On Unhappiness
I laid crying on the bathroom floor of my quaint, white walled Amherst apartment. It was Halloween night, usually my favorite of holidays, and I was immobile. I couldn't make a decision. It started with - what do I wear? And ended with - Do I stand up or keep lying on the floor crying? I was so exhausted from an emotionally abusive job. It broke me to the lowest I'd ever been. I was unhappy. Unbelievably unhappy. Not depressed. I've studied a bit on mental health and I understand that depression is about chemical imbalances in your brain. I'm talking about unhappiness. A feeling. A fluid feeling. A feeling that American culture teaches us is bad. We're not suppose to be unhappy. Look at our lives, to be unhappy is to be ungrateful. So as I laid crying on the floor, I felt guilt. Guilty that I was this upset about a job. All my family and friends were alive. There had been no deaths or illness. But this guilt is misplaced. The notion that we should not be u...