Episode #266 - Learning Happiness

Can one be happy and suffer with mental and emotional illness?  The answer to that question depends upon you.

Transcript

Episode #266 – Learning Happiness.  I am your host Damon Socha.  If there is one problem that is most distressing among all the issues of mental and emotional illness, it is the forced removal of happiness.  Depression, Anxiety and Bipolar all have this affect.  We lose our ability to maintain happiness and at times we lose happiness itself.  I have heard many individuals afflicted with these illness cry out, “Will I every be happy again.”  I may have also cried out in such a manner more than a few times in my own life.  We are built for happiness.  The scriptures state this specifically.  Men are that they might have joy.  Science states as much.  We spend most of our time in this life seeking happiness.  Now happiness comes in two ways, the first is physical and chemical and the second is spiritual.  For our purposes today, I am going to define happiness as part our mortal body reward system and joy as our spiritual happiness.

Let’s state with mortal happiness.  This type of happiness is chemistry driven.  When we do something our body needs or desires, we receive a reward for our efforts.  We often call this reward happiness.  It is a combination of hormones such as dopamine that causes us to take care of our mortal bodies.  We get rewarded when we eat, when we sleep, when we have intimate relations, really almost anything our body tells us to do comes with a reward.  We need these rewards, otherwise we don’t build the habits our brain needs. Without rewards our actions tend to fade quickly.  Let’s consider something such a painting or playing sports.  If painting or playing sports is something you enjoy, your body causes you to have a desire that is linked to a reward.  If you act upon the desire paint a painting or play the sport the reward automatically comes to you in the form of feel good hormones.  But what would happen if you did not receive the reward.  First of all, you would become frustrated that the desire did not lead to the reward.  Second you would have a negative reaction to the experience.  In the case of painting, you may not have a desire to paint again until the reward appears.  When we lose the reward we quickly lose the desire to attain the reward.  We see this regularly with individuals who suffer with mental illness.  Initially there is a desire to continue to do things as we always have and to obtain the rewards we have always chosen.  However, when the rewards stop, the body slowly removes the desires.  You see our desires are based on those rewards.  Without the rewards we lose our desire and motivation to action.  Mortal happiness is the one we most seek in our lives.  It affects everything we do from getting up in the morning, to getting ready, to eating, to going to work.  It is our driving force for our lives.

However, we should note something important.  Just because we cannot feel the happiness as we once did.  We can still at times feel the rewards on the surface of the mental and emotional problems.  This is why we are driven to eat, to a variety of drug based solutions legal and illegal, why we watch television or play video games.  We are partially able to feel some sense of minor happiness when we do certain things.  In other words, we can feel the hormones but not necessarily the happiness.  However, because we never fully reach the same type and level of happiness we tend to be addicted to these actions and substances.  The addition is really seeking this happiness we lost.  For most individuals, once the happiness is restored the addictions tend to melt away.  However, it is rare for happiness to return to ones life in the same way that it was before the diagnosis.  Once you have experience mental and emotional illness, happiness will never be the same.  The first problem is trust.  Once you have experienced the illness, you will lack trust in your reward and emotional systems.  You will always be questioning them and doubting them.  This lack of trust causes a disconnect between what you feel and desire and your reward system.  Even if you were healed entirely you would find that your happiness has changed.  Everything we experience affects our happiness and our desires.

When I suffered with bipolar, I would swing between highs and lows and during that swing I would spend a few days in a more normal state.  This swing taught me a great deal about our reward system.  My swings would be from deep depressions where nothing I did was rewarded to highs where everything I did was rewarded.  As I would pass through my normal states, I could tell that my desires for happiness were changing and things that once caused me to be happy no longer were a desire.  When we pass through mental and emotional illness our happiness will change.  The key to finding some level of happiness is accepting that you will never be the same person as you were.  And that is not a bad thing.  Growing emotionally is important to who we are as mortals and as spiritual beings.

