My father’s withdrawal, of course, only served to exacerbate my mother’s complaining, and she constantly complained about my father’s lack of caring about her. Likewise, my mother’s complaining served to exacerbate my father’s already withdrawn way of being. This vicious circle started early and continued unabated for 60 years of their marriage, until my mother died.

While my parents loved each other, their ability to express their love got buried beneath dysfunctional system they created. Unfortunately, this is all too common in relationships. One person pulling – with complaints, anger, judgment, and other forms of control - and other withdrawing, is most common relationship system I work with.

A person addicted to complaining will not be able to stop complaining until he or she does inner work of developing an adult part of themselves capable of giving themselves love, caring, understanding and compassion they need. As long as they believe that it is another’s responsibility to be adult for them and fill them with love, they will not take on this responsibility for themselves.

Our inner child – feeling part of us – needs attention, approval, caring. If we don’t learn to give this to ourselves, then this wounded child part of ourselves will either seek to get it from others, or learn to numb out with substance and process addictions – food, alcohol, drugs, TV, work, gambling, and so on. If, as a child, a person saw others get attention through complaining – as my mother did with my grandmother – and if complaining worked for child to get what he or she wanted, then it can become an addiction. Like all addictions, it may work for moment, but it will never fill deep inner need for love. Only we can fill this need for ourselves, by opening our hearts to Source of love. Only we can do inner work of developing a loving adult capable of opening to love of Spirit and bringing that love to child within. People stop complaining when they learn to fill themselves with love.

When we are suffering from depression, it seems that we lose our objectivity. Does thinking that we have nothing to look forward to sound rational to you? Where did my enjoyment in life disappear to? It was my perception of world that had slowly changed and I was unable to see it because of control that my depression had over me.

In fast pace of today's world we often don't allow ourselves time to evaluate our lives and set goals to realize our ambitions. Whether you do or do not have depression, you're reading this article because you think something might be wrong with your life. Have you tried to identify things you are unhappy with? The first step for me was to educate myself and find out what it was that I was dealing with. I started reading books. I consulted a psychologist to get some unbiased insight about myself.

Otherwise, how do we find solutions for problems that we don't yet understand? So let's get started. What's stopping you?

David http://www.mydepressionhelp.com