Happiness – A theory and a Rant.

[Desdemona]

Loki Panwit posted a thread a few days ago called, “What did you do today to make yourself happy? http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=62036 and I thought that was great. I noticed that some of the posters don’t or won’t do anything to make themselves happy, and that got me thinking.

I started looking back over the four decades it took me to finally find happiness. This is just one person’s journey, and is in no way meant to be held up as a shining example. Hardly.

Timeline:
[Birth - grade school] Seeds of depression and fear of abandonment sown here. Had a nightmare when I was in preschool that my mother got in the car and drove away, leaving me. When I woke up crying, she came stomping into my bedroom and shook me, yelling “what’s wrong with you!”

[Grade school to mid school] Isolation and depression take firm root at this stage. Suicidal fantasies begin around the age of eleven. “Someone Saved my Life Tonight” is my favorite song, a song about rage and grief at a former love, and I’m not even dating or into boys yet. Looking back now I see it was, for me, a song about my parents.

[Mid school to high school] Ongoing depression that never ends. Attempts at self-medication and self destruction with risky behavior, sex, and drugs.

[High school to mid 20’s] Suicide attempts begin. Was taken to mental hospital by a boyfriend.

[20’s to 30’s] Finally diagnosed and put on medication.

[30’s to 40’s] Took self off medication and had strong desire to commit suicide, for the last time. Called a hotline and was put on hold for what seemed an endless period, then disconnected. This was my turning point.

After I got HUNG UP ON by the suicide prevention hotline people, which for me was the single most funny and ironic moment in my life, I had an epiphany. If the people who are in charge of one of the most important jobs of a person’s life are that stupid, that incompetent, that ugly and that ridiculous, then by god, there is room in this world for someone like me. I have just as much of a right to exist as these people, or anyone else. Even more so.

I thought having the perfect job and having lots of money would make me happy. I was never more miserable. I thought that finding the perfect partner and getting married would complete me and make me happy. It didn’t. It just brought a new set of problems. I thought being surrounded by adoring friends would solve all my problems, but at the end of the day when they all went home, I was still left with myself.

So after all this I made a choice. I chose… to be happy.

I got tired of waiting.
“But Desdemona, it’s not that simple!”

Yeah, believe it or not, it is.

I think Happiness is a choice. You choose to be so. I didn’t know how to be, but I knew I wanted to be, so I got some help.

If you can’t get help, compartmentalize. Life is not one big chunk. It is more like an ice cube tray. Your work life is not your home life. Your romantic life is not your inner life, and so on. It is possible to be happy about some of these facets of living and not others. It’s about being and living in the here and now.

For this reason, happiness is filled with paradoxes. You can be happy in the midst of grieving for a loss (as I am, right now). You can be happy and angry. You can be happy even when everyone else would like it better if you weren’t. The advertisers in women’s magazines and on mainstream television don’t want you to be happy. If you were, you wouldn’t be scared into buying their products and services.

I think it takes a lot of courage to be happy. I don’t think you have to be a grinning idiot to be happy. I don’t think it’s about rainbows and bubbles, although if you like those sorts of things then, go you! You don’t have to lose your edge. It’s not about giving up the part of you that is interesting. It’s about getting pissed and just deciding for yourself once and for all that you’re not going to wait for it anymore.

At least, don’t wait until you are forty.

[Deranged Hermit]

If you can’t get help, compartmentalize. Life is not one big chunk. It is more like an ice cube tray. Your work life is not your home life. Your romantic life is not your inner life, and so on. It is possible to be happy about some of these facets of living and not others. It’s about being living in the here and now.


This whole post is great, but the part I quoted above really made a lightbulb go on for me. :idea: It seems like if one little (or big) thing goes wrong, I make myself miserable about everything else. Thank you for making this thread.

[Amethyst Rose]

Whoops... I was gonna bump this, but DH got to it before I had a chance. I don't have anything to say beyond, you're absolutely right.

