I have been developing some theories for a long time now about mood and external events. The common perception is that people are like flags in the wind, blowing this way or that way depending on what sort of things are happening with us. When things are going well, we are blowing happy. Things are looking bad and we are blowing sad and down.
A change in the weather of luck or life means our flag will right itself and blow in a new direction. It's not a bad philosophy, except that if things are not going well by whatever criteria, our flag is going to be blowing sad, and we will feel powerless to change things, as we are just inanimate objects subjected to the whims of the weather.
Having watched people for a long time though, I am starting to wonder about this. Not only are there people who seem to have perfectly horrible lives but who seem to be the happiest people on Earth. But on the other hand are those who seem to have everything going, and they never seem to be happy.
I know one person who goes through down phases that are probably not even diagnosable in the DSM, or if they were, 90% of the population would get a DSM dx at some point. At various times, for no apparent reason, this person will go into a down mood.
The mood typically lasts for about 2-3 weeks, but can go on a while longer or can even be shorter, maybe a week or so. The more typical up moods can go on for months or even years.
The down mood is characterized by anger, but when it is really bad, by despair and hopelessness. Usually it is just anger. If you ask the person what is wrong, they will say they are "tired", or "worried". If you ask them what the worries are, they typically rattle off a number of legitimate worries, especially about people close to them.
There is a problem with this though. Usually, the stresses during the down mood are in general about the same as the stresses during the up mood. In fact, many times the stresses during the up mood are even greater than the stresses during the down mood, but during the up mood they just charge right through them with a "can-do" mindset.
So, we are left with the realization that during the low moods, the stresses are at times less severe than the stresses during some of the up moods!
One more thing, while in the up moods, the person seems to genuinely enjoy good news and just weather the bad, a very curious thing happens in the low moods: almost nothing good in the environment seems to be able to change the low mood!
In other words, when in the low mood, good things happen - say, the person runs into an unexpected extra $100's in cash - and it lifts the mood for a few hours, then the low mood simply returns.
I get the impression sometimes that I could give these people even $1000's in the low mood and I don't think it would lift the mood.
So what lifts the mood? Curiously, the mood simply seems to lift on its own somehow. The low mood runs its course for whatever reason and just ends. External events seem to have no impact on the length of the low mood.
But to the person I am thinking of, they always blame their low moods on external events.
I know another person who goes into manic phases characterized by anger, irritability, insomnia, increased confidence, arrogance, egotism, etc. The things that never bothered the person when in a normal mood state are suddenly horribly irritating. The people they tolerated with no problems in a normal mood are suddenly despised as the worst people on Earth.
The people didn't change. The stresses didn't change. But he thinks they did.
If you finally gather up the courage to ask the person what the Hell has been wrong with them in the last few months they have been manic (You can't say the word "manic" or this person will jump up and try to punch you), they will blame their angry mood on a whole host of stresses and persons that, as I noted, they were tolerating just fine before.
This person also insists on blaming all of her mood states on external events, just like the person before. Once she received $20,000 while in a slight manic state and instead of making them happier, it drove them into a wild, dysphoric, paranoid, florid manic psychosis. So much for, "All I need is more cash" eh?
In both of these people, mood is being driven internally, starting and ending according to its own clocks. External events play no role in starting, maintaining or stopping the episode.
Do happiness and sadness come from within or without? Do they come from ourselves or others? How much of our moods, which we are so quick to blame on the world outside, are actually being generated right in our own minds?
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