I enjoy organization. One might say that I love being organized. One may say that I love it a bit too much. If you were to look in my closet, not only would you see the shirts separated by short sleeve and long sleeve, but actually organized by color. Yep, I'm that type of guy. You could say that I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Want another example? Okay. When I first got married I was the one that kept track of the finances. I was the guy that knew down to the penny how much was in our bank account. I could tell you just how much we spent on expenses and such. Mind you that this was all before Excel. I used good old ledger sheets. Not bad so far, right? Well, I had all sorts of fun using different colors of pens and such on the ledger sheets I used to keep track of the bank account. It was awesome! The rub is when I would make a mistake. Some may say to just cross out the line and use the next line below. Well, I couldn't do that. I would start a new sheet all over again. Yep, one simple mistake and a new sheet had to be done. Why? Looking at the pristine sheet, all I could see was the mistake, over and over again. All the other lines where everything was correct was simply not good enough. My sweet loving wife would try to convince me that it was okay, yet I would still fix it. After a while she knew that was just what I did. The funny thing of it all is after I filed it away, the next time I saw it was when I was throwing it away years down the road. I will have to admit that when Excel came out I was like a kid in a candy store, like a kid on Christmas Morning, like a 43 year old handsome man named Ken drinking the first Egg Nog of the season! It was awesome!
In the past years or so as I have fought mental illness, I have come to really dislike the word "better." I mean really dislike it! I'm not talking about the use of getting better or healing, I'm talking about "doing things" better that others bring to my attention or tell me what to do. I have talked with others, sat in meetings, etc where the topic is doing things better. Like, "hey, lets talk about how you can be better at" ... fill in the blank. Pretty petty right? Let me introduce to you to one of what is called an "Error In Thinking" that is found in people with depression. Things are "all or nothing." If your telling me that I need to be better at something, that means I am not only failing in that topic, but also everything else in my life. My brain is already doing a bang up job of convincing me of that, so when others start telling me about being better, I simply feel and think that my life is not good enough. Then, there are those rare, yet devastating times when someone does use the words, "not good enough." I simply don't want to admit how long it takes to fight to get rid of that darkness. The coveted ability of being able to distinguish or break down things in life of doing awesome at or others that need a bit of improvement, is not there for me more than not. So, you may be thinking, "Holy smokes! What word do I use than better?" I personally like the word "stronger." It implies that there already is a strength be it how small it may be. Now if you were talking about my biceps, there would be no need to talk about the need of being stronger ... in my dreams.
Then there is what I call the but eraser. Note that I am using one "t" here. If you thought I was talking about shrinking the backyard, I'm sorry. Have you ever noticed how the word "but" can be used when talking to someone about something they did? Before I had a plethora of training on giving "feedback properly" I noticed it and really have to say I wasn't a fan and am still not. So here is an example, "I love how your hair looks today, but man it sure is greasy." What do you think the person that received the compliment is thinking about ... yep, greasy hair. Everything before the word "but" is gone. Poof! Bam! Adios! ... and any other words like that. In my loving training of giving feedback, it is drilled in your head that you have to give a positive and a negative. "Man that was an awesome throw, but it missed the receiver by a mile." Get the take? As I have battled depression I have been amazed that more times, far more times than not, all I can see is the negative ... especially about myself. You're simply not good enough! Why try if you're going to fail?! You not being good enough is pulling so many down!
Now that I've scared you about your use of "words" around those with depression, let me say that this is me sharing what I've learned. I had NO idea myself before going through this. We all say wrong things at times and really don't know better until we learn. PLEASE KNOW that it is far better to talk with one that has depression and learn what words may cause dark feelings than simply not talk at all, leaving them all alone left with their thoughts.
Now to those that fight the "all or nothing." This is one of those things that I have learned and can see "logically", yet getting there is the fight. If you fail at ABC, that doesn't mean you fail with the whole ALPHABET. If your dishes stay in the sink over night, that doesn't make the rest of the house a disaster or all the other dishes dirty. If you aren't able to buy every new gadget for your kids, that doesn't mean you're a horrible parent. If you aren't able to buy Ken Egg Nog, you are still his friend. Simply, it's totally okay to have the line crossed out and start again.
