mat422 alpha journal

[Shannon]

In my experience, shy of purely chemical responses, depression is often a sublimated anger or frustration response that for one reason or another you feel like you cannot express as what it is. It's like a volcano that just can't explode... it becomes a feeling of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and then turns to hopelessness.

Now the question is, if that's what's happening, why are you feeling that way from Stage 2, which is beginning to introduce alpha stuff? I can't think of any reason that would happen. Unless you're living at home and literally can't be the independent alpha the program is trying to make you... or you for some reason or other literally cannot express it...

Not sure if this was directed to Ryan or me. But I definitely can relate to a frustration response. I've been trying to figure out a career path for a while now, what to do with my life. It's just been this little nagging thought in the back of my head that never goes away. I'm attending a community college, so I commute back and forth from my house. I didn't want to go away to college because it would cost too much and at the time I had too much anxiety about the whole thing.

It's very possible that it's not the subliminal bringing up the depression/hopelessness for me. I have felt like this before when I first started college and was struggling to find a path. It's one of those things that I talk to my parents about and they just tell me not to worry and I will find my path. It's unresolved feelings of frustration because I feel very lost and confused.

In you opinion Shannon would the subliminal effect me in a negative way if I am still living at home? It doesn't really bother me because I am studying and trying to pursue a certain career path. It's not like I'm being lazy and mooching off my parents money. Hell I probably work harder than the kids that go to college just to get wasted, have sex, party, all the while spending their parents money because they are rich anyway. I got a scholarship this year which is helping with my debt that I am slowly incurring from student loans.

When I was forced to move back in with my mother at the end of a very serious relationship a few years ago (I basically left my own apartment to my ex because she had nowhere else to go even though she was becoming physically/emotionally/verbally abusive with me) I fully intended to spend a few months recovering, get on my feet and go find a house of my own to rent.

But then mom's health was deteriorating, and it was a much more major trauma emotionally to end the relationship than I expected, and after a year being back here, I was starting to get depressed because I couldn't leave. I could neither afford to, nor could I leave mom alone... she needed constant supervision and assistance by that point. The "I'm here for mom" idea helped a lot, but it still was killing me not to be my own man and have my own place. It's very much a core masculine identity in much of the world that he is as much a man as he can support himself and those he loves/takes care of. It was really making me depressed and feeling hopeless.

So if you're using a program that's constantly urging you to be your own man, and you're resisting it for whatever reason... yes, it can result in the frustration/hopelessness that could conceivably lead to depression.

Get out there. Get your own place. It's not that hard, once you stop making mistakes.