What you said about feelings is very important to me. We make it our main focus. I regularly meet a certain type of person. These people are very depressed and usually alone. This isolation from what could give them positive and good experiences and thoughts is self-inflicted, without the person consciously noticing it or seeking to end the isolation in the sense of giving instead of expecting. Many of my clients (in that particular place) are single older women who have a long history of illness and already have a caregiver they never get along with and who is regularly complained about and expressed a lack of trust.

At some point these people end up in my social counselling service and find that I am "nice". This friendliness is "dangerous" in so far as I can replace the carers and people like to come back to discuss their affairs with me instead of with the legal carer. What characterizes these people is a lack of empathy towards others, little understanding for the needs of the world around them, but a lot of self-pity.

If I am courageous, I ask the client if I may be honest and as a rule I share my impression of her and say in an approximate way (shortened here): " You have a very negative effect on your fellow human beings. You overburden people with the fact that you have great emotional distress, which you reveal unfiltered. People feel deterred and instead of showing compassion, they try to get rid of you. What if instead you don't tell everything at once and focus on what is important at the moment?"

Sometimes clients react surprisingly insightfully to these statements. Others are offended and do not see their share in what is hurting their feelings.

Meanwhile I know that I don't have helper syndrome and better not fall for the fact that these women are just looking for a way to avoid having to deal with their legal caregiver or a therapist. In any case, they are either people who never do therapy and avoid any situation in which they are responsible. For my part, I think these women suffer because they withhold generosity and trust from their fellow men and therefore suffer from "giving too little". This coincides with the spiral which you have mentioned here and which leads further and further into depressing thoughts.

Furthermore, I don't think you have to worry too much if you are a wife or a relative or a friend. This makes those who have depressing thoughts even more depressed because they notice that their negativity affects their environment and people distance themselves inwardly (from worry or helplessness to great anger that the depressed person takes up so much space and pulls others down).

Depression (or depressing thoughts) is basically a crisis with great potential. People don't have it for nothing and they can be congratulated because they go through a phase of life where they question things. This is a natural process and should not be slowed down or condemned by the world around us because they wish the person concerned "to return to normal and the way he was". That's what it's all about: not to live as before.

That's why at the beginning I didn't quite agree with what you said about Dennis, but as I know you, it may represent the thoughts of the people around us that somebody has everything: a good job, a dear family and a safe home etc. etc. etc.

You can shock someone by saying, "Congratulations on your depression/dark thoughts." This statement is not meant to be a false joke, but a surprise. Sometimes people only start to listen attentively when they are provoked or even annoyed.

I much agree with the buddhist attempt as you know:) Happy to find that people more and more bring this way of seeing things into their lives. In the mainstream though it further will be misunderstood and striving for happiness an empty phrase. Well, that's how the stream goes ;-)

Thank you for another interesting and good read. Kisses!