I have been feeling a lot less depressed lately. I have more energy. I don’t want to sleep as much. I have a more positive attitude. I’m able to accomplish more. I laugh more. I feel more capable of handling personal interactions.
I will never know exactly what is causing me to feel better. Most likely, it is a combination of things. My doctor recently adjusted my medication, and I’ve been in CBASP (Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy) treatment weekly for a while.
I am happy and grateful that the depression has lifted as much as it has. I am hopeful. Life is good.
So what is my concern? That it won’t last.
Why I am afraid
During one of our sessions, my therapist talked about the associations our brains make and the way we can end up with beliefs such as, “If I’m too happy, God will zap me.”
I’ve written about the many health issues my family members had as I was growing up.
When I was a child, I thought that God would make me sick when I became an adult. I wasn’t born with physical handicaps like one of my brothers, and I didn’t have the other health problems he and the rest of my family had.
I thought I would get my share of the sickness when I grew up.
Why did I believe that?
I would guess that it stems first from feeling helpless about my circumstances. I could not keep my brother or other family members from getting sick and going into the hospital. I could not make everything OK.
I also felt a lot of guilt as a child, a result of my relationship with my parents, especially with my mother, which I’ve written about before.
My sense of guilt grew as my obsessive compulsive disorder developed and got worse, and my religious scrupulosity led me to pray compulsively for the safety and health of my family. If someone got sick, then, I reasoned, my prayers hadn’t worked because they hadn’t been done right, or because I had sin between God and me.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I started to believe that I deserved the illnesses that I did get, the OCD and depression.
And if I deserved them, then any improvement would be just a mirage, something that would disappear as soon as I started believing in it too much.
How I’m going to handle it
I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to expect to fall back into depression. I don’t want to miss the improvement because I’m paying too much attention to the possibility of it ending.
And I’m aware that down times will still come around.
I’ve decided to be proactive about this.
*I try to be grateful, mindfully appreciative, that I am doing better.
*I am continuing to do the things that seem to be helping me: taking my medication as directed and going to therapy.
*I know I can continue to develop practical skills to handle life’s problems better, to avoid a sense of helplessness.
*I try to cultivate an active sense of hope.
I don’t believe that other people “deserve what they get.” They don’t deserve to be sick, physically or mentally.
I need to keep reminding myself that I don’t deserve to be sick either.
Have you ever been afraid that improvements in your health and life wouldn’t last? How did you handle the fear?
Oh, I have so been afraid of improvements before. I think it goes into me thinking "I don't deserve to feel this good, so it can't, it won't last." As if we deserve to feel good or bad for whatever reason. Probably relating back to the religious scrupulosity. But I think now I just try to take it day by day. Not that it has been a super week for me feeling great, but I try to remember it won't last...or at least to hope that!
ReplyDeleteShannon, I think it relates to religious scrupulosity, too. That's a good attitude, to take it day by day. That's all we have anyway, is right now. Thank you for your insight and comment!
DeleteWorrying about feeling happier is a good dilemma to have I guess. You deserve to be in a good place in life you know :-)
ReplyDeleteLisa, You're right--there are worse dilemmas to have, that's for sure. Thank you for saying that I deserve to be a good place. We all do!
DeleteHi Tina,I have nominated you for The Illuminating Blog Award!!
ReplyDeletehttp://nikkysstrengthandweakness-nikky44.blogspot.com/2012/05/sharing-love.html
Thank you, Nikky!
DeleteOh yes that is definitely a fear once improvements are felt, but I think that can be a self-defeating process. I know it may sometimes be easier said that done, but we should concentrate on the fact that our feelings have improved rather than on wondering if they'll last. I'm happy to hear that you're continuing to feel better Tina!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Keith. I agree--the focus should be on the good, not whether or not the good will last. The worry doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
DeleteI identify with this so closely. I had a very happy childhood, with stable and loving parents, and I always have felt that the other shoe is about to drop and something absolutely horrendous will happen to us. And with my own OCD and depression, I'm often afraid of good feelings and happiness because I dread the "crash." Thanks for writing about this; the word that comes to my mind after reading this post is "balance."
