Studies into clinical depression have yielded similar findings, leading to the development of an intriguing, but still controversial, concept known as depressive realism [emphasis in original--ed.]. This theory puts forward the notion that depressed individuals actually have more realistic perceptions of their own image, importance, and abilities than the average person. While it’s still generally accepted that depressed people can be negatively biased in their interpretation of events and information, depressive realism suggests that they are often merely responding rationally to realities that the average person cheerfully denies.I have spent the last 4 years or so being forced to tolerate a "superior" who, in my opinion, is so irrationally optimistic that he should seek help. I have been in the top two performers at my former place of employment, and for more than two years now have been doing the job that no one else was willing to do. Yet, in spite of my job performance and putting myself at greater risk than anyone else, my annual performance evaluation was marked down because I had a "bad attitude." And almost every paranoid prediction I gave my boss has turned out to be true.
Those with paranoid disorders can sometimes possess a certain unusual insight as well. It has often been asserted that within every delusional system, there exists a core of truth—and in their pursuit of imagined conspiracies against them, these individuals often show an exceptionally keen eye for the real thing. People who interact with them may be taken aback as they find themselves accused of harboring some negative opinion of the person which, secretly, they actually do hold. Complicating the issue, of course, is the fact that if the supposed aversion didn’t exist before, it likely does after such an unpleasant encounter.
Also, he's one of those who keeps making the same mistakes over and over, but somehow expects a different result every time. We all know what that means.
So, if I'm depressively realistic, yet evidence supports that I was the one who was actually correct, then who really is mentally imbalanced here?
