Amara Graps wrote:
> Seriously, though, Eliezer, when a person is in utter despair, their
> reality is so completely distorted, that one can't remotely imagine
> that happiness will ever again be possible.
Roger that. Thats where the mental discipline comes in: one must
tell themselves, we've been thru this before, the sun came out before,
it will do so again.
> One thing that you didn't mention in your message was the value
> of vigorous exercise to combat despair.
Heres something I found helpful. I noticed that when I am despair,
I eat less and sleep more. To get back to normal, I tried eating
more and sleeping less. This helped to a certain extent. This is
the part that may sound absurd, because I am an engineer, not a
poet, so I can only wish I had better words to describe these feelings,
or had scored a few hundred points higher on the verbal SAT.
I have found there is some value in letting grief run its course,
without trying to interrupt it. If it can be done without life-threatening
consequences, I have found it is OK to go ahead and stare into
that abyss, as Amara has so eloquently discribed the feeling. I
have experienced depression as a phase in a cycle. To let it
run its course is the way to continue on to the next cycle. spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:11:13 MDT