For much of my life, I allowed myself to be subjected to my own mood swings and I frequently dipped from happy states to depressed states like a see-saw. I always thought of myself as a moody person and that was that – that’s how I was always going to be whether I like it or not. I thought to myself: “Hey, I’m woman and women are moody. It’s perfectly normal” (Okay, maybe it is… but it’s still not a great excuse for bipolar behavior – YAY feminism!). The only thing is that mindset wasn’t working for me because there were times where I was in depressed more than I was happy, and I would stay there for weeks or months at a time.
Over the past six months, however, I’ve learned that I can choose to be moody or not even if I actually feel like crap. I have been able to pull myself out of my depressed states faster than ever before – I have even been able to see the depressive state coming and promptly nip it in the bud.
Hurricanes 101 and how you are actually like a hurricane if you think about it really hard and squint your eyes really tight
Anyone who’s lived in South Florida like I have for many years is practically an expert at hurricanes. Hurricanes have a lot in common with the anatomy of a person’s negative emotional state. A hurricane, otherwise known as a tropical cyclone, looks a lot like a tornado except it is far wider, affecting a larger area at a time, and moves very slowly. Meanwhile, the thick edges of a hurricane has winds that circle the center at up to 140 miles per hour or more (Hurricane Katrina peaked at ~175 mph), tons of rain, and even a few minor tornadoes within it. Finally, when looking at radar images, you’ll see a tiny dot in the middle of the hurricane which represents the “eye” – the area of calm.
How does this relate to a negative emotional state? Think about it. When you’re depressed or feeling under the weather, you feel a thick fog of negativity surrounding you in the form of thoughts and emotions. Everything you see also begins to look less than appealing – you lose interest in things that normally interest you and you see the bad in everything. Often the fog is so thick that you can’t see the light, much like being caught in the edges of a hurricane. The rain (negative self-talk) is pounding on you relentlessly. The wind (negative emotions) seems to blow you away like a reporter on South Beach giving updates in the middle of the storm. Actually, that’s funny when you’ve got nothing else to watch, but I digress.
Sometimes you never get a break (the eye never passes by), so you’re stuck in a rut for long periods of time due to the slow speed of the hurricane (usually less than 10 mph). The larger a hurricane is in width – and the greater the intensity of the emotional state – the slower it moves across land.
Don’t be fooled by the “eye of peace”
Remember the brief mention about the hurricane’s “eye”? When an area has been hit by a hurricane, residents are urged to stay inside even if the hurricane seems to have passed because, in fact, it may really be the eye of the hurricane and more extreme weather is coming. In fact, the worst weather occurs right after the eye passes. Because of the small size of the eye, most areas never actually experience the eye so the very worst weather never hits them. It’s still important to be careful, because the eye is tricky – like fool’s gold.
The same thing can occur with negative emotional states. Sometimes when I was feeling down, I’ve had something happen to me – usually an external event – that temporarily cheers me up. Maybe I ran into an old friend or I found $100 bill on the street. For a while, I think I’m back to my old self. The truth is I never really looked at my feelings and I was depending too heavily on external circumstances to make me happy. Like if I get a call saying I won the $5 million jackpot and I dance to this, then I find out it’s all a prank.
Much like being caught in the eye of a hurricane, if you depend on the weather alone you will think the hurricane has passed. If you have knowledge of how hurricanes work, you’re more cautious and patient about waiting it out. When the worst weather hits you, you’re still safe inside. It’s still dark and even worrisome (after all, you’ll hear trees and objects flying around slamming into houses and cars). But you’re better off than the person who ran outside without understanding hurricanes, or in this case, really examining themselves.
Kicking that hurricane in the arse is easy. Even a caveman can do it.
Usually when a hurricane hits, my family opts to stay in our home instead of evacuating. Since we live further inland, there is less danger of flooding. The areas closer to the coast have to contend with large waves and more powerful winds because the hurricane is still strong from being over the warm ocean for a while. As the hurricane moves inland, it gradually weakens because it’s less warm and there’s no water to help with insulation. So we never evacuate unless it’s a high category hurricane and we are ordered to evacuate.
