depression is often driven by faulty beliefs and assumptions about ourselves other people
and the world more generally in today's video we're going to be talking about some of these
common assumptions and how they contribute to feelings of hopelessness and depression
hi everyone this is the second video in a three-part mini-series of videos on faulty beliefs
and assumptions that i've been doing and these faulty beliefs and assumptions are things that
can contribute to depression and the reason it's important to be aware of these faulty ways
of thinking and understanding the world is that much of what can cause a person to feel depressed
is due to how they think and if a person's thinking is skewed because
of depressive lies that we believe it's more likely to trigger depressive types of thoughts
but before i get into those faulty beliefs and assumptions just a couple of disclaimers to go
over i'm a registered psychologist in the province of british columbia canada and this video is for
informational purposes only it is not intended as a substitute or replacement for advice from your
doctor or mental health professional now with those things out of the way let's start talking
about faulty beliefs and assumptions now as i mentioned earlier this is the second video in
a three-part mini series and if you haven't had a chance to take a look at the first video i'd
encourage you to check it out as it helped give some context to what we're going to be talking
about in today's video with regards to some context about these faulty beliefs and assumptions
now in that first video i talked about faulty beliefs and assumptions about things like having
to be perfect the myth of life being fair the belief that i must be doing something to
serve other people and the idea that anger is bad now today we're going to be talking about
four more common beliefs and assumptions that fuel depression
now people often have a view or perception that they must always be at a hundred percent
peak efficiency and performance now this is often promoted in modern society where
you'll regularly hear things like you always need to give a hundred percent
but even 100 isn't enough anymore you now need to give 110
things like no days off i'll sleep when i'm dead if you're not going to give it your all then
there's no point in doing it now while all of these types of thoughts might sound good on the
surface and look good on t-shirts holding this type of belief is just a recipe for depression
suppose i've established some personal best maybe it's the fastest i've ever run a certain
distance or the best mark i've ever gotten in a course i hold the belief that i must always be at
peak efficiency and performance what that means is that i always have to reach or surpass
that personal best i can never have a slower running day i can never have a lower mark in that
in a course as that means that i'm not functioning at a hundred percent efficiency and performance
and if i'm not functioning at 100 efficiency and performance i'm failing it's a disaster
um and i always have to push myself to try harder and continue to achieve
more and more which is simply not possible so this is one of those
beliefs and assumptions that's cloaked in seemingly noble and virtuous package
but it's really just a destructive and harmful you know it's a destructive and harmful view to hold
now another common faulty belief is that it's easier to avoid life's problems
than to face them directly this is commonly seen in situations where a person's also experiencing
anxiety in addition to depression problems in and of themselves can be anxiety provoking given that
the solution to problems is usually not readily apparent otherwise it wouldn't be a problem it
would just be a series of steps i need to do that i know i need to do it wouldn't be problematic
but since i don't know exactly what i need to do to solve the problem it can create all sorts of
anxiety and stress about doing the wrong thing or making the wrong decision now this is one of
those beliefs where you might instantly say look i know i don't believe this i know it's not true
but ask yourself do you behave like this belief is true think back over the last few weeks
or months have there been any problems that you put off dealing with or procrastinated
to address have there been any challenges that you've been faced with in which you said
let me think about that a little bit more or i'll get to it later
and you took a while to actually get back to it the big problem with holding this
belief and avoiding dealing with problems is that what tends to happen is that
problems when we don't deal with them tend to get bigger have you ever noticed that have you ever
noticed what happens with problems that you're not dealing with do they ever go away on their own
do they ever just kind of resolve spontaneously with you not having to do anything about it now
some might but you've probably also noticed that most problems that you don't deal with
tend to mushroom and get bigger and bigger and bigger which makes them even more challenging
and even more stressful the temptation then is to avoid dealing with the problem
because now it's gotten so big and scary to even think about but that just makes things
even worse so with this belief it's important to pay attention to your behavior rather than
just simply dismissing it as something you may not consciously believe or consciously tell yourself
the next belief is one that a lot of people struggle with it's the notion that
it is unbearable to me when life is not the way i would like it to be
it's almost as if there is a perfect ideal life that you're striving for
and once you achieve that life everything will be fine once i get that job promotion
once i finally get into that long-term relationship i've been looking for once i'm
able to buy a house once i'm able to lose those 15 pounds once that loved one is feeling better
then i'll be able to relax and be happy and content now while it's certainly the case that
a person might feel better once they've achieved their various life goals do you think that
they can then go on to live a life of complete contentment and peace not really by holding on
to the assumption that life is unbearable when it's not going the way i would like it to be
i'm constantly chasing a mirage of some idealized utopian life that simply doesn't exist
once i've accomplished all of those goals once all of those problems have resolved
they're going to be new problems and they're going to be new goals that arise
i'll never be satiated i'll never be satisfied i'll never achieve enough because
underlying this belief is a view that everything in my life
has to be going well in order for me to be happy and has that ever been the case for you
do you think it's possible for everything in life to be going well at the same time
and for that to be sustainable life has its up and life has its ups and downs and the problem
with this belief is that it promotes a myth that life can be entirely ups which is simply not true
so the idea is to allow and expect and accept that there's going to be a certain amount of upheavals
setbacks and disappointments in life rather than setting up some sort of imaginary perfect
and unrealistic view of what life has to look like in order for me to feel happy
the next belief is often associated in situations in which a person doesn't feel like they have much
control in their life or that they don't have much agency to change things in their life it's the the
assumption that i need someone stronger or more capable or more powerful than myself to rely on
i can't do it myself i'm not capable and therefore i need someone else to help me
now the thing is we can all use help at times so the idea here isn't to say that i can accomplish
everything myself without needing anyone else's help
but if i hold the belief that i always need someone else to rely on
it makes me helpless because i need someone else always around to take responsibility for me
now think about the implications of this if i'm in a relationship and i believe that
i need my partner and have to rely on them a hundred percent what this means is that
i can't take responsibility for any aspect of the relationship or i might not be able to assert
myself or express what i want because maybe my partner won't be happy and will leave me and
then who will take care of me so it's important to think about how many things in your life
are you truly incapable of managing are there things that you can do
are there things that you have accomplished in the relationship example it's important to recognize
that i was able to live my life and manage my life before i ever met my partner and
so what that demonstrates is that i'm capable of doing some things on my own
so those are four more faulty beliefs and assumptions that can fuel and drive feelings of
depression once again it's important to emphasize that when you're thinking about these beliefs and
whether or not they apply to you it's not so much that you have to consciously believe these
assumptions to be true but rather do you behave like these beliefs and assumptions are true
now i'll be following up this video with the third and final video
in this mini series on faulty beliefs and assumptions that fuel depression
so i hope you'll keep an eye out for that video when i post it so that's it for today's video
if you have any questions or comments about this i would love to hear uh any thoughts or
questions you might have so please leave us leave me some comments in the comment section down below
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so that's it for today's video as always thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video
and i will see you in the next one