Musing - Is happiness a mandatory duty?

[sparkindarkness]

It’s an odd thought, but it seems that it is now a requirement to be happy. It is almost a crime not to be happy. No, not a crime, an illness. Unhappiness is an illness that must be treated.

And we have so many treatments. We have people who will take lots of cash to sit there and listen to you and describe whatever ailment fits. We had pills and potions galore. We have self help books and meditation and yoga and every kind of new age medicine you can imagine. Unhappiness is a multi-million pound business.

And some people are ill. Some people have been hurt so very badly, or their brain chemistry is not working correctly. Some people need help - and we should offer it unstintingly (in fact, it’s a shame and a shambles that so many ill people get so little help). But sometimes, we’re not ill, we’re just unhappy.

When my friend’s mother passed away last year she was sad - and people pressed pills and therapy and counselling on her.

My brother’s relationship of 7 years broke down - he was sad and angry and hurt. And people wanted him to see a doctor, to move on, to get over her.

And I’m just bemused and angry. They’re sad? They’re angry? Her mother died! His girlfriend left him! They have a RIGHT to their grief. They are ALLOWED to be upset. They don’t have to get over it or move on or take pills or see a therapist - they have a right to expect some time where they CAN be upset, hurt, angry, sad. They do not have a duty to be happy and return to happiness as soon as possible. They don’t have to find some quick solution so they can “fix” themselves and get back to normal.

It bugs me so much. Is that housewife unhappy and depressed does she need pills? Or is she feeling bored or neglected or unfulfilled? If the hot-shot business person is feeling stressed and frazzled and worn and fatigued - do they need pills and therapy? Or do they need to look at their work/life balance? If the kid is acting up and has no attention span, do they need pills? Or is it possible that they are bored rigid and the teaching methods need address? Is it possible s/he needs more attention than a television can provide? Why is the rich executive depressed when he as a stereotypical dream life? Maybe because the stereotypical dream isn’t HIS dream and he’s not living the life HE wants.

And this applies to the unhappy people as well - not just the people pushing them to “fix” themselves and get back to normal. I’m sorry, sometimes you will be unhappy. There is no guarantee on happiness in this life. Sometimes you will be sad, angry, hurt, upset. And that’s OK. You don’t have to make it go away as soon as possible. You don’t need to look for the quick fix nor should you expect to find a quick fix. Sometimes you are unhappy - and with reason. Accept it as a part of life.

Yes, sometimes that housewife is clinically depressed. Yes sometimes that overworked businessperson does have an anxiety disorder. Yes, sometimes that kid does have ADHD. Sometimes there is a medical reason why people aren’t happy.

And sometimes people are legitimately unhappy for perfectly normal, natural reasons.

Unhappiness is not an illness. Sometimes we have a damn good reason to be unhappy. It’s ok to be unhappy. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to be hurt. Sometimes these are perfectly natural, normal, HEALTHY responses to what is happening in our lives. It’s not shameful to be upset or sad. It’s not something you have to tuck away. It’s not even something you need to fix as soon as possible.

Unhappiness is part of who we are - and we can’t truly seek REAL happiness if we’re constantly hiding from, medicating away and generally ignoring our legitimate unhappiness.

Comments

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

If you don't get the unhappy, how can you tell when you ARE happy? You just end up with a life with no highs and no lows - is that what people want? I certainly bloody don't!

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Agreed, agreed, agreed -- and thank you for recognizing chronic depression as a legitimate illness, not to be confused with unhappy for a non-brain-chemical reason. I can distinguish between "I'm unhappy," "I'm bored," "I'm tired," "I'm hungry," and "I'm depressed."

Last year, I learned that I can distinguish between, "I'm depressed, it's in my mind, and I need another round of therapy" and "I'm depressed, it's in my brain, and I need to switch meds". That was a fascinating distinction, let me tell you! (Seriously, the last major depression I had? It hit full-force, with no warning or trigger whatsoever, mid-morning on May 1, 2008. It lasted until about five days after I changed meds, and then vanished.)

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Well said.

