I need some encouragement.

CBT is not an approach that fixes everything. It's not always possible to logic away emotional pain. Sometimes you just have to recognize the pain and know that healing happens with the passage of time. I've been in a lot of pain. I know it's unlikely that the pain will last forever.

When my boyfriend died in 2020, I had some bad pain to go through. I went through it. And I recovered. It's likely that will happen again. That's the best I can do.

My sister hurt me by not calling me at Christmas. It was mean of her. She was mad and acted spitefully. I deserved better than that. This is how she treats people - not just me. I have to lower my expectations. She was mean to my father when he was dying. This is her character. I've gone thru things like this with her before. It's just who she is. My other sister has been very kind. I'm lucky to have her in my life. People are as they are.

I tend to rely on science now, instead of medications from a pdoc to deal with my depression or anxiety and it's helped me tremendously. For me, a pill and talking to a stranger once or twice a week did nothing to resolve my issues.

Have you tried changing your routines and your nutrition? Also, if CBT or DBT doesn't work for you, then consult with a general physician as what you may be experiencing are side effects from your medications or an underlying physical health condition (low vit d or low iron or a low thyroid).

@Motts - Thank you. I am being treated for anemia. I have to get my blood drawn this week to check on that.

See?! My point exactly. I am anemic, too with a low thyroid and some gallbladder issues. When I experience major anxiety attacks, I know immediately now to get my iron and thyroid TSH levels tested b/c when those are "off," my body's alarm system is to trigger my anxiety. Each and every time.

I am sorry if I have hurt you. May be I was too direct. I am depressed as well for the time being, so I am a bit slow in my thinking and writing. I meant it well.
For me CBT is the real cure. That is why I recommend it to people whom I hope can use it if they want it, of course. It took me years to understand what CBT really is about. I laughed about that method earlier.

You are right. CBT doesn't cure everything even if it has become more sophisticated now, than it was before. It does not give me my BF back. It does not give me my dead friends back. Neither does it give me some understanding people in my life NOW, neither this nor that. But, and that is important to me, it can give me strategies to fight in the here and now, help me to set up goals and work toward them one by one. Help me to not give into depression too easily and to rise as quick as possible when I have a set-back.

Let us do our best with the methods we know best, each at our parts in the world. (We don't have to make a big deal about this. It was only a tired person who tried to, in a way she thought was polite at the moment, to tell about what is effective for her and wanted another person to know about that if that other person wanted to use the same methods).

I send good hopes your way! May you depression not last too long!

Yes, physical health is impotant. I have mine shecked regularly because of some chronic physical diseases.

That' s interesting. I was so anemic in July, I got transfused with 5 units of packed red blood cells inside of 2 weeks. I don't remember being anxious, but I probably didn't have the energy even for that. Now I've got a bunch of specialists following me.

Maybe you learned, as I did, that you have to manage your own care. I mean you've got to look at those lab results yourself . . . and every other test. Then make sure they're following up. I had asked for I/V iron in April. They said I didn't meet the criteria. So I ended up needing blood. I have a bleeding ulcer. Now I see a hematologist, who orders I/V iron very readily. You gotta push for what you need.

Back when severe anemia made me not want to clean my house, I thought it was depression. But I didn't feel despondent. I just didn't want to do anything. As you'll appreciate, a hemaglobin of 5.1 will make you very immobile.

@Rosi700 - I never doubted your good will. You are a most courteous person. I'm very happy you've found something that's helpful to you.

I'm very aware of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I attended classes on those modalities. Some people really have very foolish "automatic thoughts," which they need to constantly rebut.

When I took the class in it, my peers in the partial program would describe their reflexive thought, like: "I'm just stupid." or "Nothing ever works out for me." "I bet nobody will like me." It's nice, if you've got low hanging fruit like that, just begging to be challenged. That's really not the nature of my problem.

A research study was done to test the hypothesis that depressive people tend to have an unrealistically dismal view of life and the world around them. The test actually revealed that a lot of depressed people are more realistic than a lot of non-depressed people. Being unrealistically optimistic is actually good for one's mental health . . . to an extent.

Check your "ferritin" level. If it's below 50 (and your hemaglobin is ok ), you have non-anemic iron deficiency. That can make you depressed. Most doctors won't even care about low ferritin. That's why I'm now going to a hematologist.

Yeah being a pollyanna like me means i never actually change because i always think things will work out fine.

Yeah, that's what at least one study showed. Some say that "faith" gets them through life. I guess a sunny outlook is protective.

My car is at the shop now. It is looking like the problem is much less of a big deal than I had feared.

Sometimes life cuts you a break.

Thank you!



