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Redefining Joy

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A simple thought changed my life.

I have dealt with cyclic depression most of my life. I watched depression destroy my mother. I have listened to, and read of, the struggles of so many people who have gone through the same thing.

Every day we hear the commercials for one anti-depressant after another - the magic bullet for what Winston Churchill called "the Black Dog," but wtach out for all those side effects!

After my own harrowing experiences with a supposedly qualified psychiatrist who told me to "tough out" the tremors when he over prescribed lithium, eventually leaving me temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, I have not used drugs to help with my depressions. I am NOT suggesting that anyone else do this! What I am suggesting here is that someone with depression needs to find ways to deal with depression cycles that do not solely rely on drug treatments. My answer began with one simple thought:

If joy seems to have escaped from your life, you must redefine joy.

The List of Joys

  1. This would make me happy...
  2. After Her Death Came My Life
  4. An update during a very depressing time
  5. Books to help you redefine joy
  6. Tell Me Your Sorrows and Your Joys

This would make me happy...

When I was a little girl, I thought Santa Claus was the answer to all my problems. When things became very sad, I would dream of Christmas, and think of all the things I would like Santa to bring me. This is the concept a lot of us have used to think of happiness: that the pursuit of happiness is a given for all of us, and that this happiness should be what we want to get. Nothing else will do.

Oh, how we kill our joys, thinking that way...

One day, years ago, I watched my mother, who was permanently critically depressed and who rarely even moved about let alone enjoyed anything, suddenly laugh out loud and happily when our dog did something too adorable to ignore. It startled me: here was a woman whose face had been set in stone, and who couldn't do a single thing for herself, suddenly overcome by the most wonderful fit of giggles. Until that moment I didn't think it was possible to feel joy in the middle of depression. After that, I never forgot it. I tried to bring things into her life - and mine - that would lighten the darkness, if just for short times. But it was not enough.

After Her Death Came My Life

The Litany of Feelings

I couldn't figure it out in time to help my mother. But in the struggles I continued to have with depression and panic attacks after her death, I finally found an answer one day when I got a little present for Christmas: just a kitchen trellis that said "Joy."

I stared at it, and something opened up in me.

Who says joy has to be any certain thing? And who says I have to be miserable about being miserable?

This was the day my litany was born, and my life began to change. I realized that my misery would be cut in half if I didn't become emotionally distraught about going through clinical depression.

Clinical depression is a bio-chemical reaction that affects our physical well being. Emotional depression affects the way we handle things. We CAN control and relieve emotional depression without drugs. That solves half the problem. But, in practice, it can feel as if it solves much, much more. With this in mind, I created this litany, that can go on forever when I need to repeat it to myself, but this is the main point: don't double the trouble!
  • Don't be depressed about being depressed.
  • Don't panic about having a panic attack.
  • Don't get suicidal about feeling suicidal.
  • Don't get angry over feeling angry.
  • Don't be embarrassed by embarrassment.
  • Don't feel bad about feeling bad...in any way!

“When you face your feelings and take control of them,
you can redefine your joy...”

An update during a very depressing time

There is nothing more depressing than having to shift your life to a new place, and away from the people and things you love. For someone with cyclic depression it can be terrifying - if you have not learned to just go through the process of the cycles without the terror.

I am not afraid of anything I feel. I accept it and go through it. When I am very depressed I rest, and think of it as a rest, not a failure. I don't beat myself up over needing to cycle. If I need to vent some mania or anger, I have ticks that I have developed to shake sudden bursts off, or I go off in some private place and just let myself be manic for awhile. I don't think of rapid cycling as a bad thing - I sped up my cycles, so every day has a routine of going up and down that I can manage.

I know myself. I accept myself. I keep going wihout shame or fear. I try to keep my head even when my head doesn't want itself! That's the advice I would give to anyone in this situation.

Books to help you redefine joy

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Tell Me Your Sorrows and Your Joys

I hope this helps anyone who feels that depression is uncontrollable. We have more control than you know. I go through depression cycles every single day, and I can tell you I do not believe my life is not worth living. Even in the worst of times I have my joys. Tell me yours!

