One thing I realized is that if you don’t have goals and are steadily working towards them you will be a drifter in life. For me it’s the small things now that make me happy. Less side effects, stability of the mind, no more constipation, eating healthy, maintaining my hygiene, dressing good and smelling good, having a job, being financially stable, having a support group, a good family, a roof over my head, staying motivated, no more depression, staying motivated, staying active and busy.
Don’t get me wrong I still have my bad days but I’ve been stable and out of the hospital for about a year and a half now and making sure I never go back. But overall these are the small things I appreciate that make me happy.
Yes I do think we can find happiness and probably more than that. There are a lot to be desired, but I do generally feel as happy right now as I did before the illness.
It’s important to lower your expectations a bit once you come to terms with the diagnosis though. That’s not to say you can’t regain peak functioning again in your lifetime, but it might be a few years away. Recovery takes time. I think once I lowered my expectations of myself I started to be a lot happier.
I’m generally more happy these days. I had to learn how to be happy though, it was really hard. I learned some interesting things in my developmental psychology class, like the 8 stages of Psychosocial development, that helped put to things into perspective, or at least answered some of my questions. I’m not a psychology student but I found it interesting. But yes, I think it’s very possible to be happy if given the right circumstances in life / or even regardless of.
Yes there were times I felt happy in the past. When I was younger and stronger I felt happy riding my bike long distances, going on vacations, feeling that I had done a good job at work, going outside on a nice weather day, walking through the woods and listening and looking at the sights and sounds of nature, and realizing that my body was still strong. I have trouble feeling happy now because my body is in bad shape although I still notice a nice weather day, and the sounds of nature. Plus the vacations don’t happen like they used to because my family can’t take me very far as my body can’t handle the travel, and they no longer have the money they used to.