What I am going to say may not feel good to some. It's not said to make anyone feel bad. But it is what I see as true. There are some on this board who are suffering from physical illnesses which may cause anxiety and depression and understandably so. Whether you have a physical illness, an emotional disorder, or a mental disorder I believe everyone deserves empathy, compassion, and understanding. At the same time, there are also things we all can do to help us feel better emotionally. It involves learning about our tendencies to overreact to situations, to catastrophize about things that never happen or blow things up out of proportion to their real importance in our lives, to think very, very negatively about things becasue we have developed a bad habit of dwelling on the negative over a period of years. In my experience, when these things have occurred to me, I turn on myself, think less of myself which causes loss of self esteem and I have caused myself and my family much unnecessary, self- inflicted misery.
Worry is useless, it has no redeeming value, but much self destructive value. There are steps which can be taken to eliviate worry. Becoming involved with activities which give us a sense of purpose or things we enjoy can help a lot and help take our minds off of things we tend to obsess over whether it's work, exercise, a hobby, reading, relaxing, watching a good movie, being in the company of someone we enjoy, helping someone else, etc. Worrisome, obsessive, negative thinking becomes a bad habit, an entrenched habit, sometimes even an addiction. It takes some daily effort over a period of time to retrain the mind to think more healthy thoughts, pleasant thoughts, peaceful thoughts. We are creatures of habit and if we have learned to think negatively we can also change and learn to think more lovingly, compassionately, and mercifully toward ourselves and others. Doing so also lowers our expectations of others, helps us to depend more on ourselves to make us feel good instead of being dependent upon someone else. We all want approval and acceptance from others, and we need the support of others, but we can also become too dependent upon others for approval and helping us feel better about ourselves. There is a balance.
Thinking creates emotions. Thinking is the train, the emotions are the caboose. I learned to think so negatively over a period of years and decades that I got lost in a sea of depression. The negative thinking created very depressed emotions making me very sick. Meds helped me some, but what I didn't realize was that much of it was self--inflicted. When I began to change how I thought I began to get better. I literally reached a state of learned helplessness and I didn't realize it until I had pulled out of it and got better. Then i could see where I had been. I wish everyone on this board a better tomorrow. It is all up to each of us individually to create a better tomorrow for ourselves. No one else can do it for us.