"Happiness is a choice"
I have heard this saying over and over and everytime I hear it, it's like a punch to the gut. Happiness is NOT a choice for me, not when it comes to my depression. Tellings a person who has depression that they have a choice, is like telling a person with cancer that they can just THINK the cancer away!! When my depression hits it's a fight for it. That choice to be happy is taken away from me and I have to fight to stay afloat to get it back. There are times when I do "have a choice" to be happy. There are times when I can recognize those distorted thoughts: "I'm ugly" "I'm not good enough" "Nate would be better off without me" "Nobody care about me" etc. When I recognize those thoughts as a lie, then I can say "Well that's not true" and come around and be happy. And that works.... except when it doesn't.
That's what bugs me about "happiness is a choice" philosophies. I think they work on mild and moderate depression, definitely on situational depression. But for some forms of severe depression - at least for those periods of time when you're on your knees begging God to just take you - my experience has been that any attention to your thoughts only makes it worse. Happiness isn't a choice, it's something you have to fight for. Whether that's through medication or therapy or whatever else it's something someone with depression has to fight for. Everyday is a battle for our happiness. We deserve happiness, it is just shrouded completely by darkness.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those philosophers of 'happiness is a choice'. Yes mine was situation as well as reactionary but mostly clinical depression. I was on high dose meds and seeking therapy, paying for all sorts of therapy and seeing a psychiatrist. The pills and the psychiatrist didn't work. So I changed my life to get what I wanted out of it and I am now off my meds after 14 months of detoxing from them. And I am happy, everyday. I had clinical depression and anxiety for 29 years with a mix of situation and reactionary thrown it.
I know you and your followers will disagree with me and see me as 'one of those' but I made it out the darkness and I know it's not impossible. You always have to have hope first and foremost. I thought myself into depression and I thought my way out. It can be done.