Personally 2024 was ok for me even though I was laid off and unemployed for 6 months. Ok maybe it’s a little shitty.
If we’re in the darkest timeline, what was the last point where it felt there was so much hope and joy in the world?
Some options commonly put out.
-
The day Pokémon Go released July 2016. So prepandemic and we went outside and and a girl told me where to find Weedles. Yep I’m in a videogame
-
The day before 9/11 or when Harambe got killed
-
When Endgame released, culmination of 10 years of marvel moments into a single movie, people cheering in the cinema. Still pre pandemic, maybe there’s a trend here
My last good day is always and forever today. My (or your) circumstances should never impair my (or your) ability to be happy 😁 it sounds weird, but you are allowed (it is your right) to feel happy even as your life is crumbling around you. And if you can’t find that feeling, that’s alright too.
See this way of thinking has actually landed me in a pretty bad place with my mental health.
“I’m in charge of my own emotions” is not something an autistic person with rigid lines of thinking should internalise, but I did.
As a result I never gave myself permission to feel negative emotions, because who wants to feel negative about anything if they don’t have to?
It seemed so smart and healthy, just be happy, that’s what everyone always says about the easy fix to mental health. It was easy too, regardless what was happening around me, if I pictured myself feeling happy, I’d feel happy.
I’m in my 30s and regularly mistake sensations with other sensations (am I tired or do I need to pee? They both cause a headache) and also I think all my negative emotions are skipping my brain entirely and coming out my arse in the form of IBS.
I can’t picture myself feeling sad to experience sad because I …don’t remember what sad feels like.
I remember what vomiting feels like, because that’s how my body has reacted to “sad” recently.
While this is true, I would also add that it’s ok and valid to be sad and unhappy. There is no obligation to put on a smile. You can be happy and not smiling, or you can be unhappy and not smiling, just be you.
I feel like it’s not my right to be happy unless I can impress in some way, like through work or academia. Everyone else has surpassed me and I can’t impress anywhere, so I just feel like I don’t deserve happiness anymore.
Don’t live your daily grind according to the highlight reel you see about other people.
We often don’t see the full lives of even our closest family members - thoughts, hopes, desires, dreams, frustrations, disappointments - and our window into our friends’ and acquaintances’ and strangers’ lives is even smaller. It’s like we only see the few triumphs they post on FB/insta and that’s all we know of them.
You can’t compare yourself to that. You know your full day of struggles, the long grind between wins, and you only see the big wins of your friends. You know your own dark thoughts and barely-held heated retorts but you never know either of those from anyone around you.
You will always feel inadequate if you’re comparing your everyday to the best days of your contacts. It’s okay to stop that; and, if you can, we often discover we don’t suck so much.
This is surprisingly uplifting, thank you for posting this
But I would suggest start looking in weird places