I'm happy when I'm not in a depression.

LOL. If only it was that simple, right?! Take away the depressions and take away whatever anxiety level is plaguing me, and I'm alright.

To me... happiness is feeling safe and accepted. I don't need to feel accepted by everyone, as that would be impossible for me to convince myself.. but to feel like I have a few people in the world who accept me as I am. Happiness is feeling like someone actually wants to have me around.

I am pretty good at finding happiness is little things though. They're what kept me going when I didn't have the above, which was the first two decades of my life really. Getting lost in a book, nature, the atmostphere of a fair, exploring new places, etc etc.... I can find little bits of happiness in them. They are temporary, but I can bring the memories back or easily reexperience it, and the happiness can be felt again.

It took me a long time to accept that those small fleeting moments were ok and acceptable. It felt for years like there is something wrong with me, because they best I could feel was linked to things and not to people. But I have learned to accept them, and in fact I cling to them sometimes. I struggle with being happy with myself as I am, and I doubt other people care a lot of the time, so I have a harder time holding on to the larger things which make me feel happy (and I lose them quickly when a depression strikes!). But the little things are always there, and very very rarely have I lost in enjoyment in all of them at once - at least one or two tend to stick around during the depressions.

But I had to work a lot to get to this point. I remember soooo clearly the first time I was like 'Hey, life is ok! I'm content!"... I'd stopped dead in my tracks and was then in shock for a little while. I really, really, had to work at it. It didn't just happen; it isn't random. It took me, oh, 5-6 years of solidly working on things to get to the point of feeling content with my life. Before that, I think I just felt like it would never happen or that I should just BE happy. I still think that it's like that for a lot of people, but clearly not for those of us with depression.

I have loads of relapses (HELLO depression, my stupid nemesis!) whereupon I backtrack and think I'll never actually be happy because it keeps returning so what on earth am I doing wrong?... etc etc. Those are times where I just can't grasp it, but at least now I know it's possible for me to feel happy so I just keep waiting and hoping that it'll come back and try my best to help myself get there quicker.

And it gets scary, when I am happy, because I know that eventually it'll just get yanked out from under me. And sometimes that worry makes it happen, hahaha, yay self-sabotage right?! And sometimes it doesn't which is always a pleasant surprise.

But at least I always know that happiness is a possibility for me. It's just not a constant state. So I treasure it when I find it!