Things I've started to realise
May. 24th, 2009 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyI'm working through this self esteem self help book, I mentioned that, right? The thing is that I went to see the mental health nurse, and she (like the mental health intervention team people before her) seemed faintly surprised at how together I was; I can talk very rationally when I'm in my most depressed moments, and even laugh about it, which was how I got sent to the mental health team in the first place: it discomfited my doctor. But anyway, her conclusion was that it is first and foremost my self esteem that is the issue and that any depression I have springs from that and is not clinical in nature.
That was odd to hear - it was a relief, because it meant it was fixable without medication, but at the same time it made me feel guilty because of how much time I've spent fussing about feeling depressed on this journal. I've kind of come to terms with the fact, though, that this doesn't invalidate the depressive state I was in, it just means it sprang from a different source and must be dealt with in a different way. Hence the book.
I'm reading 'Overcoming Low Self Esteem' by Melanie Fennell, which uses cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to help you overcome negative thought patterns; I mentioned mental gymnastics yesterday, and it really is that. It's hard work trying to beat down the patterns of thought that I don't even recognise as negative a lot of the time because they are so very much a part of me. They're how I see my brain as working, which is true but not set in stone; or, possibly set in stone, but weatherable if I work hard enough at it.
I bitched a while ago about how I don't feel like I've changed since starting my LJ; while I see now that that's not true there are still aspects of it that I'll admit to, and the self esteem thing is a part of that. I have certain protections in place to keep myself functioning, and the problem with that is that while they protect me from the negative to an extent, they also very much prevent me from advancing myself, learning and engaging and feeling confident in relationships and all sorts.
So while I work through this book, there's gonna be a bit of me trying to feel my way into who I am and how I want to interact. I might make thoroughly inept meta posts, inflict weird/bad/immature fiction on you, argue and change my opinion five times as I learn more about what I'm talking about. All the stuff, basically, that I should have done at the start of my fannish experience and learned from by now, but didn't because I was so scared of doing anything that would make people reject me - dear god don't let them see who I am.
So hey! N00b warning, six years too late.
Slap me around the back of the head if I'm a bother; it'll help me to learn not to hedgehog, and to fight back about those things I need to.
That was odd to hear - it was a relief, because it meant it was fixable without medication, but at the same time it made me feel guilty because of how much time I've spent fussing about feeling depressed on this journal. I've kind of come to terms with the fact, though, that this doesn't invalidate the depressive state I was in, it just means it sprang from a different source and must be dealt with in a different way. Hence the book.
I'm reading 'Overcoming Low Self Esteem' by Melanie Fennell, which uses cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to help you overcome negative thought patterns; I mentioned mental gymnastics yesterday, and it really is that. It's hard work trying to beat down the patterns of thought that I don't even recognise as negative a lot of the time because they are so very much a part of me. They're how I see my brain as working, which is true but not set in stone; or, possibly set in stone, but weatherable if I work hard enough at it.
I bitched a while ago about how I don't feel like I've changed since starting my LJ; while I see now that that's not true there are still aspects of it that I'll admit to, and the self esteem thing is a part of that. I have certain protections in place to keep myself functioning, and the problem with that is that while they protect me from the negative to an extent, they also very much prevent me from advancing myself, learning and engaging and feeling confident in relationships and all sorts.
So while I work through this book, there's gonna be a bit of me trying to feel my way into who I am and how I want to interact. I might make thoroughly inept meta posts, inflict weird/bad/immature fiction on you, argue and change my opinion five times as I learn more about what I'm talking about. All the stuff, basically, that I should have done at the start of my fannish experience and learned from by now, but didn't because I was so scared of doing anything that would make people reject me - dear god don't let them see who I am.
So hey! N00b warning, six years too late.
Slap me around the back of the head if I'm a bother; it'll help me to learn not to hedgehog, and to fight back about those things I need to.
