SYL - Week 8

What Is Happiness?


Happiness is a few different things to me. It is something that people take for granted. It is something that you can only truly appreciate when you have felt sadness. It is something that has to be constantly worked towards, it doesn't just happen.


There are a lot of things that make me happy, different things bring different amounts of happiness for different reasons. Here is a short list (I've not planned this post, am just typing and letting it come out naturally so I HOPE this is a short list!).


These things all make me happy....


My hubby, Trav
My kids, Cameron, Sophie, Jack and Hannah
My Mum
My extended family
Sewing
Babies
Helping others
Being nice


Ok, I'm impressed that I've managed to write a fairly short list. I'm very obviously a people person which is strange when you know what is in my head. I spent most of my life needing to be with someone every moment of the day. I hated to be alone and didn't cope very well with it at all. Now I am a very different person, I crave my space and love having time to myself. This came about as a method of self preservation during my battle with depression. This is a battle that is far from over but I am winning at the moment.


Depression is something I hope to leave behind one day. It's physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting. It takes every ounce of my being to fight off the fog that I've been in for a long time now. The strangest thing is that I never realised how bad things were until I started to get better. I started to feel happy again and then realised that I had been unhappy for a long time. I had totally shut down and was using all my strength just to get out of bed in the morning and keep breathing.


This week I've been very mindful of happiness. Whether I am feeling it, what I have to do to bring it in to my life every day and how to keep it there. This weeks challenge has shown me just how far I have come in the last 12 months. 12 months ago is when I faced my situation and finally accepted that I needed help. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I went to the GP with a hand written note as I couldn't even say the words. It was one of the roughest rides I could imagine. The first lot of antidepressants made me suicidal, I very nearly took my own life. I have my hubby to thank for looking after me and making that impossible. I have self harmed in the past and this came back with a compulsion stronger than I had seen before. I HAD to do it, I LOVED to do it and I didn't see why I couldn't. They are my arms, I'm not doing serious harm, why can I not just scratch them with a pin until they bled and split? I now look at the scars on my arms, listen to people ask me what happened to them and wish like I've never wished before that I hadn't done that. At the same time, I still crave the feeling and if I hadn't thrown my cutting pins away, I would still be doing it. It's a hard thing to sort out in my head.


The thing that makes me happiest at the moment is my sewing. It's purely for me. It's something I can do alone, it's relaxing and I love the feeling I get from completing a project. The accomplishment brings a great feeling of happiness and pride. The fact that people buy the things I sew still blows my mind and I will be forever grateful to those people. I've just been away for the weekend and I thought about half finished sewing projects left on my sewing desk, I couldn't wait to get home and get started on them again. I'm so glad I've taken the SYL challenge because it has helped me realise that I am worth working for, worth taking the time to look after and spoil. I don't think I've ever felt like that before. I'm making myself important, as important as everyone else. It's not the easiest thing to get used to but it sure is working for me.


This post is a bit strange I know, it's early morning and I just felt like writing. It's probably all over the place, may not make a whole lot of sense and parts will be confronting. This is exactly what my mind is like all the time. Sometimes I think it does me good to let the thoughts out exactly as they happen. Once they are down on 'paper', I can sort through them and see what is what. I think I better recap now though, even I'm not sure where the point is in here!!


Happiness to me is something that makes me feel amazing. I don't have to laugh all the time, sometimes it's just a little smile. It is a feeling of calm and warmth. Something I get from helping other people, often strangers, knowing the only thing I will get in return is the feeling of happiness. There is no better reward.


I strive to make other people happy as well. I would love the world to be happy. I think the world just needs to be taught that happiness doesn't just happen. You need to find what makes you happy and do it every day. If I end every day with one happy memory then life will be so much easier than it used to be.