[Athena-Nadine]

Beautiful, Desdemona. Just beautiful. Your post gave me chills. You’ve brought upon a compulsion to share my story. :) My story is similar to yours in feeling, if not necessarily in the details of occurrences.

My father was an alcoholic. My mother, who was 16 when I was born (my father was 28) cheated on my mother when I was 4 or so. They fought for years. Even worse than the fighting was the fact that my father would wake me up, drag me out of bed, and force me to watch. He even made me watch him hit her.

By the time I started school, I had almost completely withdrawn into myself (I was only in Kindergarten!). We were broke then, so I never had very nice clothes. On top of having to go home and watch an almost nightly ritual of y father getting drunk and violent, I got to go to school and be picked on and tortured by the other children for not fitting in.

By the time I was in 4th grade (and in a different school because we moved to another district), I was not only getting picked on; I was getting beaten up. My father, still drinking, threw us all out of the house more than once. They were still fighting over something that happened years before. My father hit my mother for the last time then (she broke a lamp over his head and knocked him out—he never put a hand on her again).

We moved again a year after. I began 5th grade in a different school. While I was no longer being physically attacked by kids in school, I was still being teased and tormented in other ways. My father was still drinking. He was also doing any drug he could get his hands on. My maternal grandmother, sent to baby-sit us after school, was no better. She was always drunk as well.

Junior high school went by only slightly better.

In high school, I was raped (I was 15 and a virgin). I tried to commit suicide at 16. My parents still don’t know to this day, 16 years later. I was so screwed up in the head that I stayed with the boy who did it for a little over a year. He spent a good part of that year beating me. At one point, he cheated on me and tried to leave me. I cut every single finger on my hands and wrote him a letter in blood, begging him not to go.

No one paid attention. My parents never knew. I was a model child at home until shortly after.

A few months later, I started running away from home. I don’t know how many times I ran, but it went on until I was close to 18. I dropped out of high school (with a straight A average and blew a scholarship to an Ivy League University in the process).

At 17, I began to try to straighten myself out. I got my GED. I was no longer with that boy. I left him for someone else (I was too afraid to leave him without the protection of another boyfriend). I was with my next boyfriend for 4 years. He was great for about 6 months and then he started drinking. When I left him, he stalked me for over a year. I reported him to the police, but apparently, stalking by itself isn’t a crime. :rolleyes:

After that, I spent 10 years in a relationship with someone I didn’t love. We broke up for 2 in between, and I ended up engaged to someone else. I broke my ex-fiancé’s heart so badly that it finally served as a wake up call. It took me almost 4 years to get over what I did to him.

(those here who are very close to me, know that this is only scratching the surface of the horrors I lived through and helped perpetuate in my life)

I, also, believed that the perfect job and lots of money would make me happy. And I had it. I was miserable. Sure, the money is fun. But it doesn’t fill the empty hole inside. I had to lose almost every single thing that I ever cared about to finally realize that I was the only person who could help me in the end.

My ex used to always tell me that he wished that just once, I could see myself the way he saw me. He always used to tell me that he wished that I wasn’t so blind to how wonderful and beautiful I am. Those words haunted me after I left him. It wasn’t until about a year after we broke up that I really heard them.

One day, after a very brief reconciliation with my ex-fiancé that only made things worse, I finally realized that no one was responsible for my happiness but me. No one could make me happy but me. I finally realized that I had absolutely no excuse at all to not be happy. Only a choice. Do I go on as I have been my whole life, jumping from one wrong decision to another, looking for something that will always be out of grasp? Do I continue to look in all the wrong places? Or do I take my happiness into my own hands and choose life? I chose life.

I survived September 11th. My father had a stroke in October of 2002, and died from it this past Mother’s Day—just over 3 months ago. I became pregnant and miscarried 3 weeks after he died. Yet I smile. I laugh. I am happy. The wounds from my childhood and early adulthood are closed and healed. Those scars are mostly gone. The scars from September 11th are slowly starting to fade. The wounds from my father’s death and my miscarriage 2 months ago are still raw.

