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Originally Posted by Onward2wards
Basically, I'm figuring out that depression and anxiety appear to be symptoms of other things, for me. I seem to allow life to suck - because my self-confidence, self-esteem and (at least situational) social anxiety are worse than I thought. I'm not 100% sure why but I have a few suspicions. I get the impression this built up over time.
It's good to "know your enemy" but how to properly repair it is daunting.
One other surprising realization I have had is that, even though psychology emphasizes the negative thoughts we have, the absence of positive thoughts is just as significant. For example, the kind of thoughts that an assertive person or a hopeful person would logically have just don't seem to naturally occur to me very often. The more I think about it, the more they are conspicuous by their absence.
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They say that our brains are more likely to remember upsetting experiences rather than pleasing ones. This applies to everyone. It's important to remember that positivity isn't a trait that you're born with; it's something to learn. Some positive people were probably raised into it, thus it's less difficult to look on the bright side of things. However, they wouldn't really need to have that skill if the upsetting experience wasn't so prominent in their minds, no?
Other people, like ourselves, have environmental/biological/genetic factors that stop us from being able to utilize the positivity skill. It's a lot harder for us; not for any particular reason besides unfortunate coincidence.
So yeah, it is basically our inability to utilize the positivity skill that distorts our perception of both good and bad experiences, thus making our lives pretty sucky. Luckily, it's not impossible to dig ourselves out of this hole! It's just rather daunting and scary, like you mentioned.
You've made a pretty important realization that will definitely aid you in your recovery. Keep at it, and know you're not alone!
