"Why don't you just decide to be happy" they say

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serenity
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17 Sep 2009, 4:00 pm

zen_mistress wrote:
My beliefs on this. The only thing that can help those of us who have a temperament that is prone to depression and anxiety is acceptance. Acceptance of life the way it is. Looking honestly at your life and feelings, even if you really hate what you see, but perhaps one day, with peace and acceptance, you will be able to find some things to be genuinely good about. And it will be genuine positivity, not something you are telling yourself.

And of couse, if something bad is happening, realising that you dont have to be perfect or happy and that at the moment you cant do anything but be in pain, but using all your strength to get through the next minute and get through the day, and look back on it and think "I have been through a lot of pain today. It is enough that I have got through today."


This is something that I've been discussing with others on another AS forum lately. It seems fighting the depressive times, and the meltdowns is counter-productive. I've been doing a lot of research on depression, and CBT lately, because I've just come out of one of those horrid depressive spells. It seems that you always forget about it in between it happening, until you find yourself standing knee deep in misery not knowing how you got there, once again. It seems to be a really, really common thing with those on the spectrum. I feel like I've tried everything else, so I may as well give accepting some of my darker AS tendencies a go. Fighting it has always made it so much worse.


Southwestforests I hope things get better for you. You sure are going through a lot. I think it would be abnormal to feel all happy with all that you have going on. I also think it would be horribly unsympathetic for someone to tell you to be happy in your situation.



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17 Sep 2009, 4:04 pm

It's kind of hard for a person to choose to be happy when she usually cannot even recognise when she is happy.



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17 Sep 2009, 4:19 pm

southwestforests wrote:
Wow, do I have an attitude today or what? :twisted:
I'm with you.
Why don't you just grow a pair of wings and fly out of there?


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17 Sep 2009, 4:57 pm

Dang that reminds me of something someone said to me just lately: "You'll be happy when you decide to be happy". I almost punched him in the face :/ I highly doubt one day I'm going to wake up and say "you now what? I'm gonna be happy from now on!" and go skipping off... Not gonna happen....


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17 Sep 2009, 5:22 pm

I'll say that, in many ways, I've had to learn how to be happy as, it's not something that is always present however, often many people feel I'm that I'm intentionally being dour or pessimistic..Honestly, I'm not but, I'll admit that losing my grandparents on both sides of my family and my brother in the last 18-20yrs now has not been easy therefore, I'd say I can understand your personal attitude as such.. Sincerely, I'm at a loss for words to add unto this post therefore, may it be know that all people don't feel easy with simply trying to feel an emotion or project one that other people expect..



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17 Sep 2009, 5:28 pm

I give up


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Last edited by Sallamandrina on 18 Sep 2009, 8:45 am, edited 3 times in total.

Tahitiii
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17 Sep 2009, 5:29 pm

It's an NT thing.
They really can force themselves to believe the stupidest things imaginable.
You don't need to look very far to find an example.

chawieman wrote:
except in the rarest cases such as they are imprisoning you unjustly or someone you love has died.
Rare? Look around. We're all prisoners. Will Durant once called it "a prison without walls or guards, but from which no one ever escapes." I hate being a slave.
chawieman wrote:
It's based on logic Bhetti. Most depressed people are suffering from a lack of logic that would actually aid them in escaping their depression. Although I guess the depression can really prevent them from thinking clearly to escape it in a lot of cases.
Logic might help you to escape a bad situation. Logic will also help you to evaluate and realize that you are in a bad situation. Most of my problems are being caused by irrational, deluded people who have no idea of what they're doing and of the damage they are causing. My situation sucks, and I haven't found a way out. So far, every road I've tried has been a dead end. I'm still looking, and I see a really long shot with a glimmer of hope at the end. I'll go for it, but I'm not going to get too psyched.
chawieman wrote:
I'm a psych student...I guess that's science.
No, it's not. Traditional, physical medicine is a soft science. Psychology is, at best, philosophy. That's on the rare occasion that people have their heads on straight. Then it can be helpful.
Most of the time, it is just a formalized system of superstition, egos and greed.
gramirez wrote:
...but that's FAKE happiness. All that does is just bottle up your true emotions. Not healthy.
Delusions don't make me feel better. When I wake up from one, I feel really stupid and betrayed by those who lied to me. Once I wake up, I can't go back to sleep.


