Ask around. People will tell you I’m an optimistic kind of fella. Always seeming to look on the bright side or the upside. Certainly, as I’ve aged, I have my spells of being overly critical. “Kids these days.” “What were they thinking?” Those sorts of things. But in general, despite the major depressive disorder, others would say I’m positive.
However, I think deep inside, I tend to be fatalistic. Let’s explore…
I don’t trust good times to last. If things are going well, surely something bad is going to happen and make me feel stupid for thinking I could have a good life.
Feeling good about something is frightening. The idea of “plan for the worst, hope for the best” is a fantastic way to live, I think. I, however, expect the worst and run from the best.
Nothing is going to go my way, especially if I am trying to get it to do so.
But where does all this come from? Is it from the years of dealing with depression? Maybe it’s the cause of the depression. Chicken, meet egg. I’ve long wished I could identify some trauma that shaped my depression, give me something to focus on and maybe come to terms with, to heal from. I can’t recall any, much like I can’t recall any major or series of disappointments from my childhood that would inform this way of thinking.
The leading current theory is that it’s a kind of Catholicism-based fear of happiness. Born in sin. Fear God. Hell is waiting. Not these things specifically, but some morphed versions of these ideas.
This is interesting as I am clearly and openly atheistic. I flat-out reject all notions of higher beings in control of the universe. But I was brought up Catholic. I have a spot inside that reacts to religious imagery and ideas. So maybe there is something here.
And, of course, motivated reasoning and the like have reinforced these incorrect beliefs.
- I hurt my knee just after finding out I loved and was good at basketball in high school.
- My best friend died just after I started college, and I was enjoying being “on my own.”
- I had a job I really liked, but then management changed and did away with the position.
- My ex-wife lost her job a week after I thought we’d turned a corner, and things were looking up.
- My recent termination was just after I had thought that I was in a good place.
And more, I’m sure.
I like to think I’m intellectual enough to recognize these are individual events in a fifty-one-year life and are just part of the cornucopia of life. But emotions don’t work like knowledge. Like the person who thinks they are psychic because they were thinking of their friend just before they called, I am conflating random chance with determinism.
So, what does a guy do with this information? I dunno.
How do you handle good times?