symptoms of depression II

How to depress yourself

Good Event:

• Write off your successes
• Fail to get any emotional satisfaction
• Miss out on a boost to your self esteem
• Fail to get a realistic idea of your abilities

Bad Event:

• Blow things out of proportion
• Dramatically increase the negative emotional impact
• Fail to see possibilities for change
• Take responsibility for things outside of your control

And when you are depressed, because of your state of emotional arousal and/or exhaustion, you are more prone to 'allocate' meaning to something incredibly quickly, which is why tolerating uncertainty is such a key skill...

Tolerating uncertainty: first impressions last

Uncertainty is an unpleasant thing. Human beings dislike it intensely, and when depressed or anxious, it troubles them even more. In fact, a good equation for anxiety is...

Key Understanding Anxiety = Uncertainty x Importance

Depressed people often doubt themselves in all kinds of ways, but seldom in their judgment about their own interpretations of things.

A common trait displayed by those suffering from clinical depression is not being able to tolerate uncertainty - having to assign a meaning quickly to everything that happens. The depression will take care of "filling in the gaps" in an explanation of events.

High levels of emotional arousal will tend to make you assign meaning to things very quickly, as these levels of arousal are usually reserved for life-threatening situations.

[guess wat? i feel like the whole passage is talking abt me... i need a psychiatrist...]