does anyone else just feel useless for no reason?

[LastKnight]

i dont mean to bring everyone down with my self-pity. but lateley things seem to be going good for me, and i just seem to be more depressed by the world. i mean personal life is going great, people of all ages and genders are finially start to notice and respect me im not just 'that kid' anymore. i have a job i couldnt be more satisfied with, i have good friends, school couldnt be going better, im accepted to a good college and everything like that. things are goin pretty good for me, so WHY the HELL do i feel so depressed? anyone else get like this for no reason? maybe its that seasonal depression thing... its been pretty monotone and grey rainy snowy crap for a few months now and it has seemed to get me down in the past. that and its been going on about as long as winter itself.

im not fishing for pity here... so if this post annoys you and im sorry to have ruined the easy-goin lounge atmosphere.

thanks in advance for the responses

-LK

[populistmom]

1. a good chunk of the time

Sorry you feel bad.

[Pale Blue Dot]

2. I know what you mean.

I have a job, a beutiful wife, and a wonderful son. No one in their right mind would feel sorry for me. But I hate what I've become. I feel like a failure. I'm so disappointed in myself.

Please, for your own sake, see someone about this. There should be no shame in depression. Millions suffer from it (including me). Go and talk to someone.

[Madrone]

3. I think -

that maybe because things ARE going so well for you now you are more depressed by the "world" - because you aren't so enmeshed in your own personal struggles you have more attention to devote to what's *wrong* in the world. And maybe you're feeling bad, because for YOU things are so good?

Am I close?

[LastKnight]

5. could be

:shrug: i donno could be... thanks for the input

-LK

[Madrone]

6. I'm sorry,

baby, that you feel this way.

I get like that occasionally myself - I usually refer to it as my 24 hour pity party. EVERYONE deserves a pity party, from time to time.

Life is so overwhelming sometimes - EVEN when things are going well.

[holeinboatoutatsea]

4. I look around

in my mind, and many times smack my head for mistakes, but

there's always another day to change things. I hope

[Spirochete]

7. just remember...

None of us are completely useless. If nothing else, we can serve as a bad example. hehe

[LastKnight]

8. heh

thats actuially kinda funny.

-LK

[NJCher]

9. You might find this interesting

A friend told me about this psychological organizing principal and it has explained much for me regarding the feeling of "uselessness."

According to her psychiatrist husband, who has a book out on this subject and who has developed this approach to thinking in psychology, we all have an "organizing principal." An "organizer" is a facilitator in the psychological world.

This e-mail was written to me in response to one I wrote her, in which I said that if I was unable to get out into my garden, I felt "useless."

It sounds as though gardening has become an organizer for you, just as working out has become an organizer for me. And yes, organizers, while they are serviceable, take on a level of importance and necessity that creates a lot of ambivalence (pleasure and pressure, plus anxiety). When organizers are in play, so is psychological development. We use organizers to help promote internal movement and whenever movement (growth) is in play, there is a certain amount of turmoil associated with it. After all, the status quo resides in calm waters. Restructuring causes disruption. It is so fascinating. I bet that you will understand (recognize on some level) immediately what I am talking about.

Great. But when you mull over it, remember that things can take on the same properties as organizers without actually being organizers. Like a job or a business can create both pleasure and pressure, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's an organizer. An organizer takes on an elevated place in a psychological schemata.

While we may need a job to survive in the physical world, an organizer is a facilitator in the psychological world. Remember the child's first organizer is the mother's face? In the presence of the mother's face, the child is able to begin to consolidate rather amorphous, free-floating psychological skills into a form that will later allow it to function as a psychological person.

By the age of 2, that functioning takes the form of the development of a sense of self. It is in the presence of an organizer that the child can maintain a sense of self. (Remember the checking-in stage, where when the child is outside the sight of the mother and begins to lose its sense of self, and it must go to where the mother is, in order to regain its sense of self? After it does that, it can then go merrily along its way until it begins to deconsolidate, whereupon it must again "check in" with the mother.

So organizers have a specific psychological function, which changes along the life cycle path. In my case, working out provides a sense of momentum which, during the midlife crisis (as opposed to the terrible twos), is a facilitator for specific psychological gain (which I won't go into here), just as the mother's face was for the development of a sense of self.

Perhaps you are going through some psychological turmoil, on your way to establishing new frame of mind. If you're interested in reading further, PM me and I will send you the name of the book although I do have to tell you it is not easy reading.


Cher

[LastKnight]

10. interesting stuff...

and a selfserving kick

:kick:

-LK

[Nikia]

11. I don't know how you tend to think about things, but for me

My unhappiness has one of three base causes when things are going well for me.
1. I am doing well, which means I can do well. Why aren't I doing better? Such as I am getting straight A's but in most of my classes at least one person has a higher average than me or I had a good running season but I didn't get to state (examples from my hgi school days. Fotr some reason, I tend to become more perfectionistic the closer I get to my ideal of perfection. More recently, I didn't start worrying about looking "fat" until I lost twenty pounds and had an almost perfect body mass index healthwise. That is, I had a worse body image when I was actually thinner.
2. Things are going so well. What more could I want? I have everything I want and I am not happy. Since I have what I want, I cannot possibly become more happy. This is it. I am doomed to be unhappy and unsatisfied.
3. Things are going so well for me right now. I am sure that I am going to do something wrong and mess it all up.
That's my take on things. Of course, maybe there is something you want that your not getting but you did not mention that in your post. When there is one bad or disappointing thing going on rather than several, sometimes it is easier than not to become overly fixated on that.
It could also be a seasonal thing. I am seasonal, but I feel my mood lifting a bitas it closer to spring. If it is seasonal, depending on where you live and how your body is your mood should start lifting from now to another month or so if it is that.
Good luck. You could also read Anna Kareina. There is a character with that same problem.