When I was teaching the seminars, Gloria would sometimes be driving me to the airport at 3 AM in order to catch a flight. (Actually, usually it was me driving, and Gloria slowly waking up so that she could drive the car home after I got out at the airport.) I would make some silly comment, and Gloria would look at me and say that she knew that I reacted to stress and sleeplessness by making jokes, but she didn't. And she couldn't particularly handle jokes when she was tired.
(Come to think of it, Gloria mentioned that several times over the past year, as well. Maybe she was trying to warn me of something?)
K&L, and the grandkids, simply refer to my "inappropriate humour."
A couple of the people I have talked to, recently, have said that I must be doing pretty well, because I sound cheerful and upbeat. Of course, I am not cheerful and upbeat. I am morose and depressed. But I learned a long time ago, that people don't care if you are morose and depressed, and they don't want to deal with you if you are morose and depressed. They like it better if you make jokes. So, I got very fast and skilled at making jokes. Regardless of the situation, and whether appropriate or not. It's part of my coping mechanism.
Another part of my coping mechanism is persistence. We, as a species, are persistence hunters. Pretty much anything can outrun us--over the short term. But long term, we can chase down pretty much anything if we keep gong. Just keep going until what we are trying to track gets exhausted. We can outlast pretty much anything.
I've been a depressive for more than five decades. One of the things about depression is that you get tired, and stop doing things. But my depression is cyclical. (It used to be called manic-depressive of depressive type, but that doesn't fit well with the new DSM-V "bipolar" terminology. Even my mental illness is non-standard.) So, I just keep going until I outlast it. When Ryan was little he loved the book "Are You My Mother," with the repeated refrain of "And the baby bird went on." I modified that, for myself, to, "And the tubby beard went on." So, I just keep going. It's become more than just a coping mechanism; it's a big part of the way I tackle anything. Faced with a problem, or starting a project, I'll just start, anywhere, with anything, even if there are lots of things I haven't got yet. Do what you can with what you have right now. When more comes you will already have some parts accomplished. And, if you know Seligman's theory of learned helplessness, you know that accomplishing anything, even if it's a kind of false achievement, helps you out of the depression. Eventually. If you keep at it.
Gloria, of course, knew that. She knew that I was a depressive when she married me. She wondered if she could handle it, because one of her friends was married to a depressive and had a really difficult time with it. But, over time, she came to see that, even when I got into a deep depression, I was still determined, and still kept going, even if only in the smallest way. She came to value my persistence and determination, and that fact that, no matter what, I just kept taking the next step ...
There's a funny story about that ...
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