I was thinking about conformity and happiness today. Talking with my sister, we acknowledged how often we feel alone and as if we don’t fit in, and how we feel sad too. But she reminded me that the propensity for sadness is in us regardless, and is not due to non-conformity. One of my sons is a different child, and I know he will struggle. My goal is to help him love himself while struggling, and help him modulate his anxiety in healthier ways than disrupting class.
There are people in this world who are touched with darkness* and those who are not. Call it what you will, but I can generally feel it and sense it in people. The more difficult of my sons has it, but the younger one seems to not have it.
People who do not understand what it is to be “touched by darkness” often have little patience for those of us who do. We are told to snap out of it, to cheer up, to learn to fit in, to learn to get along in the world.
What people do not understand is that in many ways, the darkness comes from seeing the world EXACTLY as it is, and lamenting over the fact that nothing we do will change that. We take this as a tragedy and a personal failing, and often struggle to want to remain in this world.
A friend gives examples of what we hear: ”Why are you always so miserable? Why do you get upset so easily? Why can’t you just be happy? Stop getting worked up over things that don’t matter!” ”Just relax! Everything is fine!”
It can be soul shattering to hear those things – because we know the suffering that is going on, and we know we can’t stop it.
What people like me have to learn to do is to take our joy where we can find it, and learn to pretend to be normal to not scare the normal folk.
But inside, we are still just as touched by darkness as we always were. We have just learned to only share it with those who understand.
*I used to think this was basically code for mental illness, and while it certainly can mean that, I also think it signifies a heightened sensitivity and sense of empathy.
Thanks for this. Spot on, me too, +1, etc.
Yes.
Yup…as someone who’s struggled with depression, it’s a beast because you’re often treated as someone with something profoundly “wrong” with them, or as someone who’s deliberately choosing to be down. Like why the hell would I want to spend weeks at a time crying at the least provocation and wondering if I wanted to live? Yes, you have to find joy where you can. I had a great therapist who helped me accept being wired a certain way and how to work and deal with it; even friends were amazed at the difference. Sometimes it’s all about accepting there’s only so much one can do about the bad things in the world, and some things we just have to live with.
Depression runs in my family. I just thought feeling kind of sad all the time was normal. I have been suicidal, and have argued with people who just don’t experience the sense of hopelessness, futility and unending sorrow through which I used to drag myself. They consider suicide to be cowardice, and were pretty mean about dismissing the reasons behind the actions of people who would rather die than go on in agony.
After years of therapy that usually only gave me tools to deal with problem solving, but never actually lifted my spirits, my daughter grabbed me by the shoulders and explained that clinical depression is treatable, and that I had to get a prescription for antidepressants. She said, pointing at my chest, you can’t even do the (therapeutic) work until the hole in your heart is closed.
I’m a firm believer in the use of antidepressants, as long as there is a series of sessions with a therapist to relearn how to live, because life is different when your brain works better. There are a few side effects of the drugs that are annoying, but I am eternally grateful for the moment that an HMO therapist, who was This Close to Retirement, happened to be the doctor on duty when I had my first session with drug treatment. Now I know that what I had been feeling for decades was not normal. I’m not exactly sure that what I feel is what Really Normal feels like, but at least I have energy and optimism, and good feelings about the future. I still experience disappointment and sorrow, but they are appropriate to the situations that trigger them, not chronic states of being.