From my journal for December 16, 1995<\/p>\n
Dana got me a book, The Optimistic Child<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>It was written by a man who worked with \u201clearned helplessness\u201d and put together a team to figure out how to help kids who are at risk for depression.\u00a0 <\/span>He talks about \u201cexplanatory style\u201d which is how we explain to ourselves the meaning of success of failure.\u00a0 <\/span>An optimistic style is specific and behavior based, a pessimistic style is global and shame-based.\u00a0 <\/span>Falling into depression seems to be very much related to whether or not one can see\/think\/feel that there is something they can do that will make a difference.\u00a0 <\/span>If you find that no matter what you do, it doesn\u2019t have any effect, you will give up, like the dogs subjected to electric shock in the experiments.\u00a0 <\/span>In order to develop persistence and resilience in the face of setbacks, a child needs to be allowed, or helped, to learn by increments that are not too challenging.\u00a0 <\/span>I can see how growing up in an alcoholic family would create a depressed child, because no matter what I do, how hard I try, sooner or later I see that nothing makes any difference, and there is no one there to tell me that it\u2019s because the situation has nothing to do with me.\u00a0 <\/span>I also see that in my family, neither parent took the time and trouble to help talk me through a difficulty.\u00a0 <\/span>I was expected to \u201cjust know\u201d what to do, and made wrong for not knowing.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember how much I suffered in social situations because no one had ever bothered to teach me the forms \u2014 I think of that embarrassing dinner party when I was \u201chostess\u201d and didn\u2019t know that I had to be the one to start eating.\u00a0 <\/span>I had always just waited for someone else.<\/p>\n
The author says that self-esteem (real, not spurious) is not based on feeling good about oneself, but on doing something well.\u00a0 <\/span>Learning to do something well can be a difficult process, needing support, helpful feedback, practice of basic moves or easier versions.\u00a0 <\/span>I think none of this happened consistently (I was shamed, abandoned, and then praised inappropriately) until I was in school, where my natural intelligence had a chance to function.\u00a0 <\/span>But I see that now, as I try to move into realms that are unfamiliar, like learning to do creative projects, that my intellectual skills don\u2019t help, and I don\u2019t have any persistence or resilience in the face of setbacks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Once my father said<\/a> to me, when I was having trouble with a project: “If you didn’t know how to do it, why did you even try?”<\/p>\n
I can also see how my constant struggles with my health are also conducive to depression (besides the component that comes from toxins affecting the brain) because it\u2019s a situation where mostly the things I do don\u2019t make much difference.\u00a0 <\/span>I know that I have to do certain things, like yoga and walking, just to maintain some degree of health, but when I\u2019m feeling sick, and there\u2019s nothing I can do to make it better, I have no sense of efficacy or mastery with respect to my health.\u00a0 <\/span>A shame-based, trauma-based, pessimistic world-view doesn\u2019t help either.\u00a0 <\/span>In fact the author says that pessimistic children have more health problems than optimistic ones, which doesn\u2019t surprise me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From my journal for December 16, 1995 Dana got me a book, The Optimistic Child.\u00a0 It was written by a man who worked with \u201clearned helplessness\u201d and put together a team to figure out how to help kids who are … Continue reading