Several days ago, I experienced my heart being upset, as I mentioned in the previous article (this article). I will have to move within one year. Today, I will talk about the mental system of feeling depressed through that experience.
How to solve the confusion about values
Sometimes, we want to solve the confusion about values. A typical example is an inferiority complex. It prevents us from living as we are and drives us to compete, no matter how we wish for a natural, quiet life based on our personalities. Although it gives us short-term excitement, it exhausts us and never fulfills our minds.
If we are the personality minority, such as people with empathy and creativity, we might often have value confusion like that.
When we are mentally confused and desire a healthy mental state, we try to live like mentally healthy people. We believe that acting like them will give us the same result.
A misunderstanding about mental health
However, we often misunderstand what a mentally healthy state is. Getting depressed is an example. We often misunderstand that mentally healthy people never get disappointed, but unhealthy people do.
That misunderstanding often drives us to think positively or make positive affirmations while avoiding mental depression.
Unfortunately, that confuses us even worse.
Today, I will talk about the mental system of depression.
The difference between mentally healthy and unhealthy people
The mental logic is as follows:
- Mentally healthy people get depressed when they fail. That allows them to confirm their values and try another way based on their values. Switching their means makes them energetic again soon. They keep their values.
- Mentally unhealthy people try to avoid getting depressed as much as possible, even if they know their failure. They try to find another complementary profit. That prevents them from confirming their values. They come to forget what they wanted in the first place. That confuses their values and makes them lose motivation because they lose their sense of direction.
Let me explain the details below.
What does it mean to be depressed?
Getting depressed is a process to confirm our values. In other words, it is a necessary mental work. That allows us to keep our sense of direction in life.
Let’s go through the process when we get depressed. Assume we failed something, such as failure in a plan or having a result different from what we expected.
We would get confused at first due to unexpected results. That stresses us.
The process of disappointment
If we have a healthy mental state, we can confirm our values. That makes us sort out the situation and our values as follows:
- (Asking oneself.) “Did I fail?”
- (If ‘yes’ in the previous question.) “Can I avoid that failure from now?”
- (If the answer is ‘no.’) “What was the first thing I wanted?”
- (After we remember our honest values.) “Does it mean I cannot get it by this means anymore?”
- (If ‘yes.’) It disappoint us because we realize that we wasted our efforts and resources. We stop our current activity and change our means.
Although we get depressed, we can confirm our values. That tells us that the failure is not about denying ourselves or our values. We get disappointed by our inappropriate means, not ourselves.
How the misunderstanding occurs
If we keep a sense of direction, we always find another way to recover soon. That makes us regain our mental energy quickly.
If we look at that process from the perspective of our surroundings with an unhealthy mental state, we seem to be recovering in a very short period.
That misleads our surroundings. They think that the more mentally healthy people are, the more quickly they regain their energy. That makes them deduce incorrectly that perfectly mentally healthy people never get disappointed.
Why avoiding disappointment impacts negatively
However, avoiding disappointment works negatively for our minds because we cannot confirm our values.
In this process, we often try to find other profits or positive aspects while ignoring our values. For example, we might convince ourselves, “It is okay because I have made new acquaintances.”
That confuses our values because we persuade ourselves that getting acquainted is a substitute for realizing our original goal. Even though it is not more valuable than the original goal, we lie to ourselves and believe in its value. That makes us forget what we wanted in the first place.
Then, that makes us fear failure because it comes to mean our denial. There is no concept of ‘inappropriate means’ because we are confused about values. In this state, we believe that we have to realize everything we wish for.
That makes us try to avoid failures as much as possible. Avoiding disappointment causes self-denial.
I noticed this mental work after I got depressed several days ago. The process was exactly as described above. After I was disappointed enough, I recovered my energy soon.
Conclusion
That is the mental system of depression.
Getting disappointed is necessary to keep our minds healthy. That reminds us of what we wanted in the first place. In other words, disappointment solves our self-denial.
This logic might allow us to solve our mental confusion about values.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
