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Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

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Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#81

Post by starluz »

jl6 wrote: post #77

Where does suppressing negative thoughts end, and reality denial begin? There are many unpleasant realities that we must learn to cope with that cannot just be ignored or forgotten. Credit card debt is a source of negative thoughts for many - and not just low-level grumbles, but genuinely distressing anxiety. People kill themselves over their financial difficulties. But having a debt is definitely not something we sh…

That’s where your human skill for critical thinking must come into play. Debt is a tangible issue sort of negative thoughts- they are promoting you to resolve something with real consequences. Negative thoughts about a friend slighting you is useless after the first time. If the action repeats make some decisions but don’t dwell in that spiral It doesn’t have to be prescriptive it’s subjective and we really need to understand nuance.

Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#82

Post by keane »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #31
corethree wrote: post #17

This has been known among psychologist for awhile now. In fact someone who is too honest, someone who see's the truth of the world is more likely to be clinically depressed. https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves This podcast from radiolab really changed my perspective on the concept. Pretty much if you're not depressed, most likely some aspect of you is delusional. I would say people on HN are especia…

I am a high functioning depressive, or possibly not depressed at all, I think I am uniquely qualified to speak to the psychology of non-self deception while still being a "high performance" individual, especially compared to my co-hort of "defective children". I was born with heart defects, so during my formative years I was on restricted activities and was constantly confronted with the futility of life, the imminen…

I resonate with your the experience you describe, from a different place. Your post reminds me of a quote from Kierkegaard: "If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?"

Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#83

Post by nvarsj »

jongjong wrote: post #56
captainbland wrote: post #54

I suppose it wouldn't be that surprising. Mindfulness for instance teaches you to "let go" of thoughts - which is really just a gentle form of suppression. CBT encourages you to redirect existing negative thoughts in a positive/constructive direction - ultimately steering you away from or undermining the original negative thought - but does not encourage you to do a deep dive on it. Not to mention that Freud was a qu…

The trouble with suppressing negative thoughts in the long run is that, eventually, reality may force you to confront them all at once and under far more difficult conditions. I'm a strong believer that you have to confront negative thoughts and resolve underlying issues as soon as they arise and not neglect them and tell yourself that everything is going to be OK. It's not going to be OK. Murphy's law; what can go w…

Unsure why you’re being downvoted - bizarre.

Anyways, I agree completely. Life long struggle with anxiety and depression. Most of my issues come from ignoring my worst feelings and not dealing with them. I find the idea of suppressing feelings to be bizarre for treating clinical issues. Maybe that’s why mindfulness only ever provided me temporary relief.

Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#84

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

jongjong wrote: post #66
ipaddr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying issue is the thoughts. Once you have done all you can do many start worrying the future won't unfold as they predicted. Fool yourself into thinking you live in some hell on earth is worse than thinking you might be happy with your current situation.

I feel like happiness itself is also like a garden and needs to be maintained. You need to take intermittent breaks to look for weeds.

Perhaps you would understand if you accepted that some of us feel like we're surrounded by weeds, weeds that cloud our vision and impede our movement, which prevent us from detecting any beauty or value in our garden; we've forgotten what roses and tomatoes look like altogether.

Therefore, our approach and solutions are different from what you're espousing.

Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#85

Post by phnofive »

captainbland wrote: post #54

I suppose it wouldn't be that surprising. Mindfulness for instance teaches you to "let go" of thoughts - which is really just a gentle form of suppression. CBT encourages you to redirect existing negative thoughts in a positive/constructive direction - ultimately steering you away from or undermining the original negative thought - but does not encourage you to do a deep dive on it. Not to mention that Freud was a qu…

This study was measuring the effectiveness of trained suppression - not distraction or letting go, but specifically not imagining the event. I found it surprising, but at the same time avoidance might just have weakened the mental strength for doing exactly that.

Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#87

Post by corethree »

chrismorgan wrote: post #35
corethree wrote: post #17

This has been known among psychologist for awhile now. In fact someone who is too honest, someone who see's the truth of the world is more likely to be clinically depressed. https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves This podcast from radiolab really changed my perspective on the concept. Pretty much if you're not depressed, most likely some aspect of you is delusional. I would say people on HN are especia…

> Religion is easy to laugh off as irrational for HNers because religion isn't a big part of their lives. You’re generalising. On the occasional threads directly dealing with religious topics, you will easily see that there are plenty here who are very religious. As for me, my religion is the most important thing in my life.

True. Nothing wrong with generalizing though. If I told you that jumping off a cliff would result in you dying when really you only had a 99% chance of dying I would also still be generalizing over that 1% chance of survival.

I would say for HN you're in the minority.

Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all

#90

Post by corethree »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #29
corethree wrote: post #17

This has been known among psychologist for awhile now. In fact someone who is too honest, someone who see's the truth of the world is more likely to be clinically depressed. https://radiolab.org/podcast/91618-lying-to-ourselves This podcast from radiolab really changed my perspective on the concept. Pretty much if you're not depressed, most likely some aspect of you is delusional. I would say people on HN are especia…

To an extent, this is true, but take it too far and you begin dismissing education and well grounded logic and believing it to be equivalent to ignorant and irrational thought. Logical thinking and analysis is a skill you learn and get better at after all. The trick (which is very hard) is to recognise when one of your own arguments is one of convenience, emotion, illogical etc. And not be biased towards logical fall…

> To an extent, this is true, but take it too far and you begin dismissing education and well grounded logic and believing it to be equivalent to ignorant and irrational thought. Logical thinking and analysis is a skill you learn and get better at after all.

True. But the problem here is that this "skill" you think you have. It might be just a lie you tell yourself. You wouldn't know. That's the nature of lying to ourselves. Humans are all highly irrational creatures. Yet individually when we think of ourselves.... all of us unequivocally think of ourselves and most of our actions as rational.

This includes you.

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