I am HEINOUSLY optimistic. So, when that shiny (painfully, sometimes!) part of my personality starts laying low, i gear up for some persistent but low-level (thankfully) depression. When I am talking with friends or family who are down, and they are suffering the ‘tunnel effect’ – you can’t see the bright side because the stuff stressing you is so overwhelming -I don’t bother with telling them to ‘think positive’ – it’s dismissive and unfair, for starters.

What I do, after listening first, is point out positive points that have as much ‘weight’ as what they are worried about. It doesn’t make their burden smaller, but it’s something I do to remind them of the ‘big picture’. Stress and depression just magnify the hell out of the real problems we have, to the point that things look insurmountable, which clearly doesn’t help. If real problems are the only thing you are seeing, you are exhausting yourself. If someone reminds you that that problem is not YOU, And NOT the only part of your life worth thinking about, it can help with perspective.

Or, it might make you want to smack the person asking you to reframe it. I get pretty obsessive, and when my husband points out the ‘balance’ factor, I can be more objective. I don’t know if this helps, but it’s the viewpoint from someone who lives on both sides. Btw, it’s absolutely something that i feel has to be in context. The comment section here is thoughtful, and I appreciate seeing these viewpoints. The intent of helping someone feel better doesn’t fly far if your actions are ultimately hurtful!

Just telling me to cheer up or think positive makes me feel either guilty or angry, depending on the day and who says it.

I helped Kate with that! 🙂

Check out Ashley & Kate’s blog for some good online resources. MoodGym is totally free online CBT.

Sometimes I just need someone to say, Yeah, that totally does sound like it sucks. I hear you. Is there anything I can do besides listen? No? Okay, I am here for you if that changes and I am here for you even if it doesn’t.

Something I’ve encountered is that a LOT of people really believe that saying something like this makes people feel worse. Like, they think that agreeing that someone’s situation really does sound kinda sucky will make them be like “Oh WOW it really IS bad then I’m gonna be even more sad.” Which doesn’t really make sense, because we have feelings whether people agree with us about them or not, you know?

I’ve told people before that if they’d like to help me when I’m feeling down, they should say something like this rather than trying to rattle off all the reasons I should be happy instead, and they’re always like, “Really? That wouldn’t make you feel even worse?” No…

Something my spouse took a while to understand, I absolutely can solve my own problems most of the time, and I really am a quite rational person who makes well reasoned decisions. It’s just that the way my brain works I have to directly confront the Worst Thing before I can haul myself back to the Reasonable Thing or the Most Likely Thing. I have to know what the worst looks like, have a plan or at least a sense of how I might handle it, before I can work with what is known, what’s actually going on. Because sometimes the worst happens and I’d rather not be blindsided. Because if the worst doesn’t happen, then I get to have relief about it. Because if I don’t express those fears out loud, they will eat me, so when someone dismisses my worries (which granted are sometimes other than perfectly rational but always within the realm of possibility) with an edict to find silver linings, they are, essentially, denying me my emotional agency in my particular process of working shit through on my own, and trying to claim control over my process because it’s making them uncomfortable. Which isn’t cool. Yes, I probably know it’s “not that bad.” I still need to acknowledge that “that bad” exists in order to– which I will, every time– come to the conclusion that it’s not that bad on my own. I am not Negative Nellie, always perseverating on the worst and never looking for the good in things, but I am also not Mary Fucking Sunshine who refuses to ever see the underbelly and thinks everything will always be fine even with ample evidence to the contrary.

short onamission5: it’s not always that bad, but it could be, and sometimes it is, and recognizing that out loud is part of my problem solving process, so stop trying to fix me.