Unfortunately, while you’re generally safe it’s still very depressing. There’s no electricity so you can’t entertain yourself with TVs, computers, or phones and you can’t cook a hot meal. The windows are usually boarded up so it’s darker than a mofo and depending on the time of the day you can’t even see your hand. You hear the winds blowing stuff around and the rain beating down – and trust me, if I can hear all that, it’s LOUD – but you can’t look or go outside to see what’s going on. So what’s a person to do? Can a sister breathe? *rolls eyes*
I’ll try to sleep it out. But hurricanes move slowly and I have no interest in sleeping 10+ hours at a time. So, we’ll sit around and tell jokes – basically LAUGH. That’s right. The secret is laughter. And trust me, when you’re caught up in that, ANYTHING is funny. This is the time to be the corniest idiot around and you can still make yourself out to be a world-famous comedian. Hell, you could probably make George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Johnny Carson all shudder and turn green in their graves with envy. I can hear their coffins clattering right now. And like I said… if I can hear THAT… yea. Go on with your bad self.
Be a hyena for a day: Laugh your butt off for no reason at all
Do you know how to laugh out of nowhere? For no reason at all? I mean you’re standing in the middle of a big, bad, crowded train station and you just start braying like a hyena. If not, it’s a skill you should learn. It’s something I’ve personally been getting better at over the past few months and it works wonders! I’m nowhere near the hyena-in-Grand-Central stage, but I’m getting there.
One easy way to accomplish this is to keep a file of the times when you laughed so hard you almost peed on yourself. Or when your face hurt so bad afterwards that you couldn’t even smile. Or your abs were pulsing from pain that you couldn’t tell if you were hungry or not. Usually when I’m depressed, I’m too … well, depressed … to remember those times. So I’ll usually scream in my mind or out loud to snap me out of it for a few minutes. Then I’ll start focusing on my breath to calm down and release some tension. At that point it’s easier to remember the funny times.
A couple of months ago, I was stuck in a massive traffic jam (5 separate accidents in one 3-mile stretch of highway, folks) and cursing under my breath. At that time I heard a loud honk nearby and that snapped me out of it. I started breathing in and out for a while and then suddenly I remembered a stupid video a friend of mine sent me recently. Next thing I knew, I was laughing so hard I could barely see the car in front of me. Okay, yea… a bit dangerous. But you know where I’m going with this. And the good news: now I can recall a funny moment without even taking too much time to stop myself.
So, to wrap it up: How to laugh-like-a-hyena-for-no-reason-at-all-even-when-Hurricane-Katrina-2-is-headed-your-way
- Snap yourself out of it by screaming (internally or externally), stomping, clapping, hitting a pillow (disclaimer: NOT a person – don’t say I didn’t warn you – or hell even a wall – if you break it, I’m not responsible!), etc.
- Practice a short breathing meditation by inhaling and exhaling deeply and focusing on each breath to release tension
- Recall stupid/funny/dumb moment and make sure it’s really stupid (in a funny way), don’t be a wuss.
- Laugh. Duh. If you didn’t laugh, it wasn’t stupid enough. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Start again.
- Rinse and repeat. Self-explanatory. But in case it’s not: If you feel crappy weather coming, you know what to do. And every time you do it, it gets easier to identify the storm and to bring up the laughter. Hurricanes-B-Gone.
*Drops microphone* Exits building a la Randy Watson of Sexual Chocolate.
Readers: Thoughts? Opinions? Advice? Share.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Valerie,
That was a particularly funny and elightening post! I went from imagining a hurricane as a metaphor for depression to picturing a hyena laughing in a train station (if in fact I ever did see that, I would be freaking out). I really do like your metaphor of the hurrican though and think that it fits perfectly with the concept of depression. I didn’t even have to do much squinting : )
I can also relate to how thinking of something funny, or just laughing in general, can make a depressing situation a great stress reliever and anti-depressent. It seems like, in our family, bad things always happen in waves of three. First we get a flat tire, then the transmission goes out, then we have to replace the furnace, etc., etc. However, by the third time we almost expect something to go wrong and instead of complaining about it or being upset by it, we laugh uncontrollably. Maybe its a survival trait? You know, so we don’t kill each other as a species. What ever it is, it works.
Very cool article Valerie! You’re quite the talent with using metaphors!
I know in my past that I would also let my self stoop into deep levels of depression for long periods of time. The hurricane was indeed strong. Thankfully now I am constantly putting myself into state to combat any such thing happening. I love your suggestions of using laughter. Laughter really does have a cleansing process on the body.
Jeremy Johnson´s last blog ..Breaking One Million In Alexa Ranking
@ Richard: I love metaphors — it was probably my favorite thing about reading and dissecting literary works in English class.
