Posted by bassman on June 15, 2006, at 5:30:38
In reply to Re: Can I just be sad? » heaven help me, posted by yxibow on June 14, 2006, at 23:57:04
Wow, what a great post. I especially liked the part about "micro-analyzing" our emotions. For me, I know I do exactly that and I do it out of fear: "I'm depressed/intensely anxious, does that mean the AD isn't working at all now and ...and..."
Probably some therapists still feel that taking meds slows the therapeutic process and therefore should be avoided because emotional pain is a great motivator to resolve inner conflicts. But to paraphrase the post, we have to live our lives the other 99.7% of the time we aren't inching along on what we hope is some external world interaction-that happened sometime-that we have internalized and has contributed to our discomfort. Maybe.
Perhaps the center of this question has to do with the stigma of mental illness that is manifested by the uncaring people around us that believe that their experience with "normal" sadness and anxiety is exactly like that of the person with severe depression/anxiety/etc. When the line between "normal" and pathological emotional states becomes blurred, as it does when external events are powerful, then we ask ourselves if these uncaring people are correct, that we are just "making a big deal", "being too sensitive" [pick your favorite hurtful, uncaring phrase]-and further that we are being weenies for taking meds. And we cause ourselves even more pain by that analysis.
poster:bassman
thread:656269
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060610/msgs/657165.html