Being Happy while Dealing with Mental Health Issues

 After I wrote my last on Being Happy I received the following via text message from one of my Recovery friends. And I want to address it.

"I get that our mindset is important. However, no amount of choosing to be happy would cure my depression. Medication can be life saving. There's also TMS and I know one person whose life has completely changed for the better because of it.

It makes me sad to see anyone believe that if they just try hard enough, they can just choose to be happy. When literally, it's your brain chemistry and there's help out there. 💜 I wanted to be happy so bad and kept blaming myself for TOO long. What I needed was a mix of medication, therapy AND NA. 💜" 

First, I totally understand where my friend is coming from. I also have mental health issues to deal with. Depression and PTSD being my two. That I am aware of.

I am also an Addict in Recovery thru NA.

Choosing to Be Happy does not cure depression. And I never, in any way, meant to imply that it would. Medication, Therapy, and Recovery, with other forms of Self Care with outside help, all have there place. I would be the last one to argue with that.

I also believe, from my own experience and shared experience from others, that while I can, and do, choose to be happy, there are times when it takes effort. And that effort means dealing with the things that are in the way of being happy. Like Depression, PTSD, and Addiction for me. And that means that I take the actions needed and the get the help required to be in a space where I can actually make the Choice to Be Happy a reality.

I have also experienced wanting to be happy and failing miserably. I also kept blaming myself and figuring that I was irredeemably broken and had no hope. It took a lot of work to get past that and get to where I am today.

And I never, in any way, meant to try and say anything different.

I also know that in living inside the choice to Be Happy my mental health episodes have become fewer and further between and much more manageable.

So to my friend, Yes, Mindset is important. And so is all of the rest. And I can, and do, cheer for anyone who is putting in the work. I also will help in any way that I can. Because this is Life and death stuff.

I Recover out Loud because I, and many others, have almost, or have, died in silence.

And if one person can get a little hope, and maybe some inspiration to do something different, from what I write, then everything that I have lived to this moment is completely worth it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

So I Had a Dinger

 I went on a motorcycle ride with my nephew Ethan yesterday, Saturday June 8th 2024. It was a great day for riding and I enjoy Ethan's company a lot. So it was fun. Later in the afternoon we went our separate ways. Life and all that you know. I was heading through Sunapee, Newport, Claremont, Charlestown, to Keene, and then Marlborough NH to go to a meeting. Had plenty of time and was taking it easy. No worries. Right? At about 5:20 in the evening I was coming up the hill out of Newport NH. It was one lane and there is a Left Turn only lane that goes to Unity NH coming up on my left. There is a car in the Left Turn lane waiting to turn. What I'm going to tell next happened in about 3 seconds. I was coming up behind the car waiting to turn Left, in my lane, and had about 30 feet before I would be in front of them and gone. All of a sudden a little white car pulled out from in front of them turning into my lane to go in my direction. So I panicked. I locked it up and went sideway
Read more

Being Poor and Homeless is Expensive

 When I was born my family, while not classically poor, would be classified as that. Everything  got stretched and there was never quite enough of anything. Thru a series of things we all got older. And when I was 14 thru 16 my Mum shipped me off to relatives several times. I was a "troubled" kid. What was really going on was I was starting to grow into a man and the fight between my step father and I was coming. And it was going to be nasty and bloody with, quite possibly, death being involved. The last time this happened I was 16 years old and it was the beginning of February 1980. She sent me to my father who lived outside of Toronto Ontario. Five years before, when my older brother was 16, she had shipped him off to our father and things had worked out well. My brother had a good experience and some good things happened. The situation was very different five years later, in February of 1980, when I went up there. After 10 or 11 days on a very cold February night my Father
Read more

Helmets? Oh Yeah!!!

Image
 As anyone who reads me knows I had a motorcycle accident three day ago on Saturday. And my body is letting me know today that it is not happy with me at this time. Somehow, every single muscle between my beltline and neck got strained, and aggravated. And so sleeping is a new adventure. Getting from prone to sitting up is a new adventure in pain. Then standing up, same thing. So my body has taken some abuse. And I am in constant, mostly, low level pain as my body lets me know it is not a fan. So anyone who read my last knows that I was knocked unconscious during this accident. And thus, many of the details are unknown to me. I know that the clothes the first responders cut off me had a lot of signs of sliding on pavement. And my phone case is showing signs of sliding on pavement. Well, let me show you my helmet, which I am really glad that I was wearing: As you can see the impact cracked it and the dragging it along concrete scuffed the daylights out of it. Lot's and Lot's of
Read more