But I am wonderfully, incredibly, happy.

Because I will it, because I choose it, I am happy. I am stronger than anything that has been, or could be, thrown at me.

I am free.

[Pol]

Desdemona, you've done it. You've finally conjured the guts to say what most people would be too afraid of saying and admitting.
I think the modern world is fixated on depression and unhappiness, and finding a pill or a person who can fix us - instead of realising that we have the same abilities, same potential, and same reason to live as everyone else.

[AbyssRose]

wow desdemona.. I sat her in Awe reading your post.. I think this is one of the most beautifully honest threads I have read in a LONG time.. I dont even konw what to say to it, but that your right.. and thats so wonderful you came to this state of mind to tell the people out here of how you felt.. It makes everyone feel like their not alone.. *hugs* that was great!

[Lunacie]

Interesting thread and very moving stories. I read the thread that Loki started and I didn't really see anyone who "don't or won't" do anything to make themselves happy. I saw some people who realized that it's up to them to make themselves happy. I saw some people who said they didn't do anything today but would try to do something tomorrow.

It would be nice if everyone was happy all the time, but I'm not sure that's a realistic expectation. I have days when I'm happy despite all the crap that has happened in my life, and there are days when nothing makes me happy despite all the good things I have in my life. As long as someone doesn't get discouraged and depressed for a very long time it's pretty normal to have our ups and downs.

[Pan]

Loki Panwit posted a thread a few days ago called, “What did you do today to make yourself happy? http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=62036 and I thought that was great. I noticed that some of the posters don’t or won’t do anything to make themselves happy, and that got me thinking.

I think Happiness is a choice. You choose to be so. I didn’t know how to be, but I knew I wanted to be, so I got some help.

Aw.. thank you. :hugz: I just did that thread because so many people talk about the bad things, that sometimes we forget the good. I do the same thing. :blech:

I'm glad you posted this. It really puts into perspective that we can choose to be happy, or we can choose to be sad. Right now? I'm fighting to remain optimistic about something I've always wanted to do, and suddenly have the chance. I just have to NOT think about money. :noway:

So, thank you. It's good to see that people want to be happy!

[Cappy]

I agree. And Des, thank you for writing that. I thought it was beautiful and dead on.

[Desdemona]

Thanks you guys, :hugz: it can be kind of scary posting really personal stuff on a message board. I was afraid to look. :bigredblu If I can learn from someone else's mistakes and if someone can learn from mine, then it wasn't a waste of cyberspace. You guys are awesome.

[teishabee]

Nallia and Desdemona, reading your stories is capurvating. You both have been through along and yet you still turn in the face of it and can be happy. You are role models for us all. I only hope half the people here can read this thread and know that there are such beautiful and happy beings out there.

[Faeawyn]

:thumbsup: Beautiful post. I only hope some of our younger members can learn from your words :hugz:

[Athena-Nadine]

Interesting thread and very moving stories. I read the thread that Loki started and I didn't really see anyone who "don't or won't" do anything to make themselves happy. I saw some people who realized that it's up to them to make themselves happy. I saw some people who said they didn't do anything today but would try to do something tomorrow.
To be honest, I haven't read that thread yet. I saw this one first, and was moved to post by Desdemona's courage in sharing her story. :)


It would be nice if everyone was happy all the time, but I'm not sure that's a realistic expectation. I have days when I'm happy despite all the crap that has happened in my life, and there are days when nothing makes me happy despite all the good things I have in my life. As long as someone doesn't get discouraged and depressed for a very long time it's pretty normal to have our ups and downs.
I agree. We all have moments and days when things just suck and all we want to do is crawl back into bed, cry and scream, eat until we're sick, or not eat at all, and not speak to anyone. For me, choosing to be happy doesn't mean ignoring or supressing the feelings of anger, sadness, or depression. It means that even through the times when everything seems at its worst, when everything seems to be falling to pieces and there doesn't seem to be any way that it can get better again, I am still ultimately happy.

