hey,
@SweetWithSour , I appreciate all that you say, and applaud you for your attitude and the effort that you are putting into your life and the love with which you come here and write about it in order to try to help others. You are a light in the world, at least on this forum! Thank you.
I am only saying that whenever someone says that they can just choose to be happy it has a tendency to rankle with me. I am a person who has had chronic clinical level depression for almost my entire life, and I cannot just choose to be happy any more than I can choose not to have fibromyalgia, or choose to be a different age from what I am. Sure, I can "choose" something if I want to but my choosing it has as much effect on reality as if I "chose" for the moon to change color.
YOU are not doing this, SweetWithSour,.....but I have had
some people say to me, "Just CHOOSE to be happy!", as if it were my own fault that I suffer from depression and fibromyalgia and whatever else is going on, and I could just choose to be different. I always want to say, and sometimes do...."If it were that easy, don't you think that everyone would do it?" If it were that easy, then why would over 40% of American adults identify as depressed these days?
No one chooses to be depressed any more than they choose to have fibro or any other mentally or physically debilitating disorder. When someone tells another just to choose otherwise when they cannot, it feels like blame and makes things a lot worse. I spent a lot of years thinking that if only I tried harder, "chose" better, did the right thing, worked harder at it somehow, I would get better. But no amount of effort changed anything. I have talked to others who are like me and feel the same way.
As a result, I have a tendency to want to explain that this doesn't work for everyone when someone talks about choosing to be happy. NOT because I object to what you are saying, SweetWithSour, or where you are coming from. But just to let others reading this know that, if this doesn't sound real to them, they are not alone, and it's not their fault.
I don't think there is anything available that I did not try at one time or another in order to relieve my depression. No amount of time, effort, or money ( the many, many thousands of dollars for books, tapes, seminars, therapists of all kinds, workshops, classes, techniques, medications, supplements, and on and on often eating up more of my meager budget than I spent on anything else except rent) was ever spared because I was absolutely determined to overcome the depression that had consistently kept me down ever since I was a child. I wrote a whole post about this here, actually, and you can read it if you want to.
After decades of spending the majority of my time, energy, and money on trying to fix that, I finally gave up and decided just to manage it as best I can. That is the best I can do, and that is what I do. I have learned to live with it, to live in a way that doesn't spread gloom all over everyone else, to be independent with it and never ask or expect help from others, and instead to do what little I can when I am able to, to help others I might be able to help. To help people, even if remotely through a forum, and to help animals more directly. This is what I can do. It doesn't make my depression less, but at least it has a chance of doing something good in the world, however small.
With my treatment resistant depression, I understand that happiness can be very difficult!
For some of us happiness is not difficult. It is impossible. No amount of energy, effort, and continuous feeding will create happiness. The best that happens is relief for brief periods of time, and moments of joy that can spring through fleetingly because the puppy does something ridiculous or the sunrise is spectacular or something equally magical happens. I have learned to grab those moments and love and cherish them because they are gone almost immediately and cannot be strung together into a continuity. I am grateful for those, and that is what I get. I don't have a bad life. I have much to be grateful for and am immensely grateful for all of it, every day. I am lucky in many ways, and unlucky in others, like most people. Many people have far worse lives than I do; I never feel sorry for myself. I can enjoy what I have when I am able to, but I cannot choose to be happy and then be happy.
Each of us has to find our own way If a person can actually choose to be happy and then be happy, then more power to them! I'm delighted that it works for some people. I just needed to explain why I say it doesn't apply to everyone.
Thank you, SweetWithSour, for your presence in this forum. I am glad you are here, and I know that I am not by any means alone in saying this. You grab your happiness and your peace, girl, and revel in it. Good for you for being able to do this, and if anyone reading this thinks it might work for them.............give it a try. You really have nothing to lose.
