Why Am I Letting My Depression Control My Feelings?

I saw a great poster this morning, which identifies and defines 6 common feelings.

• Angry
• Frustrated
• Worried
• Sad
• Calm
• Happy

I can identify with sad; I see that a lot.

Calm was one I had missed. I always thought you went from sad to happy. There was never anything in between. Or at least that is what I had always thought. In fact, there are 60 or more common emotions, feelings. Just do a Google search and you will see what I mean.

Calm: I feel OK, I feel relaxed. I can feel proud that I am doing my best.

Why do I feel that feeling proud is a lot of pressure?

Feeling ok I can understand. I am feeling ok this morning. But I am not sure that I feel relaxed. And I am certainly not feeling proud that I am doing my best. Why should that even be a measurement? Do I really need to feel proud? And how do I know this is happening?

Happy: I’m doing great. I am going to enjoy this feeling and share it with others.

Doing great is what I am comparing myself against.

If I am doing great, then everything else falls into place, right? I imagine that I would be enjoying the feeling and figuring out how to share it with others. But I have been guarded about feeling happy. I feel that if I share happy with others, there will not be enough left for me.

Feeling stingy about my happy is very short-sighted.

What I have found out about most emotions is that the more you give away, the more you get back in return. When I tithe or make donations to a cause, there is always a pouring out of reciprocal sharing. This could be money, or other in-kind sharing.

The operating word seems to be sharing.

If I think of happy as just me, then I am missing the best part of happy. Sharing happy with others makes happy more enjoyable. I don’t know why I cannot see that as clearly as I should. My knee jerk reaction is to shelter happy from others. But I know that in every other aspect of my life, protecting things from others doesn’t work.

And I am generally very open about sharing with others, at least until we discuss happy.

Sad: I am not feeling good, so I can ask for help and talk with someone I trust.

Sad is a feeling that I am very familiar with.

I know what I am getting when I am sad. No one needs to explain sad to me. Sad is my second home lately. I have been here enough lately that there is a couch with my name on it. And there is Frost Gatorade® in the small refrigerator next to my seat.  I can come or go at will, as the door is always open for me.

So, saying I am sad is a familiar theme these days.

Getting from happy to sad has seemed like a monumental task. But then again, I had not realized that between sad and happy is CALM. It turns out I may be calm more than I know. This means I am one step closer to happy than I may have realized.

Worried: I have a problem and can ask for help. Remember all feelings are valid!

I can ask for help is the part of this I shy away from.

I forget that there are no stupid questions. Asking for help is a sign of weakness. That is how I think, Was I raised that way? I am not so sure. My depression is very good at reminding me that I shouldn’t ask questions or deviate from the program. Secrecy is the operative term and the biggest part of being secretive is to not trust anyone with your feelings.

Somehow, I envisioned Sad as being the enemy, but Worried is in the same league.

It’s certainly not the I have a problem part of worry that gets me. It is the feeling safe to share my feelings that does me in. It should be so easy, but I honestly do not know how to share my feelings. And don’t ask me to comment on the validity of feeling worried. I can be worried without the slightest care about whether it is valid.

So, feeling worried is something I am very good at.

Frustrated: I feel stressed! I should ask for a break, go outside for a walk, and take deep breaths.

Stressed is another feeling that I am on a first name basis with.

Recently, I have been trying to take a walk outside when I feel frustrated or stressed. I do not think of myself as stressed. Stressed I associate with anxiety. And I do not think of myself as anxious. Maybe I should think of myself as stressed. It would explain the edginess that I sometimes feel.

Asking for a break is usually out of the question.

Am I even worthy of a break is the first thought that jumps into my mind. Taking deep breaths is a new stress reducer that I am trying, However, it is easier to get someone else to try this approach than it is for me to practice it.

All of this leaves me very frustrated.

Angry: I feel mad. I should take deep breaths, count to 10, and talk to someone about how I feel.

The only one I ever talk to about feeling angry is my depression.

And we very seldom talk about this. Angry is bad in my book. I wasn’t raised to be angry. I did not grow up with anger in the house. There is no context for me to view angry in. And yet I am sure that I am angry and have been so more than I think. Counting to 10 is something new. And applying that to Angry is not something I have had any real experience with.

“Talk to someone about how I feel.”

I can’t even talk to people about happy, so how can I speak with others about angry? Secrecy is really what comes to mind if I ever think about being angry. I don’t want depression to be mad at me. Depression and I have an understanding. When the stuff begins to hit the fan, talking to someone is not necessary.

My depression assures me that it has my back and I never need to speak with anyone else.

And the closer I get to the abyss, the tighter my depression applies its grip to my talking with anyone. My depression does encourage me to use unhelpful thinking as a way to gauge where I stand. By using fortune telling and time travel, I can make up endings to anything. Speaking with someone about their feelings is not necessary.

So, my depression probably encourages me to engage in unhelpful thinking styles.

I have learned something about feelings today. Especially the part about feeling calm. It never occurred to me that I could be calm. So, I will be looking out for calm, and appreciating how close calm is too happy.

Maybe calm can be a goal, rather than just happy?

I am what I now know to be calm. This is not the same as sad. If sad is not happy, then I am sad a lot. But if not happy can be calm at times, then I am less sad than I thought. Being calm is a worthy feeling to have. I can justify feeling calm much easier than happy.

So, eat, drink, and be CALM.