
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
I have asked myself “why can’t I laugh out loud anymore?
The whole idea of laughing is not part of my daily routine. In fact, it is not a part of my routine at all these days. I can see that something is funny, but I am not able to laugh, to show an emotion about it. And this is true whether it is a joke being told, or a situation I am in that could be considered humorous.
The reason I mention this is because of posters I saw while in Boston.
These talked about feelings. While they didn’t specifically mention laughing, many feelings border on it. The idea of happy is something I would like to experience again. I am not so sure I know how to be happy anymore. And the more I focus on being happy, the harder it becomes.
One of the feelings on the poster was calm.
At times, I am calm. Calm is not happy, but it is not sad, or angry, or even frustrated. Calm is relaxed and ready. At work, I am exceptionally good at staying calm. Customers and employees can vent and share their issues, without my getting upset. I am incredibly good at not getting frustrated with situations.
I can always find some common ground within company policy.
The person or employee saves face, and I can solve their problem. But when things turn lite, and the situation calls for laughter, I am not able to perform. This doesn’t mean that I don’t get it. And it doesn’t mean that I am not able to see the humor in the situation.
On the phone this afternoon, my peer support advocate asked me how I was doing.
I had to say, OK. I was not happy, but also not sad. And I was not angry, and I certainly wasn’t frustrated. Although the more I use the word frustrated, the more I think this could be a part of what I am feeling. If I was happy, there might be truly little room in my life for frustrated.
The other side of feeling ok, is I am not as enthusiastic about things as I have been in the past.
Inside, I still have a positive, can-do attitude. I feel like I still project that often. However, that is just my assumption. There is not enough evidence that this is true most of the time. Being in a leadership role at work, having a positive attitude is important. Heck, it is one of the major keys to success, at least from where I stand.
So why can’t I laugh out loud anymore?
It doesn’t make sense. But I forget that I have depression and have had it for my entire life. That is more than just a few years. And after all of these years, I am finally facing it. My depression has been on notice that I am no longer sweeping episodes of depression under the rug.
I want my depression out in the open, so I can see what it is up to.
Depression wants me to not talk to others. Depression wants me to keep secrets and only talk to it about any future plans. Ok, it will let me mention something in passing about my next big idea, such as tossing away 40 years of planning and just retiring early. But this is just a CYA move on the part of my depression. Letting me speak once about the next move gives it an out. I can then say, “I told you.”
But that one mention would be all I would say about the plan my depression and I cooked up.
Depression has a way of making its ideas become my ideas. My depression is not a snob and is not particularly stingy about wanting to take the credit for something I will be doing. In fact, what happens is quite the opposite. My depression gets things going, and makes sure that I seal up the cracks and don’t let anyone else’s ideas get into my mind.
Then my depression lets me run with “our” idea, until it becomes “my idea.”
This makes the whole situation mine. And while my depression is there to make sure things go as planned, it never stays until the end. My depression has a nasty habit of running out on me, just as the stuff starts to hit the fan. Depression is not into endings, and always manages to be long gone when I am looking at the end of our adventure. As I have often said, when the check comes due, it is just me. My depression is on a beach somewhere where it is very warm. And it is drinking a cool, refreshing beverage.
So, I am left to deal with the pieces.
As I did not share my adventure with anyone beforehand, I feel awful asking anyone for help getting this mess cleared up. And not even having my depression to lean on, I feel utterly alone. In the past, I would sweep whatever was left of my depression under a rung and move on. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
The incident was over, and I was going to just walk away as if nothing had happened.
Until my 4 days at 5 East, I would not want to spend time figuring out what had happened. It was over and I did not want to think about it. Regardless of the outcome, I was ready to walk away as if nothing had happened.
That morning, as I went to the emergency room, I was seeing only three choices.
- First, I could end it all. But I was too afraid, and I had no plan for how to approach that.
- Second, I could keep doing the same thing and keep expecting a different result. Now this idea I finally realized was the crazy option.
- Or third, I could seek professional medical help.
Beyond that, I could face what was happening to me and not let my depression get away with its antics any longer. I am getting better at catching my depression in its unhelpful thinking styles. These days, I can see when depression is trying to get me to be a fortune teller or to time travel. And even if it takes a little while, I can even see how depression gets me using all or nothing thinking.
But while I am getting better at catching my depression as it tossed out ideas, I have still not found my funny bone.
Laughing at life would be great, but I am not able to do that. I am seeing that I can be calm at times, but calm and happy are miles apart. So, I will keep working on my feelings, trying to understand what is causing my lack of feelings in general.
Maybe I am just trying to fool myself because I know the culprit is my depression.
So. the question is not why this is happening. The question centers around how I can change what I am feeling, so I can once again feel happy. As I write this, I can feel that I am the one who can change my attitude towards not feeling happy. As I read this, it seems I am saying that feeling and being happy is beyond my control.
I have given up the one thing I have total control over.
I cannot control events, but I can control my attitude towards them. This needs to be where I work next. Figuring out my relationship with happy is a first step toward my being happy. I am happy to think that I may have found one way to feel happy.
Controlling how I think about my feelings will give me a better chance at feeling happy.
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