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Last edited by Tahitiii on 17 Sep 2009, 6:12 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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17 Sep 2009, 5:36 pm

I spent most of my life in a low grade depression that periodically dipped into a major depression and became an alcoholic through self medication along the way. I was treated with anti depressants before I got sober so they didn't really work as well as they should. So in essence I had to learn how to be happy in middle age. I had no idea what feeling good felt like. When someone is depressed it's crazy to tell them they can decide to be happy. That's like telling someone with diabetes they can control their blood sugar through sheer willpower. However, after treatment, I learned that you can learn to monitor your thought processes and be aware of self defeating attitudes and challenge them. It takes work. Another thing is to really learn to appreciate simple pleasures. These are things that help keep me from falling into a depression again.
Someone mentioned an evolutionary angle-there is a great book by Andrew Solomon that looks at depression from every angle, including evolution. It is fascinating and this author suffers periodically from paralyzing depression where his friends have to bathe and dress him because he is so incapacitated. It's called The Noonday Demon-An Atlas of Depression and I highly recommend it.
southwestforests I hear you. You're just reacting normally to a bad situation.



17 Sep 2009, 6:14 pm

I lost my baby and I am trying to be happy about it. I get over it and then I feel sad again when I see pregnant women and babies. I had that experiance again today when I went in for a shot. It's so sad to know that I was pregnant this summer and then that happiness ended this month when I found out I had a silent miscarriage. I just got my period again so it might take a while for my hormones to get back to normal. I try to see it as there was maybe something wrong with the egg and that's why I miscarried and miscarriages are common in early pregnancies and 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. I can't wait to try again and getting that shot sure made me happy because I got that out of the way.

To make myself happy, I try to look at the good sides and live day at a time. At least I wasn't too far into my pregnancy I had a stillborn or had a baby and it died.

What's funny is during my depression, I would still do my normal things and go into work and still live a normal life because I didn't want my unhappiness to run my life and ruin it so that's what I'm doing right now after the loss. I don't like to be depressed and all unhappy so I try and move forward in life and get over it. I must be one strong woman as my dad describes me. My depression gets caused by things that happen to me in life and only way to end it is to get what I want and if it never happens, I stay depressed but I am also happy at the same time because of other things. If I'm depressed about being single, my depression about being single is over when I get a bf. If I am depressed about not working, only way to end that is to get work, if I am depressed about losing my child, only way to get over it is to get pregnant again. That's the way it works with me. I can also block my feelings just by telling myself things over and over and then I start believing it and the feeling goes away.


NT trait I have right?



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17 Sep 2009, 11:49 pm

skeeterbug13 wrote:
NT here on this topic. When I say I chose to be happy I mean this.... I wake up in the morning and say to myself " Today is going to be a good day." Others who are very close to me say to themselvs " I wonder how crappy today is going to be?". It's just a difference of mindset and perception. I tend to take things people say and do at face value without reading in it. An example might be someone one tells my co-worker that she looks nice today and says nothing to me... I tend to think ya, she does look nice! My friend would think by not saying anything to them too, they were implying they don't look nice. Anyhooo...that's what I think.


Actually some of us who have had hugely crappy lives are thinking things will be generally crappy because they show a pattern of having always been crappy (despite what we have done to stop the crap). To expect otherwise would be insane (or beneath our intelligence), not that we should not work to keep the crap from happening, but just sayin'...............



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17 Sep 2009, 11:53 pm

chawieman wrote:
Happiness is a choice...even being depressed is a choice except in the rarest chemical imbalances. The depressed person is actually CHOOSING to be upset about a factor or variety of factors that is either conscious or unconscious. It's not about making words mean things other than what they are, it's choosing to either be affected by the words and actions of other people or not. It's always your choice whether to regard other people's opinions as important, so other people really shouldn't be a factor in your personal depression, except in the rarest cases such as they are imprisoning you unjustly or someone you love has died. Even in these examples, choosing to be upset or depressed is still a choice. Once you can live in the moment and accept all things and yourself as you are, there is no reason for happiness or unhappiness, but you can choose.


