Have a question about depression...

[Goosemaster]

frankly, school teaches us to bullsh!t and I learned from the best

The thing is, I have been recovering from depression, and am doing particularly well now compared with the [even fairly recent] past. The issue I am having now is that I feel guilty after intelligent conversation with strangers. It's hard to explain, but in general, I feel as if I have just yelled out the biggest bunch of bullsh!t, regardless of whether my words actually carried weight. The real problem is that they have carried weight, in job interviews, and conversations with people in the library and such, and yet they feel "empty."

It's really driven me to keep quiet, and I'm kind of confused about the whole thing. I am fairly intelligent (kind of hard to tell from my posts ....fogetabouit ) but the truth behind this eludes me. It's as if I am attempting to be absolutely sincere with everyone I meet (which is pretty much my nature) but I feel awkward, as if I have been insincere when truly, I have not. To make matters worse, I am a "people" person and love to talk with strangers about whatever.*

Sure, everyone bullsh!ts here and there, but I find myself feeling bad about things that I should feel quite good about.


any advice, or other miscellaneous bullsh!t you can throw my way?


*maybe I'm just outgrowing that?

 

[Superrock]

You seem very self-conscious and seem to have a lot of empathy for other people.

If I were you I'd either channel your emotions in a diary or become a casual writer.

You may consider fact-finding with the internet after your conversations to support your points.

 

[SSSnail]

WOW, you have 42404 posts.

 

[ngvepforever2]

How are you doing David?

Regarding your question, it seems to me that you have too much time in your hands to think about this. Like you said, everyone bs every now and then...but not all the time. In your conversations, it has to show that you are not bs'ing, some people can tell very quickly when the other is bs'ing (I know that I can tell especially when the conversation turns intellectual). Now you say that your words feel empty, it might be because either you couldn't get the point across or just simply because you did not choose your audience properly. It's like me trying to explain my liberal arts major friend about Neural Networks Back Propagation.

Just my advice, take care David.

ng

 

[HardcoreRobot]

stop being so introspective / introverted, be who you are, don't think twice and don't look back. find something you can really sink your brain into and go with it. idle hands are a devil's plaything? idle minds are just as bad.

(also, the reason there are so many losers in regards to women on this board is the same - TOO MUCH THINKING. of course.... telling someone NOT to think about something is going to make them think of it, so its hard advice to take)

 

[wahoyaho]

how can i tell if i have depression

 

[irishScott]

Oddly enough, I'm going through almost the same thing. Whether it's depression or not has yet to be diagnosed, but it has all the hallmarks of it.

I basically found myself bullsh!ting people for no reason. And I've done it with as much faked sincerity as I could. I've flat out lied so many times over the last couple of years that it's become something a pathetic habit, until a few months ago.

I basically just accepted "whats done is done" and made a conscious effort to not say any bullsh!t. (I also started to think of it as "lying" as opposed to "bullsh!t". Gives it a more negative connotation) Took a few months, and I'm still going through the remnants of it, but I no longer lie instinctively like I used to. I beat the habit through habit. Sad thing is, some of the lies I repeated so many times that they've fcked up my memory of the truth.

It sucks to realize it, but it also feels good knowing that I can honestly say that I'm honest.

 

[imported_Imp]

That's just self-consciousness. I'm like that, analyse every single word you said to death and find something to feel crappy about out of nothing. Difference is I'm not a peopel person and find it hard to spit out 'real' replies to random things people say. If I had more balls, I'd probably go see someone about it...

 

[IronWing]

I feel the same way about my master's thesis.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
how can i tell if i have depression

Click

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
how can i tell if i have depression

Click

Or a psychologist.

 

[George P Burdell]

Originally posted by: ironwing
I feel the same way about my master's thesis.

You're ok.

 

[cherrytwist]

Welcome to neurosis.

 

[jmgonzalez]

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
how can i tell if i have depression

Click

crap - a few of these are things that i'm dealing with now

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
frankly, school teaches us to bullsh!t and I learned from the best

The thing is, I have been recovering from depression, and am doing particularly well now compared with the [even fairly recent] past. The issue I am having now is that I feel guilty after intelligent conversation with strangers. It's hard to explain, but in general, I feel as if I have just yelled out the biggest bunch of bullsh!t, regardless of whether my words actually carried weight. The real problem is that they have carried weight, in job interviews, and conversations with people in the library and such, and yet they feel "empty."