I don't look at being happy as just another emotion I'm feelings for the moment. I see it as closer to love. I love my family. I love my fiance. And they can drive me to distraction some days. My sister can make me angrier than anyone else can. They can all hurt me easier and more than anyone else can. Yet even when I am hurt or angry with them, I still love them all. Even when my love for them is the furthest thing from my mind, it's still a fact that it's there.

[Keroberos]

thanks to both Desdemonda and Nallia for sharing your personal stories. It can always be hard to open up, but I for one feel that now I know you better, and have gained more respect for you as a result.

[Desdemona]

To be honest, I haven't read that thread yet. I saw this one first, and was moved to post by Desdemona's courage in sharing her story. :)


I agree. We all have moments and days when things just suck and all we want to do is crawl back into bed, cry and scream, eat until we're sick, or not eat at all, and not speak to anyone. For me, choosing to be happy doesn't mean ignoring or supressing the feelings of anger, sadness, or depression. It means that even through the times when everything seems at its worst, when everything seems to be falling to pieces and there doesn't seem to be any way that it can get better again, I am still ultimately happy.

I don't look at being happy as just another emotion I'm feelings for the moment. I see it as closer to love. I love my family. I love my fiance. And they can drive me to distraction some days. My sister can make me angrier than anyone else can. They can all hurt me easier and more than anyone else can. Yet even when I am hurt or angry with them, I still love them all. Even when my love for them is the furthest thing from my mind, it's still a fact that it's there.
Right on. :thumbsup:

[Desdemona]

thanks to both Desdemonda and Nallia for sharing your personal stories. It can always be hard to open up, but I for one feel that now I know you better, and have gained more respect for you as a result.
Thank you! :flowers:

[Jenne]

That was great, and yes, I agree...happiness IS a choice...and I needed reminding of that!
Thanks, Gals, for sharing and saying what you did...:hugz:

[Lunacie]

I agree. We all have moments and days when things just suck and all we want to do is crawl back into bed, cry and scream, eat until we're sick, or not eat at all, and not speak to anyone. For me, choosing to be happy doesn't mean ignoring or supressing the feelings of anger, sadness, or depression. It means that even through the times when everything seems at its worst, when everything seems to be falling to pieces and there doesn't seem to be any way that it can get better again, I am still ultimately happy.

I don't look at being happy as just another emotion I'm feelings for the moment. I see it as closer to love. I love my family. I love my fiance. And they can drive me to distraction some days. My sister can make me angrier than anyone else can. They can all hurt me easier and more than anyone else can. Yet even when I am hurt or angry with them, I still love them all. Even when my love for them is the furthest thing from my mind, it's still a fact that it's there.
Funny, isn't it, what amazingly complex creatures we humans are. We can be unhappy about something at the same time we're happy as a clam about something else. I'm pretty satisfied with my life at present, and happy about where I am and who I am, but I still get unhappy about situations I may be involved in. I think maybe the only thing that kept me going through years of chronic, clinical, suicidal depression was being about to look around me and realize what I was actually happy about in my life and my home. That's part of seeing the balance in all things, the whole picture, eh?

[Pol]

I don't look at being happy as just another emotion I'm feelings for the moment. I see it as closer to love. I love my family. I love my fiance. And they can drive me to distraction some days. My sister can make me angrier than anyone else can. They can all hurt me easier and more than anyone else can. Yet even when I am hurt or angry with them, I still love them all. Even when my love for them is the furthest thing from my mind, it's still a fact that it's there.

Very well said.

I think that happiness is closer to darkness than it is light. Happiness is the state that we seek by nature, it's our nature to be happy, and depression is like light that fills in and takes away that happiness.

