Posted by B Day on November 20, 2000, at 23:27:16
In reply to Re: Free Will,Responsibility, Especially in Depression, posted by jojo on November 20, 2000, at 22:41:07
Jojo,
I don't really consider your discussion to contain any more errors than most of the rest of us impart. Our most common one is that we speak from a subjective point of view and sometimes feel our experience should be that of others when it may not be so.
In example of what you may find a somewhat different experience I would mention that my first dealings with severe guilt, shame and anxiety came many years ago as the result of trauma I experienced. It took a long time for me to learn how to cope with those feelings successfully. Over time, I learned well what I needed to do when those times came. In a way, that behavior has almost seemed to become automatic with me, even when I'm severely depressed.
I have two psychologists and a psychiatrist who have all remarked about and discussed with me my comparatively low levels of guilt, shame and anxiety while depressed. It is not that I don't feel those things, but I am not so adversely affected by them as I might could be. I think this may well be the result of having to tackle those feelings in the way I did so long ago. It was a matter of life and death and maintaining some sanity for myself. I was depressed at that time, but I think it was more related to my trauma than to the sort of more repetitive cycle of depression I've experienced. I guess my experience may be a bit different than some in this regard.
I do feel the the help I've received from a better understanding and the employment of some useful tools has been more effective when my depressive condition has lessened. When it has been very deep, they haven't worked as well and sometimes not at all.
Depression has indeed made me feel its prisoner at times. I don't ascribe the effectiveness of my self therapy as any form of rationalization, but rather things which can help under certain circumstances. Those things and a few others used to help me maintain normality and balance in my life by themselves. As I've gotten older though I'm afraid my times of depression have grown more severe. Now I'm trying to get a little help from medication so that I am once again able to help myself.
As for what regrettable things I may have done during an episode of depression I feel that I can only try to live responsibly in the present with an eye on the future and to make amends where I'm able and need to for whatever damage I may have caused somehow. Beyond that, there is little I can do about the past except possibly learn from it and try to avoid the mistakes I've made.
B
--------------------------
> Coral and B DAY
>
> We all FEEL that Free Will is essential to
> our nature, and I think we should act that way.
> I'm suggesting that that feeling of
> "freedom" is add on, to explain what we're doing.
> How do you handle the guilt if you are able to act
> differently (Have free will, but don't? How do
> you explain not doing the things you think you
> should have been doing, earlier in your depression.
> You were "Free", but you were of just "such weak
> moral character" that you couldn't do what you
> thought you should be doing?
>
> I'm suggesting that you were only able to come to
> an accommodation with those guilt feelings after
> something had changed (your understanding, your
> neurotransmitters, your chemistry, your "soul")
> and then you gave yourself an explanation of how it
> happened. It could be the "correct" explanation,
> but maybe the "change" came first, then you either
> explained it to yourself and acted differently, or
> you acted differently and then explained it to
> yourself. But I don't believe that you had a
> "choice", either before of after the change.
>
> Can you point out the errors in my little essay?
poster:B Day
thread:2826
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20001117/msgs/3032.html