Importance of focusing on Positive with Depression & Anxiety.

I wanted to let those of you participating in this discussion on focusing on the positive with depression and anxiety know about the latest Connect member spotlight. It features @ayeshasharma, one of the members involved in this conversation, @ayeshasharma https://connect.mayoclinic.org/page/about-connect/newsfeed-post/advocating-for-those-who-feel-alienated-from-health-care-spaces-meet-ayeshasharma/. Learn about Ayesha's passions, important qualities in friendships, favorite foods and more. Post a comment, if you'd like.

I’m in a very stuck mode at the moment. I’ve started a new therapy with a psychiatrist that’s based in acknowledging and validating emotions. I’m very numb and it seems like a good idea. But yesterday I started down some old paths leading through my divorce. Dredging up really old stuff. I don’t think that’s useful. I’d like to acknowledge my current sadness that my marriage failed, but not contemplate all the whys! I really want to couple therapy with positive mental reinforcements, so this post is timely. I have many positive outlets, mostly outdoor activity based, like birding, but they’ve taken a back seat recently and it scares and frustrates me.

@shermananski- Hello. Oh boy can I identify with your depression. I have PTSD with anxiety and depression. Unfortunately there is no straight line with an illness and depression is just that. For what ever reason your body is off kilter and it stresses the body, which makes you more depresses, which stresses the body; need I go on? lol. When I gain weight I go deeper and deeper into sadness. It's that I've let myself down. When I'm at a good weight I feel better, have less stress on my body and am happier.
I might be over stepping my boundaries here but you need to get your car back. You need to get back doing things. Can your daughter buy a used car or rent one? You health depends on it I think. Don't you?

Negative feedback ... good point. It needs interrupting! My daughter has anxiety and depression, too. And some mental challenges she inherited from her father. That makes me sad. So I try to support as much as possible. She gets no support from him (his other mental challenges). sigh. Boy this is depressing me! I’ve been drinking too. At home alone. On a Friday night. Watching a movie. That’s distressing. I cleaned my car yesterday and did some other necessary stuff. Today I’m going birding but honestly it’ll be a lot of car riding with conversation that might not be ideal. Like politics and work and other worldly stresses. the more I think here the more I sink. Ok. Enough. I’m going to do some house trim painting that needs to get done before it gets any colder. And then go see some amazing ducks. It’s fall back day... one of my fav days of the year. An extra hour to sleep! Yay. thank you for the encouragement. I need to get positive and motivated.

I have a lot in my plate... don’t I? Keeping up a house. Caring for an adult daughter and a geriatric cat with kidney failure. Be nice to me. Be thankful you have a house and a loving amazingly smart and talented daughter and a cute kitty who’s tormented you for 18 years with crazy kitty antics.

@shermananski- I have 12 years experience with PTSD caused by the same time frame of having my 2nd, 3rd and 4th lung cancers. When I am depressed the last thing that I can do is to think positively. It's a contradiction of terms. Earlier this year Harvard Medical School upgraded a much earlier article about the causes of depression. The point of the article is that things are much more complex than once thought. It's far from not having enough of one chemical and too much of another. It's a long hard journey, but one well worth making. I am still on mine and may never stop.
whttps://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-depression

In order to think positively we all need to deal with ( to take the action that is necessary) the things that are making us depressed. Medications help with symptoms but not the cause. Making lists of what you can change now, or have power over and those that you don't can help weed out things that might be draining our energy. It's first and most importantly time to weed out the riff raff. Once the list with the "no power over" is put away it's time to deal with those that you do have power over. By power I mean the ability to change the way you react and look at things. You can change how they effect you. Usually, but not always those things that make us depressed have happened in the past. Time has changed our perceptions of them. Of course they happened, I'm not saying that they aren't. We can't change the past but we can put into perspective why they are still effecting us why do we still let them? Why do we help them stay and beat us up? This is a different time and out memories aren't perfect.

