Are You Born Negative?

Consider these three options of influences of depressions. Consider that we humans all have one or more (part there of) the following. 1. Nil - no depressions 2. reactive depressions 3. endogenous depressions

All the comments already made on this forum can be traced to one or more of the above three. 1. self explainable! Nil is nil. 2.Reactive depression is as it sounds! We react to some one or something bad by the onset of bad feelings. It pulls us down, there is gloom and doom aplenty. We can change this by getting away from this badness, and into recovery. 3. endogenous depression is something inherent in you, you were born with it and it may have a degree of inheritance as well. There is no way in the world you are going to be able to deal with this one except by seeing your doctor or psychiatrist to get you put on the right antidepressants for life. Then, and only then, will you give yourself a chance at feeling normal.

About me. I have been seeing my psychiatrist regularly for 15 years now. He agrees that my life experiences is the same as 95% of inmates in our jails - yet I've never had to face court. This has more to do with teaching humanity through life; but that's another topic. Nearly80

Very good points @Nearly80

Good on you for staying clean ... at least I hope thats what you implied ... out of gaol ..I also know a few people from some support groups that I am a member of who endured a lot of incarceration ... its part of the institutionalisation probalems of those who were in care, that I was lucky enough to escape.

Some issues arise when it is not clear whether or not the depression is reactive or endogenous or accumulations of exhaustion. As in my case. I have often worked 15 hour days. One day a lady borrowed her dady's car and visited me. She told me off as I was laying on the floor in my own flat after a week of riding 15km to & from uni everyday. Said I was depressed and almost drove my flatmate at the time crazy as we were just relaxing after a big week. At that stage I had NO depression, nether sibling had died or were obviously into SH, but I had no family member with a car to either drive me or for me to borrow. ..I had just got into a good uni, was over the moon with excitement as my world was opening up ... was off my butt doing stuff .... I was just crashed on floor .. didnt own a couch then ..we have to be VERY careful about how we interpret what we see .. and dont jump to conclusions.

I am a little more of an optimist than my son and his father ... but less of an optimist than my surviving brother.

The glass half full ... half empty scenario .. can be confusing.

@Former-Member guitar is a great instrument .. have fun.

@Ffm48 lovely to have another singer in the forum .. the choral scene can be very supportive.

@Former-Member I had to do a similar thing with my son .. he did not say exactly the same as your boy .. I can only imagine how hard that was to hear. In some ways my son had it harder than I as I could not prevent others from continual crossing of his boundaries ... I turned myself into a pretzel trying to understand and find ways to help ...

In the end I started deliberately being pessimistic .. and he noticed and would argue ... but simple reverse parenting isnt the answer. it is way more complex than that as there are too many things that have to be told STRAIGHT.

I am glad your boy is moving forward .. mine is too .. but it can be more difficult when males have reflective natures as the aggressive qualities are more often rewarded in male culture ... and there are certainly plenty of aggressive qualities in females too ...

I have I gone off topic.

I dont think we are born negative .. but @Ffm48 & @Kurra's points were very valid to my way of thinking.

The art may be in trying to turn it around ... not saying it can be an automatic change in mantras, thinking etc ... it is related to the circumstances ... if things are taken out of context ... then it will be hard to make positive change.