  • Retro_Loco Oct 31, 2011 @ 5:10 pm | delete
    Depression is one of the many "trolls" I referred to on another of your lenses before I realized you wrote a lens about depression. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
  • Swan Thompson Oct 8, 2011 @ 11:31 pm | delete
    My mother battled depression her entire life, and was furious was I was - in her words - "chronically happy" as a child. She complained about my "God Damned Sunny Disposition" as if it were a curse, and said I could "see the bright side of a plague." As we grew up, my siblings and I referred to my "problem" as my "GDSD" because it sounded a little better (and somewhat funnier) to us. As adults, we still use the GDSD term; it's now spread through my group of friends. Although I have neurological dystrophy & severe chronic pain, my GDSD remains intact, and (I hope) contagious. Depression is a sinister, sneaky fiend, but you're right - we do not have to surrender to it.
  • Khalid-Osman Feb 14, 2011 @ 7:05 pm | delete
    I liked this lens! It touches me! Yes, when you control your feelings, you redefine your destined joy. The shadow of depression disappears with it. In such hard situations like this, I run out of town to breathe fresh air and to shout sometimes.

    Coming out form war zones in different countries, I have seen, spoken, and written about many people who suffered from the wars, became depressant and panic and even some of them seem mad to other people. I wrote as columnist about them saying that they are normal people but they see things differently and react to them in different manners.

    One of my characters used to stand upside down hanging his feet up on the wall of the Cathedral on the main street. When my friends started to speak about his madness, I told them that he just wants to see things better at that position. They read this next morning in the newspaper with some details about that fellow who was veteran liberation fighter.

    Kirby and Julie I wish you all peace of mind!
  • jasmineann Dec 5, 2010 @ 10:00 am | delete
    A very powerful and touching page. I love it when you said "I am not afraid of anything I feel. I accept it and go through it" ......
    I am going to lensroll this to some of my pages about coping with back pain. Long term back pain can be emotionally draining and depression is not uncommon, and I think this would help many people. Thank you so much for sharing this.
  • Julie Jun 2, 2010 @ 11:52 pm | delete
    I totally agree with everything I just read. I too also had a very horrible psychiatrist one time. He prescribed me zyprexa, which he told me was a light anti-depressant. About 1 to 2 months later I was in the hospital not expected to live through the night. It caused me to have diabetes and my blood sugar was way over 600 and had been for a while. They were expecting all of my organs to shut down. Although, he didn't make and manufacture the zyprexa... when I went to see him again I had told him I had been hospitalized.. He started to freakout and tried to tell me to "don't sue". Besides that... the only thing anti-depressents did was keep me in bed. They never ever helped me and I have been put on many. After that episode... I have never taken one again and never will. I wish you the best!

    My sorrows are many and my joys are few, but what I do is I make them balance each other out. Like I always look forward to seeing the sun rise in the morning (sometimes I'm not always up at that hour, but when I am I truely enjoy it). I look forward when my husband kisses me bye before he goes to work and I look forward to him coming home from work. It's always a pleasure. I love to see my children sleep (they r teenagers) but it's still a precious site. I love to see my mother when she is truely happy (she goes thru a lot with my brother). My girls (dogs) I always like tuning in to what they are thinking. They are so expressful. The little things that are close to me mean so much and those are my joys. My sorrows... oh.... so many. First of all... it ways me down when these close ones don't (how do i say this) work well or do what they are supposed to do, that's kids for ya. I hate that it's very hard for me to sleep at night and I do take benedryl for it, won't take no prescriptions for it. I hate that my brother keeps my mom down so low emotionally constantly. I hate that I have such difficult with memory, hearing, and speech sometimes. I hate the fact that sometimes i get totally lost in my own conversation and can't stay on track. I get frustrated with myself, that's a sorrow. I really miss having the sharpest photographic memory ever and now it's so totally opposite. There's lots of sorrows... I just do my best with balancing it out with my joys.

    Julie
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sandralynnsparks

People sometimes call me a madwoman, not knowing I'm okay with that: it's a madness that creates!

And now they call me Squid Angel, too - of Theate... more »

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