Are You Happy?!

Many things have been said about happiness. To me, I can not feel it anymore. Some say sadness is necessary to know happiness, like the night is necessary to know the day. For me all feeling is unipolar. Being depressed so long I noticed that my perspective on pleasure has shifted dramatically relative to what I used to feel. My average feeling—what I feel most of the time—has slid way down the happiness scale, and feeling "normal"—what everyone else feels and takes for granted in their daily life—is the highest form of happiness that I am able to attain. That feeling, what living is for other human beings, for me is happiness. To me, happiness is the functionality of the serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine receptors in my brain. It is not a choice. One can not be happy drowning, alone, against one's will, and without seeing the end of one's misery—while being expected to function normally in life.

—Excerpt from my journal, 3/18/10 4:02 AM

What is the secret to happiness? Is this really the most important question to ask? Then what is? The focus on Positive Psychology has a wide-ranging detrimental effect of people obsessing over being happy to the point where they are in despair over not being totally happy, if such a thing is even possible. If we could put a drug in the tap water that would make everybody happy, would we want that? Is happiness the highest achievement we should seek in life?

"Nowadays, it’s not enough to be happy—if you can be even happier. The American Dream and the pursuit of happiness have morphed from a quest for general contentment to the idea that you must be happy at all times and in every way."
—Lori Gottlieb

"One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to."

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

What is happiness? It's inner peace. Where does it come from? Your friends, parents, sister and brother. Having something to do - something that you enjoy. A hobby. Having a goal - something to look forward to. But a prerequisite for happiness is a health. A healthy physical as well as mental states are necessities. If a man is suffering from depression, he is unable to feel happy no matter ho hard he tries, due to anhedonia; it is simply impossible. And lastly, having just enough money - $75,000 a year - to cover necessities as well as a little extra.

This state of happiness is fleeting and always incomplete. It's the "pursuit of happiness" - a constant journey, not a destination. Perhaps we never can experience happiness in the exploited sense that it is made out to be. Appreciation of the present moment - and of what you have - friends, food, legal rights, etc. (whatever it is that you are thankful for) is also necessary.

"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life."

—Alexandre Dumas

Maybe one needs to die in order to live. I felt like I was dead. With nothing to look forward to, zero worth, only pain and misery and my unruly mind landing my thoughts on the darkest of subjects. This is not life in any sense. Each day--a drag. I got to the point when I did not want to wake up, because living was truly a trying task—trying to shed off the thoughts of death.

—Excerpt from my journal, 3/18/10

"The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."

—Allan K. Chalmers

Maybe happiness is having something to do, or, more generally, having a something that you look forward to doing—purpose.

—Excerpt from my journal, 3/18/10

So, here are the ingredients for happiness:

• Mental and physical health (being reasonably free from, e.g., depression and chronic pain)
• Something to do (to experience "flow" — an activity that utilizes your skills to the highest level)
• Something to love (a lover, a friend, a pet, an activity)
• Something to hope for (purpose)
• Appreciate what you have - for to be happy there must be something that you want but don't have
• Antidepressants, cognitive-behavioral therapy, meditation.

Provisional Existence

When I was depressed I was alive, but being alive was not life in any sense of the word. Viktor E. Frankl, a survivor of the holocaust, in his book 'Man's Search for Meaning', describes the life in the concentration camps as a "provisional existence". Frankl writes that the 'Latin word finis has two meanings: the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life'. Frankl explains that when 'a man ceased living for the future...the whole structure of his inner life changed; and signs of decay set in. When a person loses faith in the future and moves into a provisional existence their lives are doomed. A decline in physical and emotional well-being can be seen in people's refusal to see people, to get dressed, to engage - they lie prostrate, numbed by the pain of it all.

A man who could not see the end of his “provisional existence” was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. [...] A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts…in robbing the present of it’s reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. Often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself (transcend) Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet in reality they had not. (p. 91-92)
Man can only live by looking into the future – sub specie aeternitatis. (p. 94)

Thus, logotherapy.

–From my journal 4/14/10 5:17 AM

I remember my psychiatrist, Dr. J., said to me when I said I don't want to rush taking medication: "this is the time for you to make the decision that will shape your life. You can take this drug and get better in six months, go back to school, get your degree, and get a job and a family. I want you to make the right decision." That was on November 11, 2009. I feel like this is where I am right now. It is April 4, 2010. 

Exactly six months later.

