Depression Comorbidity

Username9876 wrote: I seem to be unable to make meaning out of all these past occurrences. Anyone have a suggestion on where to start?

Sure, start by stopping the cycle of looking to past occurrences to explain your behavior today.

It is perfectly normal and can be helpful to look at the past for explanation, to try to tie a behavior to some cause. We do this all the time in life. We try to explain what caused the plane to crash, the crime to be committed, the volcano to erupt. We search for explanation, because we hope it will help us avoid repeating the behavior or avoid the threat. We hope by understanding the past that the future will improve.

The problem is that we have a tendency to overuse and over simplify this perspective. We like to come up with reasons, explanations, and justifications, because that temporarily helps us reduce our feelings of discomfort. Once we have explained to ourselves the accident happened because of X or Y or Z, we can relax for awhile. It doesn’t matter how inaccurate or ludicrous the explanation, as long as we believe.

In some cases, you have people claiming that the behavior of today (proximal) is somehow related to causes when they were a toddler (distal). While certainly something that took place 5+ years ago might have some influence, it is not accurate to say it is “the cause” or even a primary cause, secondary cause, or tertiary cause. In most causes, proximal stimuli have a much, much stronger causal influence than something that happened decades ago.

But, psychologically we are more comfortable with distal explanations, as it helps us to simplify our beliefs about why we do something. It reduces mental conflict to have a few go to explanations we can draw upon rather than admit to ourselves what really influenced our behavior is much closer than we would like to admit. It is much more dynamic, much more ill structured to say the cause of being obese is a myriad of stimuli that bombard us on a daily basis. That is a tough puzzle to crack. It is easier to explain that your parents allowed junk food or that it is in the family genes, etc.

The path forward is to stop ruminating and searching for answers in the past. Research has shown it is a good idea to journal or write about the past, but with the purpose that it then allows you to mentally forget or archive those memories (The Zeigarnik Effect). This frees up cognitive resources as to be focused on today, to focus on stimuli in your immediate environment that might influence potential options.

I appreciate your answer and I can see where you are coming from with the information.
However, I feel being able to avoid future repeats (learning) of things that have caused issues in the past is necessary, if not key to survival. overanalyzation isn't helpful, but understanding that 9/10 of my loss came from the individual I CHOSE to be around should factor into my behavior today. If not for this learning behavior, there would be no evolution. What I'm experiencing is an exagerated tendency to avoid stressful stimuli, hence the borderline. And to me, its entirley well founded.
This behavior is proximal. Even if you look at conditioning. Yes, something that is conditioned can be reversed. But a strong stimuli will just evoke that all over again, as proven. Although primacy is important, if the conditioning is strong enough, the childhood experience would be the root of the issue.
Disorders are a triad. Biological, general and then specific psychological vulnerability. Even cognitive therapy, which is based in mental behavior takes this into consideration as it looks at the core negative belief. The difference is it doesnt waste time on a bunch of psychoanalytic Freud crap.
I am living in the present with what I've learned in my life. And the majority of it is people are manipulative and out for themselves.
Making meaning was finding a reason for how my upbringing can contribute instead of drag down my behaviors in the present day, wether I could explain why they happened or not. its the same function religion serves most of the time.

I’m not saying ignore the past. I agree we learn from the past and this learning stays with us. This is why we can and often do repeat certain low level behaviors, e.g. we don’t need to relearn to ride a bicycle, or the rules of chess, or that an electrical outlet is dangerous.

In the original post it sounded like you are much more past than present focused. Avoidance of stressful stimuli is past focused, i.e. goal avoidance vs. goal approach. Anyway, it is something to consider. Good luck.

Anyway, hap