On Wallowing

I'm finding that people prefer pictures to 1000 words.

Here’s the deal.

I’ve droned on and on about depression and anxiety.  Anyone who cares about the state of mental health in America knows it lacks real understanding, funding and research.  It is pivotal to human civilization that we understand how our brains work.  However, on a personal level, all I really have to understand is myself.  It’s the only change I have any genuine control over, and by nature of being human, I am a work in progress.

What is talked about even less then depression and mental health problems is the tendency to wallow in one’s issues.  It is a sensitive topic; something a lot of people would misinterpret as whining, but I think I have a shot of explaining myself. I am guilty of wallowing in my issues. I think way, way too much. I’ve been doing this since I was about sixteen or so.  Bored with life, I would lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling.  In my head, I was asking myself questions, interpreting the actions of others, judging, daydreaming, and a host of other activities that occur within the boundaries of my head.  In reality, I was just lying there. An observer would see a kid lying on his aging comforter in the bedroom of a tiny apartment with his hands tucked behind his head, silent. 

I wasn’t doing anything at all.

That’s the evil behind wallowing.  You convince yourself that thinking and analyzing and worrying are actions, but they’re not.  They are just thoughts; ones which you’ve probably dwelled upon dozens of times before.  It’s like watching reruns in your head.

Aren’t you just tired of your problems?  Aren’t you just tired of the effort it takes to separate them from yourself?  You aren’t the sum total of your thoughts. They are just repeating synapses in your brain. They are just one stupid part of you that gets on your nerves on a daily basis. Your thoughts can be real dicks sometimes.

I’m a thinking person.  I know this about myself.  I’m not knocking the practice for most of humanity. But thinking about your mental health problems is a lot like bringing work home with you.  There are things you can do about it and things you can’t.  Your only job is to sort them.  There is work to be done.  Thoughts you can’t do anything about are to be accepted.  And the thoughts you can do something about, should cease to be thoughts. They need to become actions.  Decisions. Changes.  

It sounds easy, but we all know that this could mean a lot of ground to cover.  Especially if you’re not used to accepting or acting on anything.

I say all of this as one who still wallows.  Not as much, but to me there is no acceptable level of wallowing.  I have the day off today. I slated this as a non-work day.  An off day.  A day to do what I wanted.  Well, that was my mistake (a common one, at that). Wallowers freeze when faced with time alone.  Indecision kicks in.  Should I catch on work anyway?  Should I chill out and read?  Should I do more exercise?  Get more yard work done?  There’s also this bed over here that serves as prime real estate for good ol’ fashioned wallowin’…

When you are healthier and you sort your thoughts, this isn’t such a big problem.  You don’t second guess every move you make because you have strong decision-making muscles already in place.  But if you are just thinking about the same problems over and over again, life itself becomes immeasurably more complicated.

There is another path.  Do.  Yeah, that’s the answer.  We are discovering more that the key to happiness is to engage in activities in which you lose yourself.  You block out the rest of the world and concentrate on a single task, whatever it is. Why do we crave this? Because during those precious minutes (or hours if we’re lucky), we’re NOT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING.            

We can’t let our problems paralyze us.  Depression zaps your willingness to do things. Whatever strength you can muster to just do something: Work, clean, play guitar, walk your dog, talk to your friends, help somebody out with…well, anything at all. It’s easy to say, I know.  But like anything, it takes practice to get better. We have to spend time away from our issues.  They will be there once we are done.  The hope is we might find some insight in experiences outside of our skulls.

 I’d like to think that writing this is an action.  Technically, it could be construed as wallowing about wallowing, but I did type all of this shit.  That counts.  Plus, I got it out of my system.  Don’t agree?  Then you write something, smart-ass!