Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Careful with your words

The sad death of Robin Williams had led to a public outpouring of grief. It is a deeply upsetting thing for anyone to take their own life. But lucky for us the internet is there to hold our hands with the meme.

I noticed the one below earlier this week.


Now I want to state, what I am about to say is based on my own experiences, opinions and life.

The one thing I take most from the death of Robin Williams is the increased awareness of depression, anxiety, addiction and Parkinson's disease. 

For us or anyone to say someone is happy or unhappy is us projecting an emotional state on to someone. Happy, sad, angry, sorrow are emotions. Emotional dispositions are character traits. Depression is an illness, a medical term.

Depression is not feeling sad, it is not being a bit miserable. It can and does change your life. It makes everything harder to do from getting up in the morning to doing simple tasks such as paying bills or doing the vacuuming. It makes life seems less worthwhile and can make you want to give up the will to live. And it can make you suicidal. 

Depressed people don't want to be depressed. Well not the ones I know anyway. They want to be happy. On the whole they can be happy but still live with depression. 

I don't want to bleat on and on as I no longer want mental illness to define me or the relationships I have. Just a word of caution, be careful with the language to use. Monday mornings aren't depressing, the are just moments in space-time that occur and then pass. Your good friend isn't avoiding your phone calls because they are miserable, they are genuinely struggling with an illness.

RIP Robin Williams - Your memory will live on in all the happiness you brought Generation X and Y.


Sunday, August 3, 2014

Accept, change, leave

How do you do?

When I last wrote I said no more sad. And for the most part I have been achieving that. I have had moments when I have sat and stared in to the abyss and wished it all away but they have been few and far between. 

I've been dealing with my problems a lot better. Instead of ignoring the crap and hoping it goes away I have been looking for meaningful solutions or in the case of many things, just solving the problem. I even got my car fixed (with a little help from big sis).

When I talk of sad things I mean the things that were sent to try us. I do not mean depression. Depression is an illness that requires medical treatment. Sadness is the feeling you get when you come home and realise the dogs have eaten yet another pair of beautiful shoes. 

Eckhart Tolle said, and I paraphrase, if you don't like something accept it, change it or leave. I thought about this for a long time over the weekend. Changing certain things is not an option so I am choosing to accept them. 

Hurt feelings, upset, anger are just moments in time, phenomenons if you will. Accept that they happened and move on. I can't change the past, I cannot change them moments. But I can decide not to dwell. 

Well what about leaving? If staying in a situation will cause me to keep having these moments of sadness then I will leave. It is almost inevitable that things will be better, things will change of their own accord. Change is the only constant in this life but change is in the past once it's happened. 

I am happy now. In the moment. In the now. With friends who love me. With people who care. 

I'm not cured. I am clinically depressed. I will sometimes walk in to work shaking and close to tears because facing the day has been an almost insurmountable challenge. But I will have made the decision to accept that feeling, leave the house and try and change my outlook. 

That's all I can do.