[LittlePerson]

So true Desdamona. I've realized that in order for me to be happy I have to stop being everyone elses doormat and know that if there's something that I am or do that makes someone else not like me or to be upset with me then that's their problem. For years I've lived in fear and submission, always ready to bend over backwords for every around me. And though I'm not completely there yet, I am on my way and have already felt happier because of it. I am loosing weight because I want to not because everyone else says to. I know that someday (I'm 27 soon to be 28 and my husband is 26) I want to have a child, I used to think I didn't, but I do and I also realize that I'm not ready yet and that I'm going to have to wait (for various reasons). Even though my parents and lots of other people wanted me to have babies, I didn't want to and even at times felt bad about that, but since realizing I do I feel even worse to think that maybe some of them were right about how I want to have children. Thing is I didn't know that till jus this week and if they ask again just like someone did yesterday I can say yes I want a child someday just not now, I'm not ready.

Knowing what you want and standing up for what you want and what you believe in can be a hard thing. Especially when it comes to a matter of one's own spiritual path. If you believe that it's something good for you it shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks. That's something I've had to deal with for years now. I refuse to let myself believe things that I just don't believe.
Good job Desdemona, on realizing your true standing in the world that we all deserve to be here no matter what. I was miserable too until I realized that. If you have time, look up the poem Desiderata on the internet and print it or buy a plaque of it. I have one in my cubicle and it something that helps me. My highschool english teacher gave everyone in class a scroll of this poem and for years I had it on my wall all yellowed and all till someone gave me the plaque as a present. You will find the part that says: "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here." to be very uplifting if you're anything like me.
Keep up the good work you've done for yourself.
With Blessings,
LittlePerson

[thok_ragnarok]

Loki Panwit posted a thread a few days ago called, “What did you do today to make yourself happy? http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=62036 and I thought that was great. I noticed that some of the posters don’t or won’t do anything to make themselves happy, and that got me thinking.

I started looking back over the four decades it took me to finally find happiness. This is just one person’s journey, and is in no way meant to be held up as a shining example. Hardly.

Timeline:
[Birth - grade school] Seeds of depression and fear of abandonment sown here. Had a nightmare when I was in preschool that my mother got in the car and drove away, leaving me. When I woke up crying, she came stomping into my bedroom and shook me, yelling “what’s wrong with you!”

[Grade school to mid school] Isolation and depression take firm root at this stage. Suicidal fantasies begin around the age of eleven. “Someone Saved my Life Tonight” is my favorite song, a song about rage and grief at a former love, and I’m not even dating or into boys yet. Looking back now I see it was, for me, a song about my parents.

[Mid school to high school] Ongoing depression that never ends. Attempts at self-medication and self destruction with risky behavior, sex, and drugs.

[High school to mid 20’s] Suicide attempts begin. Was taken to mental hospital by a boyfriend.

[20’s to 30’s] Finally diagnosed and put on medication.

[30’s to 40’s] Took self off medication and had strong desire to commit suicide, for the last time. Called a hotline and was put on hold for what seemed an endless period, then disconnected. This was my turning point.

After I got HUNG UP ON by the suicide prevention hotline people, which for me was the single most funny and ironic moment in my life, I had an epiphany. If the people who are in charge of one of the most important jobs of a person’s life are that stupid, that incompetent, that ugly and that ridiculous, then by god, there is room in this world for someone like me. I have just as much of a right to exist as these people, or anyone else. Even more so.

I thought having the perfect job and having lots of money would make me happy. I was never more miserable. I thought that finding the perfect partner and getting married would complete me and make me happy. It didn’t. It just brought a new set of problems. I thought being surrounded by adoring friends would solve all my problems, but at the end of the day when they all went home, I was still left with myself.

So after all this I made a choice. I chose… to be happy.

I got tired of waiting.
“But Desdemona, it’s not that simple!”

Yeah, believe it or not, it is.

I think Happiness is a choice. You choose to be so. I didn’t know how to be, but I knew I wanted to be, so I got some help.

If you can’t get help, compartmentalize. Life is not one big chunk. It is more like an ice cube tray. Your work life is not your home life. Your romantic life is not your inner life, and so on. It is possible to be happy about some of these facets of living and not others. It’s about being and living in the here and now.

