The Happiest Depressed Person You Know

That was a how a friend described me when I told I told her I was going to start therapy. But as my Happy Doctor put it, I've had a complicated life and there's a lot going on. Apparently I'm so crazy, I need to meet with him twice a week.

It's a strange experience talking about yourself for an hour and not have the other person reciprocate, well not really reciprocate so much as just ask you more questions about yourself. And I wonder, on the bus on the way to my appointment, what could I possibly talk about for fifty minutes? But then I'm sitting on his couch and he sits across from me looking at me, not saying anything and then the words come.

I joked with another friend that of course he wants to see me twice a week because I've got juicy soap opera stuff to tell, what with multiple divorces in my family, a former spy father (I'd like to add here, that I was referred to this doctor by a family member who is also seeing him, which I think helps in my credibility as actually having a father who is retired from the CIA, not just another delusional crazy person), an alcoholic sister and a recently widowed best friend. It feels like the Days-of-Our-One-Life-to-Live instead of therapy as he tries to keep track of which sibling of mine is from which of my parent's marriages. And even when I say, "I don't know how to handle..." whatever this or that, he never answers my questions, just agrees with my confusion. It's a bit frustrating that he never tells me what to do ... but, this is what I've learned so far from our sessions...

at a young (according to my happy doctor at a way too young) age I took on feelings of responsibility for the happiness of people in my life and felt torn by divided loyalties. I try to take care of everyone around me before I take care of myself because one, I feel responsible for everyone else's happiness and two then I don't have to or can avoid taking care of myself.

And what I realized today, in talking both about my sister ... and relaying a conversation I had with my best friend's brother, that we can't make them happy (my sister or my best friend) that only they can make themselves happy and that the only that I can do, the only thing that is my responsibility and within my power is to let her( my sister and my best friend) know that I'm there for her. It was a bit of a freeing moment when I realized that.

That was this weeks revelation.

So, on that note, I'm the happiest depressed person you know...