It's really driven me to keep quiet, and I'm kind of confused about the whole thing. I am fairly intelligent (kind of hard to tell from my posts ....fogetabouit ) but the truth behind this eludes me. It's as if I am attempting to be absolutely sincere with everyone I meet (which is pretty much my nature) but I feel awkward, as if I have been insincere when truly, I have not. To make matters worse, I am a "people" person and love to talk with strangers about whatever.*

Sure, everyone bullsh!ts here and there, but I find myself feeling bad about things that I should feel quite good about.

any advice, or other miscellaneous bullsh!t you can throw my way?

*maybe I'm just outgrowing that?

Have you been clinically diagnosed w/ bi-polar disorder Goosemaster?

 

[NiteWulf]

My first thought is that your feeling of emptiness is caused by:

1. People listening to you and not putting any weight into what you're saying (dismissing it, even if you're right)

or

2. You don't feel like you're actually connecting with the people you're talking to, even though you're having a two-sided conversation

The first one can be complicated to fix, and the second one probably has roots in the depression. Either one sound right?

 

[Rogodin2]

GM

Get outside and find a place you enjoy.

Listen to Miles and Coltrane with headphones and focus on the music.

Rogo

 

[Kilim]

You may want to read this article to see if any of these apply to you.

http://www.ocdonline.com/articlesphillipson.php

It is some articles on OCD, OCD is NOT just washing your hands forty times a day, or checking the alarm clock twenty times. A certain trait of it is the need to constantly check and recheck, to ruminate and to explore your past actions. You may obsess that you may have misled a person, or that you may have "lied" even though you had no intention of lying or knew you were wrong at the time.

This is a major reason I do not post, I suffer from this, I do not want to be "wrong." It is also the reason I kept on changing this post before I even clicked "reply."

Also, and I am not given you a diagnosis, people with OCD usually can survive with it until they become depressed. It is the depression that comes with the excessive worry of making mistakes that finally gets people with OCD to get help.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
how can i tell if i have depression

Click

Or a psychologist.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting anyone diagnose themselves, it's just useful to check the list and be able to present correctly when you see a doctor.

 

[andylawcc]

what? goosemaster has depression? no wai!

seriously, you may be luny, but you are the last person i can think of as being depressed

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein

Have you been clinically diagnosed w/ bi-polar disorder Goosemaster?

at midnight, he becomes Duckmaster.

 

[Herradura]

I dont know if you can say that I can relate but here I go. When in school or public I try to keep to myself unless talking to close friends. Its just that most people in high school dont know much or anything at all about the real world so I find it hard to start and carry on an intelligent conversation because I like to go into detail and if I do I can see it in their faces or body language that they have no Idea what im talking about that, or the just dont care which is worse. To tell the truth if you walk down the hallway of my high school and listen to the chatter youll most likley hear them talking about themselves and myspace. I dont have a problem with this but this is all they talk about. Im no hurmit crab or shy person and I like to talk to people but I find that tiring if thats the topic all day. That and I find that the maturity level is a bit low also. With what I said above im pretty sure I know what you mean by empty conversations.

A little rant

 

[mobobuff]

I'm guessing it's because your people-person nature has conditioned you to talk to others and conversate habitually. However you don't form a caring or understanding of the person you're talking to, or you feel overall apathetic about the encounter. So even though your conversations with them are genuinely good natured and enjoyable, your overall feelings afterward are disingenuous, and you're left with a somewhat subconcious void of emotion. Your way of dealing with that is to feel guilty about it, or second-guess your intentions of engaging in superficial conversation.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: jmgonzalez

Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
how can i tell if i have depression

Click

crap - a few of these are things that i'm dealing with now

Most people deal with some of the symptoms most or all of the time.

Real depression is when you experience all of them at once, or you actually get to the point where harming yourself crosses your mind.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Most people deal with some of the symptoms most or all of the time.

Real depression is when you experience all of them at once, or you actually get to the point where harming yourself crosses your mind.

You don't need to experience all of them at once to be diagnosed, just enough of them over a period of time, e.g. 5 over 2 weeks:

Click