When I first started this blog I wasn't sure what the title meant, or how it would apply to me. But I am now truly relearning happiness. It has been a very long, arduous, process. However, this week I had an interesting experience that made me realize that I am now in a very different place than I ever have been.
I have been feeling sad, angry, frustrated, bitter, and unhappy since Monday. I've been struggling with feeling worthless. I have even been feeling sorry for myself. But the strangest thing occurred to me--I have not felt depressed. For 3 or 4 days I've been experiencing all the emotions that I normally associate with my depression, but through it all, I have felt an underlying calm; maybe I could even call it a sense of hope. How is this possible? I'm kind of stumped. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not even dysthymic any more. For the last 10, 20, maybe even 30-35 years I've basically been dysthymic or severely depressed. I've never felt this emotionally healthy. I can't remember ever feeling bitter and unhappy without feeling depressed. I'm not sure I thought it was possible.
As I realize this, that I am in a very new place, I am filled with so much gratitude, and relief, and compassion. I wish I understood how it was that I got to this place so I could help other people who suffer from depression to get to this new place. It's quite amazing. All I know is that I have been consistently working with a really good therapist, I've found medication that is helping, and I've been jogging or walking about 5 times a week. And I've been reading a lot of interesting books--especially work by Brene Brown; and talking with generous, compassionate friends; and I've just kept trying. I've been trying and trying and trying, for years. I wrote before about the way my emotional health has proceeded a lot like a geological process of weathering--small, consistent effort that eventually reshaped my emotional landscape. I'm not sure what else there is. But it can change.
When I started jogging I could almost feel a small, hard, shell in the center of my being; as I jogged I imagined that hard shell softening. And over the last 2 years that hard shell has softened, then it started putting out roots, and now it's putting out shoots and leaves. My depression was really a seed, just needing the right conditions to emerge, to transform itself. I love this imagery. And even now, when I go jogging, I feel the roots getting stronger, bigger, deeper, and I feel the leaves unfurling. With every footfall I feel this happening inside of me; I meditate on it.
Maybe I'm not re-learning happiness; maybe I am learning happiness. Or could it be that I am not learning happiness but that I am becoming happiness? This journey is more than learning or relearning, it is a journey of becoming. The thing is, being free of depression hasn't meant being free of sorrow, pain, anger, uncertainty, self-doubt, even self-loathing. I still feel those things. But going back to the seed metaphor--instead of closing myself off to all emotion, I'm opening myself up to those emotions, along with the more comfortable ones of joy, peace, happiness, silliness, hope. And by imbibing all these emotions, my spirit is being fed and something has sprouted. Now I'm just trying to keep feeding that little sprout. I think it's about accepting all the emotions.
I have been feeling sad, angry, frustrated, bitter, and unhappy since Monday. I've been struggling with feeling worthless. I have even been feeling sorry for myself. But the strangest thing occurred to me--I have not felt depressed. For 3 or 4 days I've been experiencing all the emotions that I normally associate with my depression, but through it all, I have felt an underlying calm; maybe I could even call it a sense of hope. How is this possible? I'm kind of stumped. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not even dysthymic any more. For the last 10, 20, maybe even 30-35 years I've basically been dysthymic or severely depressed. I've never felt this emotionally healthy. I can't remember ever feeling bitter and unhappy without feeling depressed. I'm not sure I thought it was possible.
As I realize this, that I am in a very new place, I am filled with so much gratitude, and relief, and compassion. I wish I understood how it was that I got to this place so I could help other people who suffer from depression to get to this new place. It's quite amazing. All I know is that I have been consistently working with a really good therapist, I've found medication that is helping, and I've been jogging or walking about 5 times a week. And I've been reading a lot of interesting books--especially work by Brene Brown; and talking with generous, compassionate friends; and I've just kept trying. I've been trying and trying and trying, for years. I wrote before about the way my emotional health has proceeded a lot like a geological process of weathering--small, consistent effort that eventually reshaped my emotional landscape. I'm not sure what else there is. But it can change.
When I started jogging I could almost feel a small, hard, shell in the center of my being; as I jogged I imagined that hard shell softening. And over the last 2 years that hard shell has softened, then it started putting out roots, and now it's putting out shoots and leaves. My depression was really a seed, just needing the right conditions to emerge, to transform itself. I love this imagery. And even now, when I go jogging, I feel the roots getting stronger, bigger, deeper, and I feel the leaves unfurling. With every footfall I feel this happening inside of me; I meditate on it.
Maybe I'm not re-learning happiness; maybe I am learning happiness. Or could it be that I am not learning happiness but that I am becoming happiness? This journey is more than learning or relearning, it is a journey of becoming. The thing is, being free of depression hasn't meant being free of sorrow, pain, anger, uncertainty, self-doubt, even self-loathing. I still feel those things. But going back to the seed metaphor--instead of closing myself off to all emotion, I'm opening myself up to those emotions, along with the more comfortable ones of joy, peace, happiness, silliness, hope. And by imbibing all these emotions, my spirit is being fed and something has sprouted. Now I'm just trying to keep feeding that little sprout. I think it's about accepting all the emotions.
2 comments:
You're gonna hate me for being a Debbie Downer, but you have been warned of the possibility of relapse, right?
I was in this great place in my mid 30's, having found effective medication after a decade and a half of dysthymia and occasional full-blown depression. It was wonderful. I wanted to go back and contact all of the people I had ever known and show them that I wasn't really the crabby, cranky person they remembered- it was just my disease!
Then something happened. I still have no idea what (and heaven knows I have tried to figure it out), but for years I just kept slipping into a dark hole in my mind, worse than it had been before I got treatment.
It's clearing now, but I cannot say that I am particularly encouraged by that since I don't know what caused it to come back in the first place. It's like trying to be glad a hurricane has finally passed, but you don't know where to go to avoid them when the season comes around again.
I hope it doesn't happen that way for you.
Yes, I'm totally aware that "relapse" could happen again. In fact, every time I start to feel discouraged or down I have an anxiety attack, wondering if I'm going to slip back into severe depression. However, despite being aware of this possibility, I'm just going to accept this for what it is--a gift. It may not last long, it may not be permanent, but it sure feels a hell of a lot better than I've ever felt before. Yes, I live in the emotional "tornado alley" but so be it. At least my life is not in a state of a constant tornado.
Post a Comment