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Comment by altcognito | Hacker News Reader

You have to learn to set boundaries and set some distance between yourself and that person.

There are lots of articles and books out there that probably cover this better than I can. This was an interesting read though.

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/balanced-life/2014/05/setting-...

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Do you happen to have any books on hand that deal with setting boundaries. I never really developed this skill, but it seems really useful and I'm in a situation where I need it. My boundaries are clearly being crossed, but I don't know how consequences should be brought up, or how to actually go through with the consequences (I seem to cave pretty easily.)

as a person with severe depression, i am absolutely certain of one thing. feelings come first, then thoughts. it's impossible to think your way out of depression. it sounds like OP's empathy is a "deep" / low-level quality of how their mind works, in which case it's probably impossible for them to think their way out of it. IMO

Definitions (beliefs) -> Feelings.

Without definitions you'd have no feelings about anything:

youre_an_asshole - feels bad to you

im_an_asshole - feels better to you :)

erwqgg3resafd - no feelings invoked. no definitions about it exists.

i didn't explain what i was trying to get at with "feelings come first" well enough. i believe people are constantly associating their current emotional state with their current area of perceptive focus. for instance let's say you go through a bad breakup and drink chocolate milk every day for a week while crying into your chocolate milk. when you drink chocolate milk again months later, you're going to remember that association and have a twinge of sadness. i think this process goes on constantly (with much less intensity usually) with everything you do.

feelings come first. your associated emotions are the reasons you have the beliefs you have! they're the reason you have the goals you have, the fears you have, etc etc etc. the myriad tiny emotional associations you feel constantly are the low-level stuff on which the higher-level construct of thoughts is built. that is what i'm saying.

>> your associated emotions are the reasons you have the beliefs you have!

I agree that egg or chicken first problem worth argumenting about, but saying that omelet comes before an egg is a bit of a stretch to buy into :)

as a person with severe depression, i am absolutely certain of one thing. feelings come first, then thoughts.

Is it possible that this thought is the source of the depressed feelings?

nah. your assumption is that i feel depressed about something. it's just an ambient feeling that is constantly present when i'm conscious, that has a negativity-reinforcing effect on my thoughts and perspective. it has nothing to do with what i'm experiencing, although getting bummed out can certainly make it worse. the closest thing i can compare it to is chronic back pain. i also didn't explain the "feelings come first" thing very well but i elaborated in my response to the guy above you.

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