–From my journal 4/14/10 5:27 AM

God, please just take away the pain. Just knowing that it's there hiding somewhere behind the curtains makes me not want to live. And I want to want to live. I hate being this way. I am so scared at every conscious moment because I realize just how close I am to that state. That state of complete loneliness and hopelessness. It is torture just knowing it's there and that I am at its mercy. It is my abductor who caged me in its basement and comes down frequently to rape me. It is like being in the middle of the pacific ocean at twilight, by yourself, dehydrated and hypothermic (thirsty and cold), with sharks circling around you, with the love of your life gone by being eaten by these sharks, and no hope of anyone finding you. You want to die. But you don't want to want to die. You are scared and hopeless.

When you're depressed you have virtually no coping mechanism (so you need everyone should act completely supportive, neglecting their own needs). Every life challenge you encounter seems insurmountable and menacing. You are unable to deal with anything, and the slightest pressure propels you into a whirlpool of hopelessness.

I'm always in and out of this state. Now I'm more out than in.

I am waiting for the day to come when I will wake up and feel the warmth of the sunshine on my body. When I will feel the joy of living. When I will be free of these merciless thoughts. And that day did come. And when I realized that it did I cried. I did not cry out of happiness or out of relief or out of pity for my past suffering. I cried because I didn't think this day would come. I waited for so long. I cried for all the past suffering, for passing of my lost years. But now I'm found! I feel I was liberated from years of inhumane treatment at the concentration camps. Now I'm free, but now I'm tired from the long road. But there is no time to rest, life doesn't wait. Your responsibilities come knocking in like they were waiting there all along, right by the door, just to barge in when I am finally able to get on my feet.

I feel like all this time was for nothing. "unnecessary" is too light of a word--you wouldn't say "there are people being raped every day unnecessarily". This is an abomination and an embarrassment to the society that failed to respond promptly and properly. It is made even worse by the fact that society stigmatizes those suffering--leaving them to fend helpless for themselves--and condemns those who seek help and those who provide it. It turns a blind eye on the problem, bluntly denying it thereby dooming everybody who falls into the nets of depression, and that is one out of four people. There are one in ten people with clinical depression in any given year. How many people with depression do you know? It's de facto "don't ask don't tell". Each of us is to blame, unless we actively bring this up in conversations and seek out people who need help to let them know you are there for them.

Whatever the case, I like this life so much better that what it used to be.

My Diagnosis

Diagnosis: chronic early-onset atypical depression


Atypical Depression characteristics:

• Leaden paralysis
• Sensitivity to rejection
• Difficulty forming relationships
• Social anxiety

Leaden Paralysis characteristics:

• carrying a 50-pound backpack everywhere
• always walking uphill
• hard to breath
• full-time exhaustion

A sensation known as "laden paralysis". I felt the persistent pressure of a hundred pounds on every inch of my body. It was difficult to move or breath, the air felt as viscous as honey. My mere existence took the quality of heaviness. It is the sensation of always walking uphill, as if carrying an non-detachable 50-pound backpack with me at all times. Whenever I walked on the street I was overcome by a strong urge to lie down right there in the middle of the side walk. My exhaustion tramped any care of what others might think. But I knew that even this would not take away my exhaustion, which was omnipresent. Afterward I felt levity.

Excerpts from my journal:

October 29, 2008 10:51 PM

Today my psychological counselor told me I have depression. I don't know why, but I felt relieved and a little happy. It's like all my anxiety and morbid thoughts had been validated. I even wonder if I had the factitious disorder because finding out you have depression should not feel so relieving. 

I hope I will not internalize this thought and it wont affect me negatively.

I also read that feeling depressed has positive aspects--creates compassion.

Symptoms: 

• Self-doubt
• Feelings of worthlessness
• Feelings of loneliness and isolation
• Difficulty making decisions
• Meaninglessness

August 26, 2008 8:50 PM

I can't think straight, I'm confused and having crazy thoughts, like questioning my gender and sexual orientation, imagining crazy subconscious motives for my actions. I'm experiencing extreme vacillations in feelings in a short period of time. I'm feeling bad for social mistakes that I made which made the situation awkward.

This is a particular state which I can't figure out. it makes me feel absolutely hopeless. It has something to do with being accepted by a circle of friends. Why do I get so fucked up?

Who am I? Sometimes I feel like I'm living without a purpose. Having apocalyptic thoughts. I can't find a base, everything is a distraction from this vacuum.

Symptoms: 

• Self-blame and feelings of excessive guilt
• Difficulty making decisions
• Feeling exhausted
• Feeling down for most part of every day