My musings on Facebook yesterday. I'm still trying to process things through, and sometimes it is easier to throw something out and get others ideas to correct or refine your ideas. See what others thoughts and reactions are.
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I think the entire world is having this discussion today. At coffee break today we were discussing the difference between depression and "being unhappy". It is very, very, very difficult for people not suffering from mental illness to understand depression. How can someone who seemingly has everything possibly feel hopeless and hurting inside? Most of us wake up in the morning and have the choice whether we want to be miserable or exuberant. Others have that choice made for them.
I often categorize my late 20s and early 30s as being depressed as I had little hope for the future, I was miserable, I hated my life as it was. But I don't think I was clinically depressed. I was simply unhappy with my situation. There was a rational explanation for feeling that way. When I finally took steps to address that rational explanation, I was no longer miserable.
I don't think I'm going to word this correctly, but bear with me. I'm still trying to wrap my own head around this. Let's say a football running back gets tackled so hard that his spine is crushed and he is paralyzed from the waist down. He would want nothing more than to be able to get out of his wheelchair and run like the wind. Yet so many able bodied people choose to sit in a chair all day and do not avail themselves of their good fortune. I think if I was that football player, that would upset me. "I want to move, but can't - but that guy can, but won't!" I think it would be the same for someone suffering a mental illness. I think knowing that they are not fully in control of how they feel, that they would want the rest of us to choose to be the happy, optimistic guy. Especially since they know the pain of being miserable. "Why live here in my world when you have the choice to be happy?". That probably makes no sense at all.
One thing I have noticed having dealt with friends and family that have dealt with clinical depression: UNHAPPY PEOPLE TEND TO WANT TO BRING OTHERS DOWN. Misery loves company. I find if someone is unhappy, they will tell you all about why they are unhappy. On the other hand depressed people want to hide their situation and will try their best to fit in. They will hide their pain and sometimes are completely unaware of their mental illness. They just believe that this is the way life is, so they don't get the help they need.
Those of us who get to choose which side of the bed we wake up on should appreciate that we have that choice and take advantage of it. I think back to the movie "Happy" where a man was living in squalor on the edge of a dump, living off the garbage others threw away and yet he was very happy. For most of us, happiness has very little to do with how much you have, and everything to do with your perspective on life and what you do with your life. I think it is a disservice to yourself and to those around you to CHOOSE to be miserable, but particularly wronged are those that don't have the choice and wish more than anything in the world that they could choose to be happy.
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Edit: What spurred this musing was someone had posted this image on Facebook yesterday, which I thought appropriate on most days of the year, but not yesterday.... As I said above, for some people, they don't have the choice.
