When I was little, I used to love swinging across the monkey bars. I found a consistent fluidity, allowing for an area of growth and movement, but a sense of security the next rung would always be within grasp.
As I aged, I lost sight of the strength and bravery it took to move your hand. How do we decide to hang on or let go? Many people believe happiness or the transition from a feeling of misery to enjoyment is a choice. I cannot say I completely agree. What if you make the choice or take the pledge? “I will be happy.” It creates the idea that something is innately wrong with you if your experience is anything but joy. I have said it a million times, and it ends with unmet expectations and disappointment. Now is the time to address the argument of learned helplessness, or how all of the power is within my control.
But, maybe it is not. Many mental health providers I have met believed I lack motivation, open-mindedness, and avoid tasks appointed to assist me in my recovery. I was in a very unsafe environment for an extended period of time. I needed it to sink in. I needed to adjust to a stable life. Now I can cope. Now I can breathe. Now I can live. I am ready.
There isn’t a magic pill, something someone will say, or even something you will do that will make you eternally content.
Unlike math, there is no variable we can plug into the equation to achieve happiness. Of course, it is important to utilize coping skills, do the things you love, or improve relationships, but there is still no guarantee. So, this is the part of the narrative where I speak from personal experience, and the opinion of the infamous Meredith Grey and say, “Not everybody has to be happy all of the time. That is not mental health. That is crap.”
In life, we don’t have role models for those who have a messed up life to show us down the road to healing. Sometimes there is no road because the rain keeps falling. Early on in life, I conformed to the attitude of the Greys Anatomy character, Meredith Grey, who has proved to America there is nothing wrong with “Fine.” Like Meredith, I’m filled with trust issues, lack of emotional expression, and attachment. I learned and announced I am not “bright and shiny,” and most of the time my stories have really sad endings. But, I can still be fine, functioning, and surviving.
In addition, like many other teenage girls, I strongly identify with the character Hazel Grace from the book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Hazel is a depressed teenager with cancer who falls in love “slowly, and then all at once,” with a boy named Augusts Waters who also has a “touch of cancer.” Of course, I like Hazel just because she has cancer, and this is to be expected as she explains- a cancer perk. But, I truly love Hazel because she tells a really good crappy story without a stupid made-up miracle ending. I called my dog Grace Hazel Lancaster, and while I knew her it was purely because her name was Grace. I never predicted she would die at the beginning of her life just like Augustus Waters. Similar to Hazel, my grief didn’t kill me, and maybe for some people that is enough.
I was reminded of the monkey bars, and the idea of change by John Green when he says, “Without pain how could we know joy? This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.”
Hurt does not grant automatic joy, and neither does “choosing” happiness. Depression sucks, and maybe similar to me, a lot of unfair things happened to you, so you have every right to be angry, sad, scared, or disappointed for however long you need. So, it’s okay to be stuck on the same rung, unable to move, but hang on. Someday, somehow, something will click, and you will be able to release your grip, gain momentum, and get to the other side.
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