Now there exists another happiness, a spiritual happiness.  This happiness is based on our learning from the premortal earth-life and what limited experience we have in mortality.  That happiness is based on eternal truth and following that truth.  I look at it in similar ways as to my mortal brain.  When we obey the gospel our spiritual brain rewards us similar to our mortal brains.  We are likely to receive the feel good hormones in our brain with additional spiritual rewards.  When we do not live the gospel our spirit sends out negative signals just like our mortal brain.  However, this is where things start to become a little convoluted.  Sometimes our mortal desires contradict our spiritual desires and we can receive a mortal mental reward for following what the mortal body desires and a spiritually negative response from our spirit brains.  So we can feel mortally happy and spiritually guilty all at the same time.  The intent of our spiritual natures is to overcome the mortal happiness by spiritual guilt.  However, mental and emotional illness also appears to affect the spiritual brain.  We can struggle to find happiness when our mortal brain cannot feel it.  We can struggle to find any type of joy when we cannot feel happiness.

For instance, attending church should give us both a mortal happiness and a spiritual happiness.  However, when mental illness turns off the mortal happiness, we can feel terrible at church knowing fully that we should be there but feeling terrible when we are.  The same is true for many of the commandments and activities.  Attending the temple may not be a spiritually powerful or even a negative experience.  Following the rules surrounding the Word of Wisdom and chastity may also be problematic.  When the body cannot feel happiness, it will seek out any imitation it can find.  These imitations are often dangerous and degrading to the mortal and spiritual body.  So often imitations are found in various types of drugs that model happiness but are only a hollow shell.  When I say drugs, I mean internal and external drugs.  This includes media and television, any type of legal and non-legal drugs, music, food, sexual drive, and a host of other concerns and addictions.  So often individuals who suffer find happiness in ways that do not provide for the mortal or spiritual nature of the body but are simply a shortcut substitute that ultimately destroys not builds our nature and character.  However, what we find is that these addictions are really coping mechanisms to allow us to deal with the pain and suffering associated with mental and emotional illness.  Not only are we seeking happiness but we are attempting to limit the pain, suffering and emotional darkness.  And these substances both internal and external can be powerful when our desires in general have been modified by illness. Almost every person who deals with mental and emotional illness has these coping mechanisms in their arsenal of aids.

Coping mechanisms are not necessarily bad in the sense that they are allowing us to deal with the negative outcomes of mental illness.  However, they are coping mechanisms that have for the most part grow up grass roots style.  Many times we do not even know that we have them.  What is important about our coping mechanisms is that they do not violate spiritual laws or covenants.  When they do they can be extremely dangerous to our mortal and spiritual well-being.

Now we have talked about happiness and how our illness affects both our joy and happiness but we haven’t discussed learning to be happy and joyful again.  Sure we know the dangers and the outcomes but how do we restore our previous happiness and joy.

Here are my rules for finding happiness again.

1)      Do not look for happiness in the past.  This means past relationships, past activities, past anything.  When we look for happiness in the past we often do two things.  We expand our previous happiness experience to a point that it never existed and then we compare to the same activity in our current lives.  When we do this we will always find less happiness in an activity.  Comparing happiness never works.  The same is true for our joy.  We must find happiness in the moment rather than comparing it to the past.  You don’t need the past to know if you are happy, content or joyful.  However, there is one important note, happiness does lead to happiness and joy to joy.  Meaning we can build upon our happy and joyful experiences.  Rather than use them as tools of comparison we can build upon the memories binding them to each other and finding a greater happiness in our lives.

2)      Although this is related to number one it is different.  What once brought you happiness may not now.  Activities you once enjoyed may not have the same affect on your current happiness.  For many this disconnect brings sadness and unhappiness simply because you don’t enjoy doing the same things.  You must consider your search for happiness as if you are searching anew.  What do you enjoy now?  What do you not enjoy now?  And do this without comparing to previous lives.  That can be tough to start over but in some ways it is the only way you will move forward.

3)      Happiness and joy come in differing ways and levels of reaction.  Meaning we are not going to be entirely happy all the time and the same should be true for sadness.  Although we may spend a great deal of time in a depression and what seems to be sadness, our days are often a mixture of sadness and mild happiness.  We should treasure the happiness we receive.  Our gratefulness will provide greater happiness over time.  We should attempt to find new forms of happiness that also keep us within our covenants.  I started painting when I was about 45 years old and have found happiness and joy in the experience.  Have I been frustrated.  Oh yes and have not painted for a time.  But painting was not something I did previous to my illness but is something that I enjoy from time to time.

