I have two friends (no; it's not me, it's my friends) and I went to high school together and now we go to the same univerisity. Both are very bright and successful and have the capability to make many friends; they have many friends. Neither are shy or introverted.
One, let's call her Janet, has always wanted to be an actress. There's a second year course that everyone attempting to enter the drama program is obliged to audition for in first and second year. My friend didn't succeed, largely from lack of experience. She now believes she is doomed to be a chorus girl or work in the office for the rest of her life.
The other, "Lucy", said to me the other day that she was coming to terms with not being intelligent and successful and that all she wanted now was a nine to five job and a grey suit.
Both have no confidence in their abilities. A failiure to them merely adds to their looming black hole of doom (especially in Janet's case). Successes are merely momentary escapes- brakes on the spiralling down effect, as it were.
Every conversation I have with them returns back to the same thing: failiure. Theirs.
I've tried everything. Encouragement, praise for their achievements (not far and few between!) and outright forceful telling: you aren't terrible people!
But I'm helpless. Nothing I say will get these two people into a state where they converse normally, treat sucesses as successes and failiures as things that can be brushed off. I find myself, someone who tries to care about everything, not wanting to do it anymore, wanting to brush them off and say 'fine then, fail'. But I can't, of course.
What can I do? Are they in a form of depression? Is this a normal phase of beginning-of-university uprootedness; will it pass eventually? How can I express my undauntedness with failiure to them in a way that will make them see that they are successful and they can succeed, if only they have the confidence to!?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Actually, I empathize quite a bit - I often find myself double and triple-checking my work because I know I must have made an error somewhere.
My life has been one constant series of failures and disappointments, mostly due to my own fault(s).
That said, I think clinical depression runs in my family and that might explain some of my darker moods and occasional, unpredictable moodswings.
As for these two friends of yours - I don't know. I am told women tend to be more insecure for various reasons, but it seems like they are taking it to a clinical level.
You might try a critical analysis of one "failure" and try to point out how, logically, one failure does not constitute a string of general incompetence.
It could also be they're looking for sympathy, but I don't know them well enough to judge that type of reaction.
posted
Sounds a bit like dysthymia to me, without knowing a little more. I only recognize the symptoms because I dealt with something similar a few years back. I don't know if that's exactly what the doctor said it was, as the name doesn't sound quite right to me, but it's the closest I can find. The doctor I saw characterized it as a sort of long slow decline in mood. And I don't know of any particular way to deal with it either. They tried some sort of medication on me but it screwed me up worse than when I wasn't on the stuff.
Sorry I couldn't be a bit more help. But this might give you someplace to start from.
Posts: 609 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It sounds to me that they have taken in televisions myopic view of success and are unhappy because they can't compare. Well, of course not, who could? I would encourage them to define success on their own terms.
Posts: 1021 | Registered: Sep 2004
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