It all started with a taxi ride. Okay no. It started with a job interview. That I had to get to. In SW DC. [Let's put this into context. I worked this morning in Bethesda. SW DC (the southern end) is 45 minutes by car or 1.5 hours by Metro.]
I'd miscalculated timing. To get to my interview. The Metro would make me a half hour late. Not okay. Answer: taxi ride. Expensive taxi ride. Ugh. But he gets me there on time. All good, right? No. My card gets declined when I go to pay him. Seems there's a hold on the check I deposited yesterday until Friday. Friday??? How does that help me? It doesn't. So I freak out. And I tell him I can't pay him. And he gets pissed. [rightfully so, here's this young white yuppie girl in a suit saying she can't pay this rather large fair after you drove her clear across the city] And threatens to call the police (which might have landed me in jail). But I'm crying at this point. And repeating "I'm so sorry, I don't know what to do." And telling him I'm trustworthy and I'll pay him and I don't know how to make him believe me.
So, we work out that I'll have to pay him later. He takes down all of my information. (So he can call the cops if I do try to evade the fare. Fair enough.) [See what I did there? Fare and fair? I'm hilarious.] And I let him keep my drivers license for collateral. [...right? exactly how stupid am i?] And we agree on a meet time. And I get out and miraculously ace my interview. [What can I say? I got mad interview game.]
Okay. Now I gotta get cash. So I call people. Lots of people. Too many people. How embarrassing. I'm broke, I need to pay this cab fare, and I feel like some beggar on the phone asking for money. Sure, friends/family are happy to help me out because I'm lucky and have awesome family and friends. But that doesn't change the feeling I get when I have to ask people for money. I feel worthless. And judged (yes by me). And irresponsible.
After a way-too-complicated web of complication, I find a way to get this man his money. And he doesn't show up. I wait AN HOUR. Because, you know, my phone's battery just died so that's helpful [if you didn't catch the sarcasm, I can assure you it's there]. And then I give up. And go home. Because it's warm there, and I can cry at will about how stupid I am and how bad this day has gone (except for that interview).
In the end? The cabbie was busy on a fare and he's going to drop by my house after his shift to get his money. Okay. Great. Relief! Angels sing! Fans do the wave! There is much rejoicing! The Monty Python guys dance a jig!
Here's the catch: depression sucks at times like this. Because it's so good at making me dwell on the negatives. All the stuff that went wrong. All the stupid decisions I made. All the embarrassment, the shame.
This post did promise to explain how I keep the happy in spite of all the bad, though. You know what I do? I take 3 deep breaths. (Okay sometimes 5 or 7 or 10.) Then I ask myself if I can do anything about the past. [Hint: the answer is always "no."] No. I can't. I can't change what happened. It happened. So I consciously turn off the worrying. I turn off the negative thought reel. And I give myself a break. I'm human. I make mistakes. I do dumb things. It. Happens.
How do I just turn the worry and the negative thought reel off? Practice. It used to take me a day or two (or 5) to turn that all off. Usually by then, time had moved far enough that I could skip turning it off and just focus on forgetting it.
But, the truth is: practice. I bought a self-help book (Feeling Good, by David D. Burns). And I did the exercises in the first several chapters. And it was corny as hell. But it taught me how to challenge the negative thought reel. How to reverse it. Or simply shut it off. And I practice all the time - for a good 6 or 7 years now. And I talked with my counselor. She and I worked on how to let things go that I can't control. Interestingly, I found that was easiest when I focused in what I could control in the situation. I can control my reaction (sorta/sometimes). I can control my breathing! Awesome. I can control what I do next, be that asking for help or walking down a sidewalk or hiding under coats. [I've always wondered what that proverbial coat closet looks like. The one with all the coats that we all talk about hiding under. I imagine it as a large mound of coats heaped over a square footstool in a small sorta-walk-in closet. And when you go hide under them, you curl up on that footstool.] Learning to refocus on what I could control in order to stop worrying about what I couldn't control took a lot of hours with my counselor and a lot of practice. Again, we're talking 6 or 7 years here.
I practiced. I still practice. I call it "going to my calm place" - but that's kind of a misnomer because I don't really envision myself going to a place. Instead I ask the important question (can I do anything about the past), get the inevitable answer [insert clip of Rafiki hitting grown Simba over the head with his walking stick and saying "Eet doesn't mahttah, it's een de pahst"], and that answer has become a trigger that almost automatically grinds through the process of calming me down. And once I'm calm, I can reflect on what went well in the situation. What did I do right? What good came out of it? And once I have the answers, I've found my happy.
It strikes me that I know people who can naturally do this. They've been good at it all their lives. But how nice it is that it can be learned. It can be practiced. It can be taught.
(Of course, it's only October, so this is easier for me to do now than it will be in the dead of winter...but the only real difference is that what I've practiced takes a little longer, and a little more effort and focus. It's not nearly as automatic in the winter time. But it still works, and that is the ultimate point.)
I'll close with one of the best things that David Burns taught me in Feeling Good:
Happiness is not a state of mind that rushes over you. Happiness is a choice. And it's not always the easiest choice. But it's always the choice that feels better in the long run.
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