i think being very depressed in grad school caused me to lose trust that if i just do what comes "naturally" or "go with the flow" then things will turn out okay. when you're very depressed you learn that what that does is keep you entrenched in your depression forever
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i suspect people with severe addictions learn something similar. to get out of depression i had to learn how to effortfully do a bunch of unusual things on purpose (feeling my feelings etc.) until one or more of them unlocked the lock to the dungeon i was in, so to speak
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every depressive phase is a new puzzle i have to solve involving a somewhat different shape of lock. in the course of solving these puzzles i have to pay attention to parts of my experience most ppl don't have to, and i think some ppl get weirded out by me talking about this
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e.g. i have to consciously do things that other people just do unconsciously. those people correctly would prefer to continue doing the things unconsciously themselves since that works fine for them, but *my* choice is between doing them consciously or not at all
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this kind of thing is why it's so hard to give people blanket advice. everyone needs a different shape of key for whatever lock they're currently dealing with (loosely speaking), everything gets exquisitely personal and exquisitely sensitive to fine details of how you work
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With depression there’s a real catch-22 too—often it feels like going with the flow is the only option (yet still a miserable one), because other options either require too much willpower or are minimized by the brain. Not sure if this was your experience as well
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giant mood. I definitely lost all my "chill" and trust in myself and things during my depression years, now trying to slowly regain some
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This happened to me too. People would say "do you want you want" or "trust yourself" or some variation, and they all led to "try to find a way to not wake up," because that was the loudest and most persistent part of me.
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I can't go with the flow anymore. I can't work like 2 months in a project because I feel miserable.
Doctors don't know what's wrong with me.
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Without boundaries, energy cannot flow and ends up dispersed. This is what happens in depression and addiction. The whole thing about “surrendering to the flow” necessitates well-established boundaries through which the energy of life can flow seamlessly, without obstruction.
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