I Don't Want to Talk About It

"Like an autoimmune disease in which the body turns on itself, the depressed psyche attacks itself, rejecting itself as worthless, incapable and morally despicable."

l don't want to talk…such a great title, sounds so right on. The author has tread through this shit himself. His take is that you must (1) give up addictive/oddball behaviors, (2) recognize and accept whatever put you in your present condition, often quite unpleasant, and (3) pick up and create a new life.

This is not a mental thing; it's not a physical thing. It's both. And they influence one another.

We see what we expect to. And we expect little boys to grow into insensitive, "strong" men. A boy may cry; a man conceals his pain. (Mandela) the shame attached to vulnerability is one of the reasons why so many overtly depressed men don't want to talk about it, why they don't admit the disorder or get the help that could change their lives. (We admitted that we were powerless over….)

Relational impoverishment creates the insecure base for the feelings of shame, worthlessness, and emptiness that haunt many men…

Depression = auto-aggressive, with the self turning against the self

Recovery comes when a mean learns to embrace, remember, and cherish his own full humanity.

A man willing to permanently alter the terms of his internal dialogue-to transmute the dynamic of wounded boy and harsh boy, feminine and masculine, shame and grandiosity, inside himself--seeks nothing less than a transformation in the way that he lives, the values he lives by. Such a journey goes beyond recovery. It is alchemy. It is a quest.

There is no need for me to pass my shit along to austin.

Whenever a man turns to an external prop for self-esteem regulation, he is involved in the defensive structures of covert depression.

This one feels like me: "never quite realizing that he was upsetting his (internal) customers rather than impressing them, Kyle (Jay)'s primary relationship was not to their needs, but to his own prowess. Until he learned healthier forms of self-esteem, Kyle (Jay) was on a collision course with his own insensitivity. (Carter: "You don't have to prove anything.")

Self esteem is not something one has; it is something one does. Recovery = the practice of relational maturity.

The goal of treating post traumatic stress disorder is to help people live in the present, without feeling or behaving according to irrelevant demands belonging to the past. Psychologically, this means that traumatic experiences need to be located in time and place and differentiated from current reality.

"Fake it until you make it." --AA saying Sometimes a man has to get up off the psychological couch and get going, whether he feels like it or not. This is called discipline.

The essential shift in question that marks a depressed man's transformation is the shift from What will I get? to What can I offer?

We must learn how to serve, to place ourselves inside relationships rather than above them, if we are to relieve our own suffering.