“What is the point of it all,” asks the depressed person numerous times on a daily basis. Perhaps a sunrise-or-sunset-painted sky offers momentary respite from begging the world for an answer, but it’s so easy to return to the loop of wondering: why.
Happiness is incredibly alluring. But is happiness something one should even desire? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs certainly doesn’t have “being happy” at the top. No, that’s “Self Actualization” — peak experiences where you are in flow and experiencing full creativity. Is that happiness? That moment where you are lost in your work — when you’re producing at full human capacity, that’s not happiness, is it? But it is distraction from the opposite. Maybe that’s the same thing.
I finally went to the psychiatrist because every doctor at Kaiser has told me I should go to the psychiatrist. Perhaps this is because at every single prenatal appointment I have to fill out those “are you depressed or anxious” survey forms and add up my score and it always adds up to “yes you are depressed and anxious.”
She asked me the same questions they all do. I told her my life story over 60 minutes. I’ve felt this way all my life. Some days are worse than others. Some days I think I’m used to it and I’m fine. Other days, not so much.
In the end, despite informing her five times when I walked in that I don’t want drugs, she offered me whatever antidepressant I wanted (minus the ones known for seizures in small children.) I politely declined, and suggested that perhaps after a year of breastfeeding I will consider her offer. Without the medication, there was not much she could do for me. She gave me her card with an offer for drugs yet again, should I change my mind.
Maybe I should be one of those life-long medicated people. But I’d miss the highs and lows, the inspiration of feeling much too hard, caring too much.
I’ve know this because I’ve tried antidepressants before and all they did was numb me. I didn’t feel happiness. I didn’t feel anything. I thought perhaps they were causing a placebo effect but then when I tried my best to cry (something I can typically do at a moment’s notice) and couldn’t shed one tear. I knew I was gone. The numbness was refreshing for a little while, then it wasn’t.
So now I’m trying something new. New-ish. I’m trying to remove “happiness” from a desired outcome, at least as far as anything beyond a fleeting moment. The closest I can get is to feel absolutely in control — if I put all this energy I spend on happiness to control, maybe I can accomplish something positive. The moments of happiness will come when I’m no longer desiring them. They will exist when everything is so locked down that I have space to finally breathe.
There is a beautiful freedom in not accepting that happiness is the be all end all of mental wellness, in shifting one’s focus to simplicity, lack of desire, and embracing solitude. The less we want, the more we have. The problem is, I still want it all.
life with interest 