I absolutely disagree - did the victims of Auschwitz choose to be depressed about being interred? Ask any behavioral psychologist that knows that scenario - they will tell you that some of the inmates of concentration camps wanted to remain in them as they knew nothing else - they're human "spring" has been sprung and could not be repaired.

I used to think Sir Winston Churchill's saying: "Never, never, never quit" was admirable; but now I think it's overly-simplistic pap because for some it is NOT attainable - they have been pushed too far and CANNOT heal.



Last edited by polymathpoolplayer on 18 Sep 2009, 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

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18 Sep 2009, 12:05 am

zer0netgain wrote:
To be fair, being happy is a choice. If you can't learn to be happy with nothing, having everything won't solve the core problem.

This does not diminish any "issues" you legitimately struggle with, but if you purpose in your heart to be a happy person and focus on positives as much as you can, you will be amazed how it changes your overall disposition.


This thread is not about material wealth versus poverty. Please read it again.



TheMisfit
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18 Sep 2009, 12:26 am

Perhaps most people take this too literally.

You can't just decide oh I'm going to be happy today, or I'm going to be sad today.

Example: Logic helps me to be 'happy', but not directly. When I'm in a really bad mood, I will tell myself 'now you are being emotional, so you will tend to whine and dwell on the pain, you will tend to focus on the negative sides. Now why don't you put aside those emotions for just a few minutes and think about what can be done to solve the problem'. That sort of helps me to think logically and therefore evaluate my situation more objectively.

It shortens the amount of time I'm unhappy. Therefore by choosing to address problems logically, I choose to be 'happier'. It is about viewing things from a different angle, rather than directly controlling emotions. Just my two cents.

*I believe depression is a different story. So this applies better to the non clinical depressive cases.



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18 Sep 2009, 1:18 am

Ugh mom used to tell me I could choose to not get upset over something. Umm...no. I turned that back on her later when she got upset with me over things like the amount of toys in my room. I told her "You can choose to not be upset!" I knew it was a lie before but now I had called her on it.



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18 Sep 2009, 6:23 am

TheMisfit wrote:
Perhaps most people take this too literally.

You can't just decide oh I'm going to be happy today, or I'm going to be sad today.

Example: Logic helps me to be 'happy', but not directly. When I'm in a really bad mood, I will tell myself 'now you are being emotional, so you will tend to whine and dwell on the pain, you will tend to focus on the negative sides. Now why don't you put aside those emotions for just a few minutes and think about what can be done to solve the problem'. That sort of helps me to think logically and therefore evaluate my situation more objectively.

It shortens the amount of time I'm unhappy. Therefore by choosing to address problems logically, I choose to be 'happier'. It is about viewing things from a different angle, rather than directly controlling emotions. Just my two cents.

I'm glad that works for you. From what I understand, however, that does not work for everyone. The people on this thread that are essentially saying you have to will yourself to be happy need to understand that.

I'm very fortunate in that I have mostly happy days with the occasional sad day. Usually the sad day is for no particular reason. I admit that I am sad and that this is okay, and that tomorrow is a different day and it will likely be better (it almost always is). Sometimes eating well helps or just changing up the routine. Sometimes it doesn't.


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18 Sep 2009, 6:39 am

polymathpoolplayer wrote:
zer0netgain wrote:
To be fair, being happy is a choice. If you can't learn to be happy with nothing, having everything won't solve the core problem.

This does not diminish any "issues" you legitimately struggle with, but if you purpose in your heart to be a happy person and focus on positives as much as you can, you will be amazed how it changes your overall disposition.


This thread is not about material wealth versus poverty. Please read it again.


I'm not making it about material wealth versus poverty. The simple fact is that how you CHOOSE to look at life does have an impact on how "happy" you are.

This took me a long time to learn. Yes, I don't really "feel" happy most all the time, but I used to feel angry and miserable all the time.

When I made the CHOICE to be happy and deliberately stop obsessing so much over everything that wasn't right and force myself to acknowledge what was good in my life, I found it made a significant difference in my overall "happiness."

It's called mind-body dualism. Just as a physical condition could make you feel some way you have no emotional basis to feel, so can an emotional state elicit a physical response.

If you CHOOSE to be a happy person (or as happy as you can be) and fill your mind with good thoughts, it does improve your temperament and outlook on life.