Realism.
Hmm. It's your brain, you know. Your life now isn't much different from most adults'. Savings? In this economy? No need to feel you've done any worse than most of America. And your life as a rugrat must have been quite different from what it is now. Good job changing it for the better for your own sprouts. Breaking the cycle in your generation.

Problem is, your brain has a really ace road map to the life it grew up with. It's built a feckin superhighway to the Depression Mall.

Build a new map, dammit.

Mr. Kila and I had similar, and we have had varying degrees of success with things like counselling, volunteering to help others, eating right, exercising and getting a good night's sleep, even gimmicks like making a list of 5 things we did right today, and referring to it in the bleak times. Anything we could do to build new roads, so that every slight turn DOESN'T end up back at the corner of Life Sucks and Then You Die.

Sounds silly but it does work.

More info: Mr. K and I found this fascinating. Explained a lot about how the brain builds pathways and how repetition can build good pathways too: Inside the Brain, Ron Kotulak. amzn.to/aL3nAd

And don't mess around with depression. You take care of yourself, now.
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Sat 16 Oct 2010, 11:40, 1 reply)

That's one good thing that I've managed, at least.
I did in fact break the cycle by raising my kids differently than how I was raised.

There are three styles of parenting that are recognized- authoritarian, authoritative and permissive. The first is very autocratic- the parent who dictates what the child will do and when they will do it, and will fall on them like a load of bricks at any deviation. The last is the polar opposite, where the kids can do whatever they like with no consequence. The second variety is the preferable method- being the wise leader who guides them into life and shows the way.

I was raised by very dictatorial parents. When you raise a kid that way they generally get rebellious once they're out from under your thumb. I did so for a bit before I realized what a foolish game that was and did some heavy introspection.

I have sought to be authoritative with my kids, and it has worked well- all three know how to change their car's oil, to do laundry, to mop a floor, and so on. They're all very good cooks. They know how to manage money. They aren't afraid of going downtown on their own, but know which areas to stay out of. I think I've done well by them.

But as for me, I still have those parental recordings in my brain that tell me what a fuckup and a disappointment I am. I don't think they'll ever go away. At least I didn't transmit them on to my kids.

The scary voice that I have to work to ignore, though, is the one that tells me how easy it would be to lay all my burdens down, how the longer I go the more pain I'll have to endure, and how easy it would be to stop all of it. That one comes through a lot. I do brush it off as I know what would happen to my wife and kids were I to do what the voice keeps seductively suggesting, but it's still there.

I will have health insurance soon, and when I do I'll be making a beeline for the doctor. But until then I get to grit my teeth and go on as I've done for forty-odd years.
( Wanderer, Sun 17 Oct 2010, 12:46, closed)