My mother had a huge influence over me. She was not a particularly warm woman and really had no idea how to emotionally be supportive. She expected great things without the teachings of how to go about them. We fought like cats and dogs and I gave her a run for her money most of my life with her. She was an artist of sorts and left many of her sculptures for her three children. Anyway, I put as many of her sculptures around my house as I could. I surrounded myself with her. Instead of really mourning and letting my nasty memories of her vanish I stayed angry and more and more depressed because those art pieces were a continuous reminder of her coldness and demeaning words. I entered therapy and one of things that I learned was that those pieces of art were a constant reminder of her and subconsciously I kept thinking of our conversations and fights and didn't let her go. Some of these will always make me angry when I think of them but by packing away most of her art I have also packed away some of the triggers that have begun a lot of my depressive thoughts.

Most of us have different stories but something triggers the memories and keeps us captive. Also, and I'm sure that you are aware of this, by doing negative things to yourself you reinforce any negative feelings that you have about yourself. By changing these things will be the first line of getting you feeling better and getting out of the house and will give you more power over them. Actions are what lead us to think positively. Does this make sense?

Maybe this could be listed in its own category yet it applies here as well. MEMORY
It seems self evident to me that not only does memory matter but to discuss the importance of memory is complicated immediately and there have been classic examples of eye witness accounts of what happened.
If several eye witnesses have different takes on what happened is it not worth considering how the words we chose to use, words that we think explains or describes
Something of great importance for peers as well as professionals use to determine and define what is happening with/in a person.
I think that well known movies can help illustrate what I mean. If anyone saw the movie Shallow Hal a chance meeting in an elevator the character “ Hal “ meets Tony Robbins who gives Hal a suggestion and after he leave the elevator he sees a heavy set girl as Gwyneth Paltrow. As I mentioned in another post but coming at the subject from a different perspective. I wonder if anyone who read that first post sees the connection?
Now maybe someone else might want to know what any of this has to do with memory.?
But going back to the Shallow Hal movie ; I think the essence of using this example is a great one because a movie can easily illustrate what one person sees ( thinks ) while another person is seeing everything differently.
If we human beings can not assure each other that we’re talking about the same thing then it seems to me that the changes that are happening in the world get more complicated to identify and explain as time goes by complicated further by cultural differences and an inability and or desire to look at the whole and break things down to a series of definitions and agreements.
We can see this pretty clearly in health care.
And as an example of one particular area of how conflict arises by looking at the psych bible: The DSM 5 and DSM 4 The DSM 5 pretty much eliminated the AXIS system. So when the new book comes out a patient is looked at through a new and different system. How do professionals communicate about a patient who was seen for years by a shrink who retired before the DSM5 comes out?
I’m sure this opens a whole new can of worms about a myriad of topics, subjects, diagnosis’s and we haven’t even touched on the Glode that most of us used to learn countries before the countries changed-boarders so quickly that a globe was outdated before it went to market.
Have I confused everyone enough?

Thank you for the article. I’m stuck in a negative feedback loop caused in no small part by Effexor. It’s making me feel ill, tired, and craving sugar. I did not have any luck with other meds with this now three year long episode that started when I went off paxil. Maybe I can shift back to paxil while going through therapy and getting back into a gym and diet routine. I do not know if I could endure another relapse. It was so very difficult and painful and I Don’t have a spouse to care for me while I recuperate. Now there’s a trigger! Feeling vulnerable. Scares the hell out of me. I will read that article tonight.

My father was a highly functioning alcoholic and no doubt deeply depressed and anxious. He was very intelligent, honest and trustworthy, and admired by many people. But he was not fun to live with. My first memory of anything was him screaming at me to shut up in my dark bedroom. It was, apparently, traumatizing for me. I thought about it all of the time as a kid. I struggled with anxiety and depression throughout my life. I’ve worked hard at getting past it but it ultimately took me. Once it completely Disabled me. My brother, on the other hand, who is four years older, is very very successful and perpetually happy. I don’t know how we came from the same home. Why was I so traumatized while my brother went on to be Teflon man? was he just old enough to enjoy a happier father when he was very young? Did I arrive at a downward slide in my father’s depression? I don’t know. Is my adult depression a result of childhood trauma at all? I forgave my father a long time ago. I understand Him more and more as I age and struggle. but maybe that’s not enough. What is enough!

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