I don't think in those terms. I don't have "low hanging" fruits ... To me it is intellecually satisfying to go from the automatic thought and see if I can find the core belief (positive or negative) beneath it. What I like most is to think about if a thought is realistic or not. Is it realistic that my brother shall call me and wish me "Happy New Year"? He has not done that for years, so the answer is no. Well, then I don't have to feel depressed either. It is not my fault ... Either I overlook the situation and think about something else, or I call him myself. It is my choice. That is what complex use of CBT is about: To be more and more able to chose the best reaction to outer or inner stimuli.


For the time beieng I am having a set-back. What is fun about this is to think about what is the most realistic ways to drag myself up again? What do I know about myself that is good to use in this situation? CBT is more complex then thinking: "I am not good enough" or similar. The way of thinking that the CBT forms lay up to, becomes innate the more one repeats them. So changing thinking really does change feelings ...

You have probably other ways to tacle you depression and other ... Read that you probably have anemia. Good luck with your general health, Rose!

I know that! My GP have already schecked that. I am on iron pills.

I have a similar relationship with my brother. He hasn't spoken to me in ten years. I don't know where he is . . . or even if he's still alive. It's unlikely I will ever hear from him. He got angry with me for some stupid reason. I think of him every day and I mourn the loss of him from my life. I hope he's okay. That would probably only be true, if he were in a prison somewhere. That's where he is safest.

I don't get depressed over him anymore. I've had loads of time to adjust to the reality of what I can expect - that I won't hear from him. Once in a while, I shed some tears, thinking of him and the awful existance he experiences: alcoholic, drugged, in and out of jail, homeless, wandering, horribly alone and alienated, physically wasted. I cry once in a while because I love him. It's a sad feeling I get, but not depressing. I know what to expect, and I've adjusted to that reality.

With the sister I mentioned above, I don't know what to expect. She is erratic. At times, she's my best friend. I enjoy that while it lasts. Then, when she's drinking, everything can change. She can blow up at me and then distance herself. Maybe she doesn't call me for a year. Then, out of the blue, she calls and all is fine. A person she loves one day - she may hate the next . . . and vice versa. Sometimes I lose track of whether I'm in her white book, or her black book. It's crazy making. I like her too much to just stop having a relationship with her. She becomes genuinely confused and gets intensely angry when that's not called for. She has physically attacked people and gotten arrested for it. I'm exhausted trying to "manage" my relationship with her. Things between us had been very good for quite a spell. But, when I was sick this summer, things got crazy. A wine-fueled phone call started nice, but went off the rails. I did learn that trying to reason with an inebriated person is a fool's errand. Over recent months, it became apparent that I was on her black list. I've been very sad about that. It fed in to me getting depressed. Today I'm on her white list. She always self-justifies. She gets confused and she confuses me. DBT and CBT can't sort this out for me. It's a nauseating ride.

I am sorry to hear about your brother! My brother is okay. He is a busy man and forgets to call me. If I want contact with this busy man, I have to stand for it myself.

Your relationship with your sister seems very difficult. I understand that it can make you feel down from time to time.

CBT cannot help you to guess your sisters black or withe periods, but it can help you with how to relate to your own feelings when she turns her moods.

That is what CBT is about, to think rationally about the situations as they occur, to find new goals, when a goal is taken away by life's circumstances and so on. The main goal with CBT is to become one's own therapist, to build new paths in life. Sometimes that is difficult, other times it is fun.

I mentioned CBT to you, because it seems to me that your total life situation is difficult, alone after several years with a sick BF who died (and more), not easy access to doctors. CBT offers tools to build yourself out of this situation, to help you to find the necessary steps out of it... (I meant if you can find a free online program, a good book, an app or something).

Nobody says it is easy, but it is not impossible. Take your time to think about what is the best way for you to make your life meaningful again, after all you have been through... You decide if you want to use CBT or other methods... Before you decide, however, may be you ought to think about if the leader of the CBT course you once took, was really good at the methods, if he gave you the right or wrong view of the Methods.

If you go up to the link I gave when I first mentioned CBT as a possible way for you, and click at the "Download the Think CBT Workbook - A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Primer and CBT Self-help Guide", you will get an idea about how complex CBT can be. When you know more about that, you will know if these methods can be of help to you, or if you need to use other methods. (I am not pushing CBT on you. I only hope that you shall understand better how CBT can help people and that the methods are not an easy way, especially if you have to do them without a therapist. You may have other methods that you know help you. If so, that is fine ).