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting and commenting! "Balance" is a good word. I think of the balance between enjoying the good and yet realizing that we all suffer and we can all get through it.
DeleteOh yes, when I first started feeling better from OCD about a year ago, I was convinced it was temporary! I still sometimes wonder when the other shoe will drop, so to speak. But not as often anymore. I remind myself that I did not get better by accident. It was through hard work (CBT/ERP) and medication. I have tools now that I never had before, so there's really no reason to assume I will go backwards (well, at least not in any significant manner).
ReplyDeleteI'm soooo glad to hear you are feeling better!! That is really great - enjoy every moment of it!
Sunny, "I remind myself that I did not get better by accident. It was through hard work (CBT/ERP) and medication." Yes!! That's it! I think deep down I've thought that I felt better by chance, some kind of magic or fluke. But there are reasons that I feel better--what I'm DOING to feel better.
DeleteThanks so much for this insight, Sunny. It really, really helped me.
First of all, I am so pleased that your depression is lifting! I am so happy for you!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I have these same fears. It is something I work really hard on in therapy... my religious scrupulosity. I have these beliefs and fears that God will "zap me" as you say. I fear that he will take away the good things and give me bad things if I sin and I have such a huge and open definition of what sin is. I have a very Old Testament "eye for an eye" type view of God. I don't want that view. It's the OCD that gives it to me. I want to have a view of an all loving and forgiving God. Yet, when people get sick in my family, I wonder what I "didn't do right" and if I feel better, I wonder when the other shoe will drop or when I'll get what's coming to me. There is a lot of superstitious OCD stuff that goes along with my religious scrupulosity. It's so hard but I tell you what, it's easier for me now than ever before because know I actually KNOW this is OCD and not "the truth." It is so hard not to do my compulsive prayers which I only recently found out are not real prayers but an OCD compulsion.
Elizabeth, I think my religious scrupulosity really plays into this, too--the belief that I'm not good enough and never will be good enough to "deserve" good things. It does get easier now that I know what's causing the guilt.
DeleteHow I’m going to handle it? When it comes back just now that you can handle it, it will take say a lot of the energy of it, a lot of the meaning ( devastation) and it will never come back the same way again.
ReplyDeleteJodi, that is very good advice--know that I can handle it. I like the idea that the knowledge will take some of the energy out of the fear of it coming back. Thank you!
DeleteI am happy things are looking up :)
ReplyDeleteI too am so happy for you Tina.
ReplyDeleteI have never gone back into the deep dark depression I had back in the 90's. When I read your post I was wondering to myself why I never worry about that? I guess I figure having been at the bottom, I know if I climbed out once, I can surely do it again.? I do however worry about OCD becoming worse. My history is that I can go months and months with hardly any OCD at all and then all of a sudden I am up to my knees in it. I have read that OCD can wax and wane which is of some comfort (not a whole lot really), but most of all I can look to what is real for me, and that is that it always gets better. It has done that often enough that I just feel confident that in a week or two it will get better and I know what I have to do (reach into that tool box, cause the tools aren't jumping out all by themselves).
I am SO happy that you are feeling good. SO HAPPY. I do NOT believe that God punishes us...and that is why we get sick, etc. Our difficulties...or suffering...all of it allows us to learn and grow to be more like Him. Our trial refine us into better people who are more understanding and capable. :)
ReplyDeleteThe title of your post really grabbed my attention. Interestingly, though I've had ocd for a very long time, it was mostly tolerable quirks until a few years ago - when my life was, ironically, going GREAT. I was happy, things were good, and I was thankful. I seem to function well in turmoil, but become afraid of losing the good stuff and kind of freak out. Product of my youth, I suppose. My beliefs are a bit different; I sometimes feel as if my negative Karma will not allow me to be happy, as if perhaps I don't deserve it. It's along the same line as what you're writing here. I believe it is all part of the fear mongering ocd is so skilled at. We can't let it rule us - it's just another ocd lie.
ReplyDelete