You can't live your life in the Pit of Despair, but sometimes you have to visit it, that's just part of having healthy human emotions. Trying to just push a button and turn off sadness or anger or grief screws with you. I've seen it happen, and it's not pretty. It leaves you a crippled human being, one way or another, if you can't let yourself feel your real emotions.

I've always felt that pills and therapy and all that stuff is for when it stops being "unhappy" and starts being "can't live your life." I had some crap happen that really did make me pretty miserable all the time. There would have been something really wrong with me if I'd just tried to "be happy" through what was going on. It was a mess, and I was pretty seriously unhappy. Then I got away from it and started putting my life back together. And after a while I found I couldn't be happy anymore, somewhere along the line something in my brain chemistry seemed to have set itself to "depressed" as the default setting, or something, which is when I took pills for a while. Because I'd gotten so far down into the pit that I was no longer able to climb back up again myself, even after fixing up most of my life issues, and so I needed that help. And it did help, (even though it also made me crazy in new and interesting ways, I get all the fun side effects) and eventually I stopped taking them, and mostly I do fine now.

But I think I would have said some really nasty things to anybody who suggested I needed pills while I was still in the middle of my mess. I didn't need pills then, I needed to freaking fix my life!

[chesh.livejournal.com]

I've actually been having some fun trying to deal with a similar issue - yes, my Zoloft keeps away the crushing depressive episodes, but it also seems to kind of tone down everything else, too. I'm less happy, less creative.
I'm lucky to have a mild enough depression that it can probably be largely controlled through diet, exercise, and regular talk therapy. It's just a question of getting to that point where I am doing the things that keep me healthy on a regular basis; I hope to get there within a few years and wean myself off the little blue pill.

I will say that therapy is often helpful for people who are going through major life upheavals and losses precisely because our culture is not very accepting of negative emotions. It's difficult to deal with severe pain/anger/sadness without some sort of a support network, and as the culture does not provide it, you must construct it yourself.

I will say that I have worked with some really good therapists, and not one of them tried to invalidate my emotions or imply that I was wrong to be feeling that way. They listened, they probed for deeper issues when the response was out of proportion to the problem, and they gave me tools to deal with the feelings. It's not about denying the sadness of the depression; it's about coming up with ways to cope where you're neither putting on a happy face nor crawling under the covers for a three-day cry. It's more difficult to deal in a healthy fashion than to deny, but it's much more productive.

(uhm, I lurk..)

[wyldirishtric.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say that I completely agree, and thank you so much for saying this so articulately.

[only-playing.livejournal.com]

I think that part of it is that we live in an era of throw-away everything... All the advertisements try to tell us that all we really need to be healthy, happy, wealthy, well sexed, and beautiful is the right shampoo, or car, or candy bar, or whatever they are trying to sell. The fact is, we cannot buy happiness, not even at with the low, low interest rate on the credit card. We cannot change the channel on our lives when things get to be too much for us. We compare our life to commercials and made for TV movies, and it's no wonder that some people cannot understand the full range of human emotions and how emotions are a good thing.

[buddykat.livejournal.com]

my Zoloft keeps away the crushing depressive episodes, but it also seems to kind of tone down everything else, too. I'm less happy, less creative.

Sounds like it's time to talk to your doctor and let them know that you aren't thrilled with the side effects of your meds; you want to actually feel normal emotions, not have *all* of your emotions blunted.

[j-headspace.livejournal.com]

I lurk on here and don't comment... well, ever, but THANK YOU for this post.

I've been dealing with depression for the past ten or so years, and I'm finally at a point where I can say that I'm Okay, that I'm not depressed any more. on my "good" days when I was at my worst all I could feel was 'blah', a muted, not unhappiness. I can't imagine anyone *wanting* that, but it seems like that's what USA-based media is pitching. Don't be angry, sad, frustrated, joyous, just be this mediocre, level medicated "blah".

Thank you for speaking out about it, more people need to wake up and *live* damnit!