That’s very cool what your family does! I can see how most people would let one bad incident be the fuel for the next bad incident and so on into oblivion. Kind of the the butterfly effect or a domino effect. I suppose you in your family believes in the saying: “all bad things happens in threes” — maybe by then you realize that it’s just not going to get any worse than that, so you better change your mindset! Very good tactic (or survival trait, if you will) indeed. I’ll have to remember that for when I spiral out of control. It’s always useful to have different tools/perceptions under your belt. Thanks for sharing!
@ Jeremy: Maybe I should hone into the metaphors a lot more, eh? I can totally relate to the deep levels of depression. And at the time I didn’t even know what it was. I just thought to myself: “So, this is it — these are the cards that life dealt me — suck it up.” In hindsight, I can admit that meeting lots of great people in undergrad, many of whom were quite funny, was one of the first steps in me taking more control of how I perceived my life.
Interesting way of dealing with depression. I was curious as to what you deem the source of your depression and if you’ve ever dealt with that source. Or…do you just up and find yourself depressed at times and never really know why? Sorry, I am a huge analyzer. I can’t help myself…of course if you don’t want to share in the answer to this I totally understand.
@ supastar: You know, the source of depression is akin to a chicken an egg question: Do your circumstances cause you to be depressed … or does the way you interpret those circumstances (your mindset) cause you to be depressed? I’m realizing that seeing the source of depression as the latter leaves me better off. It makes everything much simpler because there’s always ONE single reason why you’re depressed, even if you think you don’t know — your mindset.
For me, I was wallowing in pity over what I perceived to be a huge disadvantage to me, namely my hearing loss. Because I chose to see it in a negative light, it grew into a monster that permeated everything else (sometimes completely unrelated things) in my life: I hated my social life, I hated where I lived, I hated being tired all the time, etc, etc. It got to the point where I often didn’t consciously know why I was depressed. I was aimlessly looking for ways to change my external circumstances (here, I’m looking at external circumstances as the source). But the one thing that I really wanted to change but couldn’t is my hearing loss. After years of this strategy not working, I started to turn around and say, “Hey.. maybe I need to change how I perceive my hearing loss, and everything else will follow.”
I now know from reading and experimenting that the fastest way to change your mindset is to change your physiology to take action, no matter how small. If you want to know more about that in depth, I recommend reading “Unlimited Power” by Anthony Robbins. I also recommend the free ebooklet Jeremy above did on a similar topic: http://www.jeremynoeljohnson.com/2010/03/21/unleash-your-fire-through-motion/
Long story short, though: it’s tough to get into a positive mood if you’re always slouching or feeling tense and always frowning. On the flip side, if you force yourself to relax, stand with your chin up, walk fast, exercise regularly, etc … it’s easier to snap out of it. By far, the easiest way to quickly change your physiology, whether we’re aware of it or not, is laughing. Eventually it becomes second nature: you start believing you are happy and other people do too (and gravitate towards you). Not to mention, when your social life is healthy — you’re surrounded by happy, supportive people — it serves as a domino effect because happiness begets more happiness which begets more healthy, relaxed physiology which begets more happiness and so forth.
I’ve started reading a book about what lonliness does to the human psyche, something I’ve had to contend with because hearing loss is quite isolating if you let it. I’m hoping it will give me more insight into what was going on in my mind when I was younger and spent WAY too much time to myself. I probably went off on a tangent here, once again, but I hope it answers your question.
You make a great point Valerie, we can make a choice to change our mood to a better mood by simply changing our thoughts. When relating the eye of the hurricaine, most people would say that smaller dogs often have the biggest bark but never harm us. In this case, the smaller part of the hurricane which is the eye is the most devestating part.
Happiness is often the calm before the storm. Happiness is an emotion just like depression is. We allow depression to get the best of us. I commend you on taking control of your emotions Valerie!
Great post!
Jarrod
Jarrod@ Optimistic Journey´s last blog ..It’s Okay
Jarrod: To twist your analogy around, the smallest dogs often do have the biggest bark that is more distracting than harming — but distracting enough to veer us off course if we’re don’t realize that!
Also I’d say that happiness and depression are ALSO states — simply delegating them only as emotions imply a lack of control over them… as you’ve said. I also think we can let happiness get the best of us as well. Seeing them as states, I feel, has empowered me more throughout my life. Thanks for the comment, Jarrod! I really appreciate it.