The fortnight of positivity!

It's easy to feel miserable in these times of financial hardship, high levels of unemployment and with winter drawing in. I've suffered from depression for a long time, which is odd considering that most people say that they think I am a cheerful person. Hmm, looks like I put on a really good show! It's no ones fault, I've been disguising my depression in the same way that I hid my OCD for so many years, now I just don't bother. I was a miserable child, a miserable teenager and I'm a miserable adult. My husband knows that if he finds me crying over a plotline in Eastenders and asks if I am ok, if I say I'm fine then it is just general depression - I do tend to tell him when something is wrong, he's not psychic. I've never really understood my depression to be honest, I just didn't want to be the kind of person who sits miserably in the corner at parties so I try very hard to seem happy. Oddly enough, trying to act happy makes me even more depressed!

The thing is that, in the grand scheme of things, I don't have that much to be miserable about - yeah I'm unemployed and have been for the longest time in my career, my health is not great but I have a truly fantastic husband who makes me feel great so surely that should cancel out depression? Nope, it doesn't work like that sadly, so to speak.

Anyway, I didn't start this blog entry to spread my misery my dear reader, quite the opposite actually. I came to a realisation about my general state of mind that has altered my perspective recently. It started last week...

For the past four months I haven't really interacted with many people at all, which explains the seeming lack of emotion in my writing at the moment. I am generally a very social person but OCD and depression do tend to make me pretty grim company! During these months I have spent most of my time in my flat and therefore the only interaction I have had with humans is my husband, my doctor, hospital staff, bus drivers (although the general conversation with them stretches to showing them my bus ticket and saying Thank you at the end of the journey) and my Dad (who coincidentally is the only bus driver I do get to have a conversation with :) ). I have spent a great deal of time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading news and other articles on the internet. This interaction has lead to a very bizarre and interesting tilt in my perspective.

For example, last week I was feeling particularly down as my OCD seemed to ease up for a few days then came back just as bad and this often frustrates me. I was unable to have a shower due to the fear and I spent about two days in bed, just sleeping and crying for the most part (Gosh, this really is a miserable blog entry! Apologies, there is a point to all this and it's a positive point so stick with it). When I spend any long period of time in my flat I do tend to lose touch with reality a little and it's easy for me to develop odd opinions based purely on what I have ingested informationwise over the course of the day.

Now, when watching TV my husband and I have differing tastes when it comes to quality entertainment - my husband very much enjoys documentaries, comedy shows, programmes about boats and ships and informative science shows. I on the other hand like some of these shows but I am queen of the guilty TV pleasure - as much as I want to give the impression that I am an intelligent person who watches sophisticated shows, there is still a part of me that clamours to watch mindless trash. I believe that there is a time and a place for informative shows but there should also be lots of time for the nonsensical fluff that clogs the TV. Oh and the adverts! The glorious, brightly coloured banners of the commercial break! Apparently, I was told that when I was a very small child I used to cry through the programmes and when the adverts came on I used to dry my eyes, sit up and pay attention. I am not sure what the adverts were like in the late 70's and early 80's but I'm sorry to all the people trying to sell me things - it's not like a baby can advise their parents to buy things is it. Anyway, I digress...

Last week I watched TV programmes on the following topics:

How an erupting volcano could possibly trigger another ice age
How an asteroid could wipe out the human race and pretty much all other life on the planet
How the bee population is dwindling and this could widely affect the food chain
The chances of us being able to find another planet to live on
Climate change and the effect of global warming
Crime in the UK
Shows about accidents and the terrible consequences
Shows about World War II and the loss of lives
A show on what is the most likely thing to end life on earth
News in general
Medical dramas

I've got to tell you that after a few days of feeling down and watching this kind of content, as you can imagine I was pretty much distraught. It's kind of my own fault though, I should have had the TV company put up a banner at the bottom of my TV stating 'Enjoy apocalyptic programmes responsibly'!

You see, as well as the other mental issues I have I also have been described as a 'naturally anxious personality' and so these shows, coupled with my unemployment and general feelings of uselessness as a member of society made me feel particularly depressed. It's easy for relatively small risks to have a big impact on me when I am particularly nervous. For example, after watching a particularly graphic programme on car crashes last week I point blank decided in my head never to get in another car - which is not really massively practical.

It's not the TV's fault, it didn't choose to turn itself on (actually our TV does have a habit of switching itself on during the night but it doesn't choose the shows that I should watch!). It's not the fault of the makers of the programmes or the broadcasters, in my case it's my fault for tuning in when depressed. Perhaps I should have sensors attached to my tear ducts that means that the slightest hint of misery and the TV tunes into something that I enjoy, like Scrubs, Wildlife S.O.S. or Frasier. Never mind a porn filter on my internet access, I need a misery filter!

I mean, I understand that generally good things seem to be more newsworthy than bad things, misery in TV shows is somehow more entertaining that watching happy people living their happy lives - soap operas would be ludicrously boring if everything went perfectly for every character. It reminds me of something my Mum said when I was a kid - while watching a film where the main character was given a quest I asked my Mum why they didn't just choose a different way of doing the quest that seemed easier and my Mum said 'Because if he did that the film would only last five minutes wouldn't it?' which in retrospect explains a lot of things about the shows I watch.

After thinking about my general environment recently, I came to the following conclusions:

I'm spending too much time in the flat not communicating with people properly
I'm watching too much miserable TV
I'm reading too much miserable stuff on the internet
I perhaps may have watched too many horror films
I haven't been listening to much cheerful music recently

Now, the getting out the flat part is not too easy and I will work on that but as for the other points, I'm going to surround myself with only positive information for the next two weeks and, in some sort of bizarre self experiment, attempt to lift myself out of the depression. It can't do any harm surely?

So my poor husband is saddled with me listening to cheerful music (not sure if listening to The Smiths while writing this blog entry really counts :) ) , watching TV shows that could be classed as light entertainment, taking positive steps each day to improve my health situation like attempting to learn to relax and generally attempting to think positive thoughts. It's not as easy as it sounds but, as people kept annoying me by saying 'try to think positive thoughts' I figure it's worth a go.

Two weeks of 'positive thinking'! Not sure how it's all going to pan out but my hopes aren't high :)