For this reason, happiness is filled with paradoxes. You can be happy in the midst of grieving for a loss (as I am, right now). You can be happy and angry. You can be happy even when everyone else would like it better if you weren’t. The advertisers in women’s magazines and on mainstream television don’t want you to be happy. If you were, you wouldn’t be scared into buying their products and services.

I think it takes a lot of courage to be happy. I don’t think you have to be a grinning idiot to be happy. I don’t think it’s about rainbows and bubbles, although if you like those sorts of things then, go you! You don’t have to lose your edge. It’s not about giving up the part of you that is interesting. It’s about getting pissed and just deciding for yourself once and for all that you’re not going to wait for it anymore.

At least, don’t wait until you are forty.


I agree...more people need to go through that change, I was that way. For me I was 20 and my dad while drunk decided that if I wanted to die he would help me in a double suicide via car off a cliff. I realized I wasn't happy because I made excuses instead of changes. I blamed others for my "horrible" life. My crushes who wouldn't date me, my loves who wouldn't remain loyal to me, my family who wouldn't buy me everything I wanted, my job for not paying me higher to be lazy, the school system for not giving me good marks based on my testing abilities, and the government for not paying for higher education for me. Now I've realized that it was my fault for accepting horrible actions by friends/loves, my laziness for not accomplishing more in life, my fault for expecting to get by on my IQ alone, and my fault for not trying harder. I see those people on here constantly and nothing makes me more sad than seeing someone making themselves miserable and blaming me (or society in general)

[Aedrais]

Ooh, wow. I just realized, and made this choice, less than a month ago. I'm still young, and reasonably unscarred, compared to some (*hugs to all*), but I was very unhappy, until I stumbled upon the realization that- well, you put it perfectly. Thank you so much for this post. You reminded me of my choice, and filled me with this simple, inexpressible joy. *hugs* Thank you.

[Radocs]

I think Happiness is a choice.

I concur.

[Desdemona]

Very well said.

I think that happiness is closer to darkness than it is light. Happiness is the state that we seek by nature, it's our nature to be happy, and depression is like light that fills in and takes away that happiness.I really, really like that. Thanks Pol for your contribution. :hugz:

[Pol]

:) I do what I can :)

[Lunacie]

Still, I hate it when people tell me to "chill out" or "be happy" when they're doing their best to piss me off and make me angry.

[bellamandu]

omg, I LOVE YOU!

[Desdemona]

Still, I hate it when people tell me to "chill out" or "be happy" when they're doing their best to piss me off and make me angry.
THAT is a whole 'nuther deal. Me too. I hate that the people who are causing me to be unhappy at that moment are not even granting me my right to be displeased. I'm with you there, Lunacie. And you can be a perfectly happy person and still get pissed off! That is what those people fail to understand. Who are they to tell you what to feel?

Ultimately it's your life, your psyche, your emotional domain. Don't give those creeps any power. Tell them to go write a Hallmark card. ;)

[gwendar]

Bravo!
Inspiring. Glad you both shared your stories.
(((hugs)))

[Moon Daughter]

reading this thread made me cry...

[Desdemona]

reading this thread made me cry...Nooooo, don't cry! :hugz:

[Toriach]

A fascinating story. I agree with much of what you've said. For myself I believe that "happiness" is an unbalanced emotional state and one that is to be enjoyed when it occurs but neither to be actively sought, nor held onto for too long. Rather I think what most people really want is the state known as contentment. It is a much more balanced emotional state, easier to achieve and to maintain.

[Calyx]

Very inspirational, ladies. Thanks for sharing. :hugz: I admire that you have the gumption to do so on a public forum--that takes guts!
I have had more than my fair share of horrors in my life, and you are right Des. Happiness is a choice you make. One day I woke up and remembered this. I've tried to live that way since, which was about 15 years ago. Occasionally, I forget this.
Thanks for posting a good reminder to me. :hugz:
Oh, and I am VERY happy right now. :smoochypo