I just figured something out

[firecat]

elisem wrote a post about envy and competition and comparing oneself to others.
http://elisem.livejournal.com/1745373.html

The gist of my comment there:

For me, envious comparison is a depression symptom, so when I read analyses of why it's not a good idea, even though I agree with them, I get the same feeling that I get when people tell depressed people to just cheer up.

Competing and comparing in and of themselves aren't bad, IMO. The problem is when they aren't consensual. Either because they pop into a person's head when the person doesn't want them, or because a person -- or a group or a whole society -- is trying to force another person to participate in them.

Going to Wiscon seems to have kicked me out of depression (yay!), so I am seeing "firecat's depressed brain" and "firecat's not-so-depressed brain" pretty clearly right now. When I am not depressed, I respond to people doing cool things with "Cool!" When I am depressed, I respond "That's cool, and I want to do something cool and I can't because nothing I do is ever cool, so I suck and I'm mad that they can do it and I can't." (For me, fortunately, this no longer leads into "And I hate the person." It has done so in the past though.)

Comments

[ysobel]

When I am depressed, I respond "That's cool, and I want to do something cool and I can't because nothing I do is ever cool, so I suck and I'm mad that they can do it and I can't."

Oh. Hi. Yes, very much yes.

(And the comparison of "stop thinking like that" to "just cheer up", as useless advice for a depressed brain, is ... kind of new, because I'm so used to beating myself up for it)

[cavlec]

Yeah, me too. Sometimes reframing to look at the cool stuff I am doing helps. Sometimes it doesn't.

[firecat]

Yeah. If I can reframe to look at the cool stuff I'm doing, then I'm not as depressed as when none of the stuff I do seems cool to me, regardless of what other people say about it.

[firecat]

Yeah, beating myself up for things is also a depression symptom for me.

[owlectomy]

This is a useful thing!

When I am feeling bad, I find that I have to manage my exposure to media more closely, because well-done things make me feel like I'm terrible, and badly-done things make me feel like "Why do all the terrible writers get published? Surely my novel-in-7th-draft couldn't be WORSE than this, oh god, what if it is?"

...I think that I have finally learned to stay out of internet fights about whose Japanese language study methods are better when I'm feeling down, though.

[firecat]

and badly-done things make me feel like "Why do all the terrible writers get published? Surely my novel-in-7th-draft couldn't be WORSE than this, oh god, what if it is?"

My glitch on that issue is "You suck because you haven't marketed yourself in the right ways."

[maize]

That happens to me too.

It makes a lot of activities difficult when my brain isn't working the way I'd like it to be, but sadly one of the things it really causes problems with is my bike commuting. That's especially bad because that's something that's specifically supposed to help. But what happens is that every time someone passes me or does a hill faster than me or whatever, I beat myself up about it the whole rest of the ride. And since that happens pretty much every ride (just physics here -- it takes a lot more energy to push me up a hill, so if someone comes along who's a lot lighter even we're both capable of generating the same energy, they're going to take the hill faster), that can be a real issue. I had a huge breakdown partway through my ride on Thursday about that, where I just hit a point where it became overwhelming, but because I'm halfway home with my bike, I don't really have the option to just stop and go hide somewhere.

[firecat]

{hugs}

I used to like weight lifting a lot, partly because that was one form of exercise where the physics worked to my advantage.

I actually should get back to it. For a while I got injured if I even looked at a freeweight, but for about a year now my body has been more resilient.

[flarenut]

Yep. This really is a good insight, I think. When I'm depressed, I particularly think about all the cool things I'd like to do, or plan to do, or am in the process of trying to do but haven't finished, and hate myself for that. (Sometimes with a side order of resenting the offspring, plus associated guilt.)

[firecat]

I resented my cats...

[flarenut]

Ouch. I've envied ours...