[solid-squid.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was reading an article where scientists were voicing concerns just like this. They were pointing out that sadness, especially caused by loss, has evolved for a reason, and that removing it could cause serious problems for people (much like people who feel no pain. Sure it's unpleasant, but people without it usually end up dying before their 20's)

Personally, my view is that medication can be used to treat depression, in fact it often needs to be, but it isn't a cure. In most cases* it should be used as a way to push the crippling despair to one side so that you are actually capable of dealing with it (hence why actual therapy is important as well, to find out what the problem is). The idea that any unhappiness should be medicated away seems like a symptom of the "good employee" ethic that's become so common ("good employee"s being people base their self worth on how many hours they spend in the office). By medicating it away you can go back to work sooner, but that doesn't mean that you've recovered sooner.

In your brother's case, all he really needs are support from friends and family and time to adjust. Make sure to keep an eye on him in case actual depression sets in (in which case the medication or therapy might be needed), but otherwise it's just time and support.

*There is the exception of chronic depression, where normal function isn't possible without medication, but to do what the psychologists in the article I mentioned suggested and medicate any sadness "in case it becomes depression" is just ludicrous

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

The other side of this is that depression is a major cause of death - and grieving people often do stupid things like attempt suicide. So maybe the psychologists have seen too many of their patients die, and want to prevent it happening again.

I'm depressed and I am often sad on top of it. Depression distorts everything so you can't even be sad properly. Unfortunately, the medication tends to flatten stuff as well, but at least it means I can function, after a fashion.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Exactly, if the whole world is blah how can you possibly feel the good? You can't have ecstasy without having despair

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It is such a huge difference, and I think we need to draw a strong distinction between "I'm sad" and "I'm clinically depressed" because the conflation of the two terms is causing problems and confusion

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

You cannot mature as a person and emotionally if you haven't had to deal with the harder emotions. And I mean true, natural emotions NOT depression or medical conditions - but perfectly normal, nmatural grief. We have to feel them, we have to acknowledge them, we have to learn how to deal with them and survive them. And pills? Do not teach us that. ANd we have to learn not to be ashamed of them

There is a level when pills etc are needed - and, as you said, that's when emotions go from being normal to being a medical ailment. I think the sad thing is where too quick to assume the line has been crossed

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Yikes, overmedication is also quite scary.

I think that's part of the problem. People seek therapy because they need to express their emotions - because our society just doesn't find emotion acceptable. People are ashamed and driven into hiding their emotion or trying to find somewhere private to deal with unacceptable emotional states. We need to be more accepting of unhappiness as natural and not judge or shun people who are currently unhappy. I think that's part of the reason some people who are having perfectly natural unhappiness look for a medical intervention - because if it is medical then it's an ILLNESS and they are then EXCUSED for being unhappy - like they need an excuse, a justification for it!

Re: (uhm, I lurk..)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Thankee


Heee, I have lurkers!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

We want a quick fix. We want the badness to go now. We want everything to be perfect, now. Everything has to be ideal, now. There can be no unhappiness, nothing we cannot have and nothing we cannot want.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Heee, I have more lurkers!

Thankee. I think people want it because it's easy. When you're hurting it's easy to make the hurting stop quickly, a nice quick patch

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I think we cannot mature emotionally unless we learn how to deal and how to survive natural emotions.

I have no problem and no hesitation with medication being used to treat medical depression and similar ailments. A medical condition requires medical intervention - and I wish the professionals would be faster and better at supporting that

I can understand why they want to be careful with the sad people, but to medicate sadness as depression is over the top I feel

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I can understand the paranoia, and it would take amore skilled and knowledgeable person than I to know where the line is. If an actual professional has prescribed then that is ideal. I do not claim to second guess them. I second guess the culture that decides all sadness should be medicated - of lay people suggesting medication for natural grief and pushing quick fixes on people who just need time to recover

But I also think on of the side effects of people confusing sadness and clinical depression (in addition to my concerns above) is not only that people become less able to deal with, express and recover from their natural sadness but also that people confusing sadness for depression robs some of the severity from depression itself

I'm sure you've probably found it yourself, being someone who suffers from depression, that some people don't respect depression as the terrible thing it is. And I think part of that lack of respect is due to the sheer number of people claiming to be depressed or seeking medical intervention (or urging medical intervention) when they're not depressed - they're just unhappy