| April 22, 2004 - JOHNNYLEEN's anti-depressants |
| Dear Friends, JOHNNYLEEN doesn't mind telling all of you that depression runs in his family. However, I have managed to avoid serious bouts of depression by various coping mechanisms that I discovered on my own and that I'm quite happy to share with all of you. So the next time you feel even the teensiest bit sad, try one of my sure-fire remedies. 1. Take pleasure in small things. I went to visit my mother recently and found a soap dish that looks like a bathtub. It has a little duck in it and a mother duck is perched on the edge. It's so funny. Everytime I see it I smile and it makes me think of the great day I spent with my mother working around her house, shopping, and then going out to eat. I also have a Spongebob Squarepants pillow doll and every night I hold him on my lap and we watch "Spongebob Squarepants" together. When the theme song comes on, I clap his little stuffed hands together and swing his little cloth legs back and forth. Of course, I realize he's not real, so please don't worry about my sanity. It's just a fun thing to do. 2. Make up your own names for things. For example, I often call my cats "Sweetie Ninnas" and "Ming-Ting-Kitty-Pings". I'm sure the neighbors must wonder what kind of nut lives in the building as I screech out things like "Sugar Bo Beeps" and "Where are my ticklish chickenses?"! That makes me laugh even harder knowing they must be scratching their heads in bewilderment. Of course, there's always the chance you'll slip up and use one of your new words around someone else; like the time I told my boss and some colleagues that I hated cleaning "woogle-boo stink-stink" out of the litter box. 3. Create your own Southernisms. These are phrases that sound like Southerners might actually say them, but they don't really. They're easy to come up with. Here I go, "It's hotter in here than my aunt Selma's griddle cookin' pancakes on a Sunday mornin'." Oh, here's another one, "He's as excited as a three-legged bird dog trying to reach a possum in a peeee-caaaan tree." 4. Make faces at yourself in the mirror. Now a lot of people probably don't want to do this, because they think, "Harumph! I'm an adult and much too mature to be making faces at myself in the mirror." Well, honestly, who gives a crap? I mean after all, if you're by yourself, who'll know? Not only do I love making faces at myself, but I also like to duck away from the mirror and then carefully peer around the corner to see if I'm still there. I just burst out into peals of laughter when I catch myself looking at myself! 5. Last, but not least, right before I go to sleep at night I think of what I've accomplished during the day. I recently started doing this since I've given up going to Ye Olde Watering Hole as a way of doing more important things with my time. Now initially I had it all wrong; I was lying in bed thinking about the stuff I hadn't accomplished and then I'd get in a nasty funk over it. But then I realized that out of, say, 12 items, I had actually accomplished 10 of them and was beating myself up over the remaining 2. So I changed my way of thinking and now I reflect on everything I've done during the day, even the most insignificant stuff, and I feel great and get a good night's sleep. So there you have my secret to happiness and it hardly costs anything except the willingness to shed any bit of dignity you have. But as I said, if no one else sees it, who cares? Next entry Previous entry Go to diary entries Go back home |