| 5. Perspectives on Suicide | (Contents) | 7. Why Choose to Live |
It's possible to overcome depression. Most people who overcome clinical depression get help from professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists who study depression and the mind. In fact, one way to tell if you need professional help is to try beating it on your own for a fixed period of time. If you don't beat it, and life is bad, see someone. If it's not that bad, you're welcome to give it more time.
Below are some ways to overcome some of the traps we talked about on page 2, Getting Stuck. These aren't prescriptions for your situation, just illustrations of how, contrary to the depressed view, there's hope.
Recall Jack who was pretty good at school and sports and popular with others, but feared deep down he wasn't good enough, and when his girlfriend left he fell into a deep depression.
With help he saw how he was doing better than many, but when he had fallen in love, the contrast in feeling made the new life wonderful and the old life horrible. The old life wasn't horrible, though How dashed hopes led to depression- and how with help, new views gave escape. Kid- with help, he saw that he really only looked for a girlfriend for 2 months, so probably he can meet someone else pretty quickly. Certainly during a year in college.
Plus he saw that though he might not be great in sports, it was still an area where he could have fun and friendship and exercise. And though he might not be the most popular, he not only had some friends, but he was able to make friends, so he could always make new friends, and he could find some who were great friends, another source of deep joy in life.
Mary, as a child, felt she wasn't good enough, and it made her life miserable. She just couldn't be happy. As a young woman, she works, falls in love and marries. Her husband is driven and for a few years, works all the time and seems miserable about it- nothing makes him happy. She becomes pregnant and suddenly they're full of anticipation. But when the baby comes, they're both exhausted, as he feels even more pressure to succeed to provide for his family. She sinks into depression, not realizing that she was counting on the baby to make her successful in bringing him happiness. In her view, she's again a failure. She sinks into depression, unable to experience the many joys of having a baby.
With help, she learned to see that her trying to make her husband happy, and failing, hid the many opportunities for her own happiness as well as her baby's. She learned that success/failure happened inside a particular "game", and she actually defined the game. Instead of trying to win at "make husband happy", she could try to win at "be a good mom" and "be happy". Her husband would have to work on his own issues, but that would be much easier if he had a happy family to come home to.
Story: didn't think of all the people around as "candidates". And had trained self to feel lonely, to interpret "fine" as lonely, hollow.
About B.S...
| 5. Perspectives on Suicide | (Contents) | 7. Why Choose to Live |