My Word

"Anticipisorrow"

WHAT?
The sinking feeling that you aren’t quite worthy of the level of happiness you are experiencing, sometimes resulting in self-sabotage in order to partake in more familiar, comfortable emotions like: anxiety, grief and (gasp) despair.

WHO?WHY?
Mostly low-self esteem types, those with chronically low levels of serotonin, histories of depression, histories of periods of great joy (usually at a young age) followed by unanticipated loss.

WHEN?
Of all times, when one’s outlook on life is actually positive, serotonin levels are up, and one is maintaining stable relationships, participating in healthy activities, and exhibiting adjusted behavior. Stunningly, can occur just after great joy, accomplishment or period of mental quietude.

EFFECTS:
Inability to take pleasure in the moment due to constant worry about bittersweet-ness of said moment once it becomes only memory, vicious circle of emotional/personal dissatisfaction.

REMEDIES? Beyond SSRIs and MAOIs? Friends who understand, puppies, a little wine, poetry, God.

Galway Kinnell writes it up good...

“…and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,

learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come—to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth that tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.

The still undanced cadence of vanishing.”