I love to be around people who exude positive
attributes. I joke that I have a “Polyanna”
attitude. It seems to be battery
operated and recharged by a night of sleeping, because I am truly a morning
person. I remember people I knew in high
school and wonder how we would have gotten along had we gotten married; they had “bad attitudes” (angry all the time or pessimistic).
As for me, I can remember from a young age being generally
cheerful but also feeling all the bad stuff way too much. I recall going through periods where I was
very morose and wore that feeling on my face.
Weird to think about now that I’m over 50, and, seriously, what problems
did I actually have when I was a young teen?
Ah, but there’s the real issue! There was what was most
likely the normal amount of strife in my home growing up, but I really felt the
bad emotions far too deeply to just ignore them. My positive self fought constantly with the
darkness that lay just around the corner.
As I became an adult and saw all my expectations crumble in my
realities, I fought more and more of that darkness. I assumed I was just mad and sad but not
depressed per se.
While in the middle of a
divorce, I went to the general practitioner who had treated me for a few years,
but who was also my ex-husband’s doctor.
I was having trouble just getting out of bed in the mornings. Sometimes I would take my youngest daughter,
who still wasn’t in school, to the sitter and then go back to bed. I went to
the doctor for treatment for what I was realizing was depression. He tried me on a few prescriptions, and one
helped me get out of bed and be ME again.
But after reciting all the strife in my life at that moment, I expressed
surprise that there could be a connection between bad circumstances and
depression. He taught me that living
under bad circumstances long enough can cause the depression to take root.
I see a lot of self-affirmations on Facebook, so I know I am
not alone in my struggles to find happiness.
It seems a lot of people struggle with letting go of the sorrows that
replace the wishes we once had. I also
see a lot of people posting things like “Happiness is a decision,” and while
that might be a great sentiment for “healthy” people, it sure isn’t for people
like me. As I said, I can trace what I
know now is depression all the way to my childhood. I absolutely prefer to be happy and cheerful. It comes naturally to me. But so does the darkness. I don’t like it. I don’t crave it. I don’t create a comfy place for it to
stay. It just comes uninvited and stays
as long as it dang well pleases.
Yes, indeed, we are still living a strife-filled life, but
that isn’t my problem. My problem is how
often I feel incapacitated and unable to deal with the blows that life offers.
The whole debacle of the job offer in Montana set me back for weeks. I keep remembering that right now I expected
to be in the middle of a four-day journey to move our family. I’m glad I’m not, but I’m not glad. You know? But, really, the fact that it is taking
me so long to move past the bad way it makes me feel is so frustrating.
How could I choose this?
Why do these things feel like somebody stabbing me while others tell me
I need to buck up and ignore the gaping wounds?
I absolutely agree that for some, happiness is simply a
decision. Some people really do look at
the world from a pessimistic place. If
you know me, you know that I like people until, well, they’ve just convinced me
beyond a reasonable doubt that I shouldn’t like them. And when I’m just feeling
negative, I can mentally shake myself, put on a smile, and go at it from a more
positive place.
I’m all caught up with my work. I just finished proofing the last
transcript. I have a fairly short depo
tomorrow and then nothing till next Wednesday and Thursday. And then nothing. ::gulp::
Now that I’m caught up and have even written this blog
entry, I am going to get right back to work at getting job applications submitted
and even looking at houses. We have
possibly two weeks before we have to be gone from this place. ::gulp:: again.
