Ginny Graves authored an article at prevention.com
The Surprising Health Benefits of Sadness
Here is an excerpt:
"Antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in America for adults.... At any given moment, about 10% of the adult population is taking them, double the percentage just 10 years ago, and about twice as many of them are women as men."
Interesting to me is that we don't always make the connection to statistics that say that almost 7 out of every 10 Americans are overweight or obese. Many of the 68% overweight should be added to the 10% antidepressant takers to show a true number of people who are "medicated".
New study: 68 percent of Americans are now overweight or obese
My drug of choice has been food. I eat to celebrate, to escape stress, to avoid what's really bothering me, to punish myself for not being able to control things outside my control, to punish myself for achieving things that I am not sure I deserve . . . you name it I can find an excuse to indulge in the endorphin increasing practice of eating to excess.
I am more aware than I used to be, but I still have a long way to go. I am now relosing 20 of 40 pounds that I lost over the last 2 years, because I was blind-sided by some life circumstances and variables that threw me for a loop. I felt that these circumstances were out of my control, and they were, but my response was to eat, to medicate. Did it help? Heck, no! My way of dealing just hurt me. I can look back now and see that I thought I deserved to be punished for not knowing how to deal better. But I want to be more present in the present. I don't like this hindsight crap.
Catherine L. Taylor@thinnerisms sent out a tweet today that is connected to some of this psychological messiness I find myself in from time to time. She said, "Are you a perfectionist or fault finder? These traits can leave you chronically disappointed that life can never live up to your standards" and "Perfectionists have a hard time with and changing habits. They expect too much of themselves in too litttle of time. .
I had a principal when I was in 7th grade, say to me, "You are a perfectionist aren't you?" At the time I didn't quite understand it. As time went on I began to think, "I can't be a perfectionist, because nothing in my life is perfect." After a few more decades, I began to realize that I was the definition of a perfectionist, because I never felt that anything was ever perfect enough. I have moved away from wanting everything to be perfect, but I haven't yet escaped all the emotional garbage that came with wanting everything to be perfect. I still feel guilty because things are imperfect - I can't keep my house clean enough, I don't make enough money, I don't know all the answers, I make typos and mistakes. I feel anger, impatience, envy . . . blah blah blah.
But back to
The Surprising Health Benefits of Sadness. I love this next excerpt:
"a provocative theory newly gaining traction that questions whether depression is really a disorder at all. According to this theory, the pain and sadness we feel when we're blue has a purpose in our lives as a clarifying, healing force. "Depression may be nature's way of telling you to stop and focus on what's troubling you, so you can move past it and get on with your life," says Paul Andrews, PhD, an evolutionary biologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. He, along with his colleague J. Anderson Thomson, MD, a staff psychiatrist at the Student Health Services and Institute of Law and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, have become controversial proponents of an idea that actually dates back to Aristotle, that depression may lead to better mental health."
I don't want to take "meds" or my drug of choice (food) for feeling sad or overwelmed or out of control. I want to focus on what's really bothering me (only as long as it takes) and then move past it.
I want to get on with my life!
Words of the day: Live in the Present and then move Forward!!
