Posted by Greg A. on September 6, 2001, at 17:59:11
In reply to Re: And how do we know when we are truly happy?, posted by akc on September 6, 2001, at 14:16:36
How do we know when we are truly happy?
Thanks for asking. That got me thinking. If we were truly happy we wouldn’t be pondering the question. We would just be. Living in the moment. Not dragging a past around with us or dreading our future. We would experience whatever came our way and emotions would just spring up naturally and then move on. Like your grieving caveman.
I used to wonder if the drugs robbed me of my emotions, but now I think I did that to myself. I don’t know if the drugs overload the brain receptors and block real emotions. Maybe the ‘emotions’ that come with anxiety and depression, or mania, or whatever – maybe they have messed up all the receptors and those nice neurotransmitters. With drugs, we are still tinkering blindly trying to make repairs. We never received a set of instructions in a language we could understand. Maybe that’s why we get so much partial or temporary success. Just when we think we’re on to something, we can’t find the next step in the directions.
I am convinced that the years I spent training myself and being tutored to show no ‘inappropriate’ emotions – like anger or grief – have got me where I am today. I will always be a recovering depressed person. Capable of a return to that cloudy, sad gloom at any time. (Lest you think I am too pessimistic – I, as a recovering case know how to shorten those gloomy stays and how to make them more tolerable) After bottling up emotions for years, being strong and fooling everyone but myself, I was rewarded with reasonable substitutes – anxiety and depression. Of course these are even more hideous and reprehensible than regular emotions so I spent another few years trying to cover these up as well. It got to be too much. I said the hell with it. I am weak. I am sick. I need help. I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. I don’t want to be perfect. . . and these are good things. I still don’t know how to be happy, or sad, or angry in what I imagine to be a normal way. I have a much better idea of where to look for happiness than I did before though. I know that sadness and anger are not to be avoided, but are necessary human responses. I’m just not used to them and I don’t know how they work yet.
poster:Greg A.
thread:10876
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010901/msgs/10891.html