obsession with failure

Hi Yog - Welcome back! Haven't seen you around for a while!

Great to hear that you are coping a lot better with depression.

And here's a provacative question for you: If you knew that you really were intelligent, what would you do that you don't do now...?

Kathleen

Good question..
The thing is when I imagine that I really was intelligent, I would do something in the area of academia probably. But at the moment I do an admin job because that's all I can manage!
But then I think ..no...the results prove that you are not gifted at academia so you shouldn't do it.
But I understand what the point of this exercise it - already I am thinking if I knew I was really intelligent, then I would be more open to finding out how to write better essays or I would not worry so much about getting a 1st and more on my own pleasure in the process of writing an essay I guess. I guess I would have fun doing academia and learning etc...rather than having to prove something...
I am feeling better now
and yet, I still have the niggling voice inside that my friend was depressed at the time and thought her work was crap - so in one sense, she had the same pathology as me - and yet despite all this, she still obtained a 1st...IF I say to myself that the reason I didn't get a 1st was because I was depressed and felt negative about myself, then her example proves the opposite...
I am confused again..how does one reason one's way out of that?

Hi Yoghurtraisin,

I was reading your post and the thought occurred to me that maybe depression can affect academic work for the better as well as for the worse. I suffered from depression when I was at college and the psychiatrist I was seeing at the time kept saying I couldn't be that depressed or my work would have been suffering. But concentrating on my academic studies was my way of trying to find something to hold on to. The rest of my life was a complete mess but my college work was one area I still felt I had some control.

I don't know if that helps at all.

Briary

Hi Briary,

Thanks for your post.

You know, I understand your point of view and in a way, I overworked as a way of coping with depression. But now I feel even worse (sorry, this is not your fault at all, it is mine!) because I feel that even though I worked hard to overcome depression as a way of having control, I STILL didn't get a first so therefore I must really stupid. Whereas my friend, who is very much like you, worked and worked because she was depressed and she is amazingly well.
So I just feel really dumb and like it's not fair. That sounds childish I know but that is how it feels.
I am stuck in this belief and all the evidence that I hear around me seems to confirm that the reason I didn't get a first is because I am not intelligent enough.
Actually, I've just thought of something - maybe I am just having problems accepting that I am not as intelligent as my friend, at least in that area. Maybe I am just spoilt and should realise that I am just ordinary.
I feel really bad now, really bad.
Sorry Briary, this has nothing to do with what you said and I appreciate your thoughts. Sometimes I just think I am filled with so much self loathing I don't know where to put it...

Is the level of degree that a person gets a good measure of intelligence? I thought a large part of mine was a test of memory, which I don't equate with intelligence.

If degree achievement is a measure of intelligence does that mean that everyone with a lower degree, or none at all is less intelligent than you?

And anyway a degree is just a snapshot of the day(s) you take your exam, do your dissertation or whatever, it's a measure by another person's fairly arbitary scale of knowledge of one particular subject - not by any means an overall measure of intelligence in life.

If you retook your degree tomorrow and got a first would that mean that you would be more intelligent than you are today? I don't think so.

Mike,
You are absolutely correct in what you say and I agree with you.
The points you make make absolute sense to me from a rational point of view. And when I am in a good state, I am able to use reason to think about this in this way.
I suppose I must be in a state of irrationality when it comes to this particular subject in my life. I have read somewhere that if an association is made in the brain at some point between a subject and an emotional response in the hippocampus, then whenever you deal with that subject, emotions from the hippocampus flood the left brain causing you to not think clearly or rationally about that subject. I am not sure of the clinical basis for this and I can't even remember where I read it, but it seems to make sense to me in the way I experience this particular loop.
I am wondering where irrationality comes in...where does it come from? It is our instinctive part of the brain, the fight or flight, that if it doesn't get expressed comes out in another form?
Sorry I am rambling now, but it just occured to me. I have always been a very repressed person, and my emotions of fear just got buried away and I would assume latched onto things 'out there'. It feels like arrested intelligence because actually it is emotions driving my opinions, whereas actually what Mike said re: degrees is absolutely correct using pure reason.

Hi yoghurtraisin,

It's good that you realise that you're thoughts are irrational, and that next time you have those thoughts you can note that they are just that.

As you say the brain works by association, so if a particular trigger has become associated with high emotion, then when observing or thinking about that thing the emotion associated will also be felt.

Simply put, we may feel sad when remembering a sad past event, or if we see something that reminds us of it.

In a high emotional state the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking shuts down - which is a great survival mechanism when faced by a threat - we wouldn't have survived very long if we'd spent time rationally thinking about the threat posed by a sabre tooth tiger!

Some people talk of emotional hijacking - the emotions are hijacking our rational faculties.

The good news is that it is possible to change our feelings about past events, by being able to, in our mind's eye, as it were observe ourselves in that old event, watching calmly in a detached way - this is something that a hypnotist can assist with.

This helps us to create a different association to the event(s), so that they can be remembered without the emotional charge.

Best wishes