Hi @Ranjan. Do you mean to say that you’re incapable of love, or do you mean that maybe you think you won’t find it or you won’t find it as you know it? I know that’s part of what Sapphire was saying in her reply, but I also feel like maybe incapable is the wrong word. Not everyone loves in the same way but everyone is capable of love. Love isn’t just finding a husband or a wife who you love. Love comes in all forms. You love your friends, you love your family, you love your pets, maybe you have a favorite store that you love to go shopping at or a car that you love driving or a streamer on Twitch who you love to watch, but you love them all in different ways. I think saying you’re incapable of love is putting a limitation on yourself that doesn’t need to be there.
I know not everyone thinks the same as I do, but to me, some of the words that start with “self,” like self worth and self love, just mean that you are taking care of yourself and making sure that you are ok. You have to have a certain amount of “self-love” or “self-worth” to try to keep yourself from being taken advantage of by someone when you recognize that’s what’s happening, whether that be mentally or monetarily or whatever. Some people just let it happen, even when they see it coming. And if you see it coming but let it happen, then it takes a certain amount of self love or self worth to get yourself out of the situation. You have to have a certain amount of self worth or self love to see a doctor and let them know you aren’t feeling ok instead of continuing to suffer. It’s not the same as some of the other self words, like “self involved” or “self important.”
I agree that there are a lot of people who run away from the truth, but not everyone does. So one of the things I’ve heard said about depression is that the people who are depressed are extremely smart and the reason these people are depressed is because they see what’s happening in the world and see the negative things for what they are, and that’s what makes them so sad. That would be people who accept the truth and look at it for what it is. I’m not saying that I believe this (although I would love for it to be true because I wouldn’t mind being considered very smart) but it is a theory I’ve read about several times. Unfortunately, if you see someone running from the truth, unless they ask you your opinion, you can’t really tell them they are running away from acceptance without looking like a donkey’s behind. It may be that you want them to see things in a different way, and maybe make their life easier, but sometimes it makes people feel as if their being attacked, and people don’t like to feel as if they are being attacked. I mean, you could tell them, but you take the chance that you’ll lose a lot of people in your life.
It’s important for people who do have mental health issues to be able to say what they have so they can learn a way to live with it. Since depression has been the example so far… If you’re sad all of the time but you don’t know why because there doesn’t seem to be a reason for it, and everyone you know is telling you it’s odd that you’re sad all of the time, it would make you feel even more like poop because you wouldn’t understand why you feel that way. But at least if you have a diagnosis and know you have depression, you can try to figure out a way to get better. It will make it easier to learn that there are some days that are going to be worse than others, but you can still make it through the worst days and there are better days coming.
Maybe our minds start working against us, but you know, so do our bodies, and it starts at birth. But also, it isn’t just our bodies and our minds that are working against us. Sometimes it’s the environment that we’re in. Some of us didn’t grow up in very good households. When you’re abused by someone who is only supposed to love you, it causes a certain amount of mental distress that isn’t normal, and so it will cause problems. Your body and your mind aren’t meant to go through that, and so it will do whatever it needs to do to make sure you survive. That’s a lot of what post traumatic stress disorder is about. Maybe to you that’s just a series of words, but to someone who was diagnosed with it, it helps them to figure out why their body reacts the way it does. If you grow up getting hit all of the time, but get away from that and still are afraid of getting hit, PTSD can explain that. It can help you find coping mechanisms so you aren’t afraid all of the time.
I hope some of what I’ve said makes sense.
Also… You aren’t alone in the dark. I think maybe it’s that you are seeing things a bit differently than you used to.