My own life has not been easy or isn't easy (I don't want to talk about it) I went to therapy (not CBT at that time) and mastered my life, job and all I wanted to master. Then out of the blue something happened and my whole life crashed. Pictorially one can look at the pictures from a bombed block in Ukraine. That's how my life looked like all of a sudden. All in pieces. Of course I could have cried out that these bricks are too heavy for me, and I did, but after a while I started to gather the bricks and puzzle them together again. No one has a guarantee that life will be easy. I take credit for not giving up and for being eager to find solutions...

I wish you well.

@Rosi700 - thanks for your reply. Applying my reasoning powers brings me to the following insight: We all need the warmth of satisfying human connection in our life. I have been depending on getting much of that warmth from a relationship that is basically me beating a dead horse. I have been hoping to satisfy my need for human contact that is supportive and caring by focusing heavily on a relationship where my efforts are proving futile. I've already invested much in trying to have a relationship with my sister. (Time, attention, money, general effort . . . trying to be good to her, her daughters and her grandchildren. A loving cousin of mine told me I was foolish to have gifted my sister with a large sum of money, saying: "She'ld never do that for you.", which I believed was probably true, but irrelevant because I am who I am, regardless of who my sister is.) Reason is telling me that you don't keep trying to draw from a well where your bucket keeps coming up empty. Reason is telling me that it would be wise to shift my focus onto building alternative relationships. I live in the heart of a good size city where lots of things go on that I could participate in. Reason tells me that I could invest my time and effort in that direction. While it's not automatic, it's reasonable to hope that I could build connections to others who might come to regard me in a positive way . . . and that might imbue my life with more of the human warmth that presently is lacking. Among other things, that can take a good deal of patience. But the sooner one starts . . . .

Rather than keep shedding bitter tears over what is understandably very disappointing, my attention could be turned toward investigating the huge array of options life offers to do different things. The mind can't really think about two things at the same time. Painful ruminations can be gradually crowded out by having one's attention absorbed elsewhere. Making that shift can be initially very hard, which is why people often stay rolling along in a rut that leads nowhere . . . as I have been doing.

Before strangers will seem the least bit interesting to me, I'll have to start to know them, which means showing up somewhere consistently for a while. It won't happen, while I stay home alone in my apartment, trying to mentally resurrect the ghosts of past relationships, which is what I now do with a lot of my time.

I know how to reason my way through to solutions of problems. I know that life offers options.

Thank you, @Rosi700, for taking the time to read my posts and contributing to my thread. That is very good of you.

The shop that has my car just spoke with me. There's a lot more wrong with my car than was discovered yesterday . . . and they suspect that further testing may uncover even more.

If the cost of making the car drivable climbs up to over $4000, I'll have to consider giving it up. Being without a car would change my life dramatically. It drastically would narrow down my options for how I can live my daily life.

I guess I'm lucky the car lasted as long as it did - over 20 years . . . . . especially that it lasted for 2 years after my boyfriend died, making that transition easier. Realistically, that luck was bound to run out. I've known that.

@Rose76 I am glad to hear that you have used your time to think about what you need and have come to the conclusion that you need to move forward.

I wish you well and hope you find the tools you need on your way (whatever approach they are connected to or if you make your tools yourself on the way)!

I have only one thing to add, in case there are any misunderstandings, since it is not only you and me reading here: CBT is not an approach to learn irrational people to think rationally. I don't want to be looked at that way, since I am a warm admirer of CBT. If there is something one really needs when using CBT, it is one's already capacity to think rationally.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...2TSkO5bRsWxu5q

The link above is to an article that presents - more articulately than I've been doing - a critique of CBT.

I started to write my own, but lost it when I went to find a link supportive of my view.

I am reminded of a quote from the works of Saint John Henry Newman, a theologian and philosopher. He said that it makes as much sense to try and argue someone into the faith as it does to try and torture them into it.

CBT attempts to correct cognitive distortions with the eventual aim of replacing maladaptive behavior. That is a laudable goal. I agree that CBT must recruit the client's already developed reasoning capabilities. But I feel CBT is an approach that puts way too much faith in the likelihood that one can reason one's way out of psychic distress.

I don't mean to over-simplify the modality. It requires that one reason one's way to more adaptive behavior. Then practicing that behavior reduces psychic distress. It sounds like a sensible strategy that is hard to argue with. That, however, won't stop me.

I'm afraid the theory behind CBT is just a little too pat for my taste.

You see, @Rosi700, I never came to the conclusion you thought I came to. I role-played for you the kind of thinking that I would engage in, were I a devote practitioner of CBT. Unfortunately, I failed to convince myself of a d@#n thing.

I'm old enough to remember when Transcendental Meditation was the Soup Du Jour for combatting dysphoria. More recently "Mindfulness" has been en vogue. CBT claims to be "evidence based," as a reliable road out of despondency. Zealots can assemble evidence to bolster any contention under the sun.