It feels weird to be happy
1mon 25d ago by piefed.world/u/MonsterTrick in goodoffmychest
I set myself a goal this year to try head to therapy as well as go to more social events. So far, so good. I did notice that I feel much happier and less depressed but for some reasons, it feels strange. Either I shouldn't be happy as the world is still a mess or that my happiness is only going to last for so long until I go back being mostly depressed and unoptimistic.
I just want to feel alive and not having my mental health restrict me from wanting to do various stuff. For the past month, I repaired a iPod, did couple sewing project and slowly become more sociable where I'm otherwise too scared to say anything. I'm still have social anxiety but it's not as terrible as it used to be and I'm slowly facing my fears.
Maybe I'm just scared that I'm putting a lot of effort to try improve my wellbeing that if I slip back, I feel like it's a wasted effort that I had put in.
Its ok to slip. You being happy right now proves that being depressed is not a permanent thing. So hold that thought for when you have a bad day because you know you can also have good days.
But also do not dwell on the inevitable bad days. They will come when they come. Enjoy the good days right now. Further more if you find yourself focusing mentally on if your happiness will fade then forcible think of something else or do something else. I used to have my wife play a game or two of tetris on her device when she felt that way.
There is no faster way to bring yourself down than to focus on what will happen when you are inevitably down. So you need a strategy to prevent that mindset.
The saying, pretend you are happy until you forget you are pretending, works both ways. You can force yourself to spiral down by focusing on the spiral. So anytime you feel you are doing that you need to break out of that mental process.
This is actually a pretty normal response to the situation you're in. You can ask your therapist more about it, but I'll try for at least a general explanation.
Our brains aren't wired to make us happy; they're wired to make us survive. And one of the base survival instincts is: "same=safe, different=unsafe." You can see this instinct in infants and animals. Things that are familiar help our brains relax, while new things tend to set off red flags.
Your brain is used to living in a dark place. Now that you're emerging from it, your brain feels suspicious, and weirdly "wants" to revert back to what's familiar. When we're in less familiar territory, we subconsciously prepare to retreat into that safe, familiar space, even if it's not a place we really want to be (this also comes into play for things like abusive relationships and substance abuse).
There's also likely an element where your worldview is being challenged. Our brains like to make sense of the world, finding patterns in even random things. If you've felt depressed for a long time, your brain will attempt to come up with some rationale for why. Often it suggests to you that you don't deserve happiness for some reason, but the reasoning is actually based on the fact that you've felt that way for no discernable reason. It's a weird thing, and the end result is that you've internalized some perspective of yourself that is being challenged by these new positive experiences. And again, different=unsafe according to our base instincts.
The Oatmeal did a great explanation on some of these things in a funny and informative format, definitely worth a read. It's not directly related to depression, but might give some insight on what you're feeling.