Bingowings said:
4. Keep in Touch. At the moment you don’t feel enthusiastic about anything but as an exercise contacting people who you have any kind of friendly relations or past with can have a genuinely positive effect.All of your points for Mike O are great, but I wanted to comment on this specifically because it’s something that is offered as advice in a lot of scenarios and people have told me this a lot and I just don’t get it. I think it’s probably a feeling somewhat unique to me, but people just disgust me. Being within twenty feet of anyone other than a few exceptions makes me want to scream. I’m not a sociopath at all, I’m actually extremely empathetic almost to a fault in that I obsess over how I can go about doing things without harming or inconveniencing anyone, plus I get furious whenever I hear about people getting mistreated. The really funny thing, though, is that I get quite lonely, but it only takes a single interaction with one of my so-called “friends” (which never fails to remind me of why they sicken me and why I never want to see them again) to realize that the only experience worse than overwhelming loneliness is talking to fucking people. Like I said, I’m generally alone in this opinion, but it’s something that I see all the time as a supposed ingredient for happiness and I can’t even imagine having a circle of people that I would enjoy meeting with regularly. Sorry to derail the thread.
Not really sure what to say to this as I am unsure what it is about your so called “friends” that makes them sicken you and why you think overwhelming loneliness is better than talking to people.
You know that teenage stereotype where every song you hear on the radio is about you? Imagine that for everything in life–every interaction, every meal, every ache and pain you feel is perceived as a judgment on yourself – but not a good one. That’s where extreme depression can take you. Even the paralyzed isolated inaction that this feeling cultivates is yet another mark of shame. It’s a terribly self-reinforcing loop of thought, and it’s damned hard to break. Reaching out to friends can be failure. Needing to reach out to friends can be failure. Thinking about reaching out to friends and then deciding not to because you’re afraid it won’t work can be failure. By the time you’re this far down into depression, your options are all tainted like this. And your interactions with the world are often awkward and self-defeating exactly because of this mindset.
I don’t have much in the way of suggestions on these grounds. But I have a lot of sympathy for those in that situation.