Emotions come and go. Hence, no matter how bad I feel, I know that it will pass. I was caring for a client by sitting with him. He was part of a group home and required 24/7 supervision. He had a very strong anxiety due to past mistreatment. I just reassured him regularly and stayed very calm. Like my emotions, it passed for him too.
My brain lies to me by exaggerating the importance of events or mistakes that I have made. The negative thinking part of my brain has repeatedly told me that I always break the items that I am assembling at work. My brain takes a single incident and then it claims that it happens everyday. My CBT monkey (the part of my brain that is trained to use cognitive behavioral training) catches these thinking errors and works to correct them.
Everyone perceives the world differently based on their past experiences. As a child, I discovered that I interpreted the world different than those around me. My thinking is so negative that I have trouble getting some people to understand me. It makes people want to run away. Others argue with me until I start defending a belief that only the depressed part of my brain believes. Sometimes this makes me feel like no one understands me. Yet, it helps me to understand that a person can love the US but disagree on how to run the country. I believe that both Republicans and Democrats care deeply about the US. We just disagree on what is best for the country.
While everybody’s experience is different, there are similarities in our emotional experiences. I remember attending a support group. Another member was describing a symptom of his/her mental health issue. I started fidgeting in my chair because I recognized my experience in it. Over the years, I have learned that others have experienced symptoms similar to mine.
It was strange for me to think about depression in this way. I would love to never have depression ever again. What have you learned from your depression, anxiety or tough times?