I have had the misfortune of running into a few sociopaths along the way which has really thrown me off course. Maybe someone else would have been more adept at dealing with these kinds of people, but I wasn't as by the time you know you're dealing with one it's usually too late.
Am I correct in thinking that you have no spiritual/religious leanings?
We are not always the ones in charge. Much of your particular struggle has to do with not understanding that all people have their own journeys on this earth.
And I do not care if I offended you. Stop the victim mentality, already.
Misty, I agree with you that luck plays a role, as does upbringing. Some people just seem to be handed the short end of the stick, over and over. Still, what we do with what we've got is up to us, although depression and mental illness can keep us from seeing whatever good there may be in our lives, or from seizing opportunities to change things.
Sounds like you're having an extra crappy day and if I could do something nice for you I would. But since I can't, I'll just wish that you feel better about things tomorrow.
Am I correct in thinking that you have no spiritual/religious leanings?
We are not always the ones in charge. Much of your particular struggle has to do with not understanding that all people have their own journeys on this earth.
And I do not care if I offended you. Stop the victim mentality, already.
Um, excuse me but you don't even know me well enough to say such a thing as "stop the victim mentality, already." On what grounds do you base such a statement?
And I don't care whether you care or don't care that you offended me. The TRUTH is that your statement was patently false. George Bush 43 never would have been president had his father not been George Bush 41. He was a C student at Yale. How much work did he put into anything to get where he got?
Oh, and to answer your question, my spiritual/religious leanings have nothing to do with the question I posed in my subject line.
Misty, I agree with you that luck plays a role, as does upbringing. Some people just seem to be handed the short end of the stick, over and over. Still, what we do with what we've got is up to us, although depression and mental illness can keep us from seeing whatever good there may be in our lives, or from seizing opportunities to change things.
Sounds like you're having an extra crappy day and if I could do something nice for you I would. But since I can't, I'll just wish that you feel better about things tomorrow.
What a nice thing to say. Your first paragraph is completely true.
I'm not having an extra crappy day, btw. I'm just not having the kind of day I would have had say in 2002.
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