4)      Expectations of happiness will need to be altered to fit the illness.  Much of the problems we experience during our mental health journey is regarding expectations. We expect to find the pot of happiness at the end of the rainbow.  When it isn’t a full pot we complain about the emptiness rather than the happiness and joy that we find.  Tempering our expectations can be helpful.  However we can also take this too far and never expect any happiness and that is as bad as expecting happiness and not feeling it.  We should balance our expectations based on what we are given.  Don’t get me wrong, this will be difficult as your brain is not wired or built to do such things.  It wants to use and compare the past.  Don’t let it.

5)      The Lord has brought this illness into your life.  One of the main questions you should be asking is why.  What am I to learn from this experience?   We can either complain about our circumstances or learn from them.  It appears that you cannot easily do both.  If you are complaining you are not learning.  If you are learning, you are humble and not complaining.  Complaining is a sign that we are not learning from the methods the Lord is using to teach us.  We complain when reality doesn’t not meet our expectations.  At least that is the easy path.  When we complain about our circumstances we don’t need to learn from them or even learn about them.  Complaint is simply our method of being stubborn about what the Lord is trying to teach.  It is like saying, Lord I will do anything to learn from you but not this.  Complaint never seeks change.  It seeks the circumstances to be changed.  When we begin to ask questions about happiness, joy and why the Lord is trying us in this manner, we learn what he desires us to learn and become.  

6)      While you should attempt a smile, try to be genuine about yourself.  Laugh at your concerns and sufferings.  Find humor in the crazy events in your life.  Don’t take life so seriously.  Yes we live a demanding gospel and I didn’t say to take life casually.  But sometimes we just have to laugh at our futile attempts to do something.  We can find happiness and joy in the craziness at times.  One summer we traveled to Nauvoo IL for vacation and camped on a hill that overlooks the city.  We had set up tents for the boys and the girls were going to use the various pop-up tent sleeping places.  Suddenly before bed one of those Midwest storms hit us and drenched everything but it wasn’t one of those colder storms.  Our pop-up tent stayed very humid and muggy throughout the night.  Probably one of the worst camping experiences we have had as a family if you look at it from the outside.  However, now it is one of our favorite camping memories.  Finding humor in the darkness can be a wonderful gift.

7)      Final rule for me is the Lord and Lucifer.  My rule is to be honest with the Lord.  I am not saying rude but honest.  Sometimes I think we pray with the idea that it is something similar to talk to our parents where we can hide a few frustrations and deep hurt.  We cannot hide anything and so it is important to talk through all our emotions with the Savior and the Father.  There is no need to hold back, simply show reverence.  I have had several prayers even recent ones where I say I can’t do this anymore, is there anything you can do to help?  Being entirely honest and open with the Lord takes time to learn. It doesn’t come naturally or easily for me and I assume that is true for most people.  If you want happiness and joy, you need to ask for it and be obedient as possible to the commandments you receive.  Joy comes from acting obediently even when we might not be able to fully feel it, it always comes.  Lucifer is the great deceiver and that is probably the best name for him.  He will do anything to disrupt your happiness and joy and unfortunately he will have better access to you during your episodes.  It will be harder to avoid his messages and his consistent badgering.  At times his voice will be eerily similar to the Lord’s and cause confusion.  What I have learned from Lucifer is that his answers never lead to true happiness and joy.  All his answers are short-term fixes that do significant harm in the long run.  The key to avoiding Lucifer is listening for the Savior in our lives.

I hope today most of all that you understand happiness can be a part of your life.  Joy can be a part of your life.  Will it be like it was?  Unlikely.  Will it be happiness and joy, yes.  We can find happiness amidst the troubles these illnesses cause.  We can find love, companionship, and bliss even in our dark moments when we turn to our Savior.  I hope that you find your own rules that provide for you the happiness you desire.  The Lord stated that, “Men are that they might have joy.”  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to make an effort to find and keep it.  Until next week.  Do you part so that the Lord can do his?