My therapist once told me that a study done showed that for most people, the best parts of a vacation were the anticipation of it, and the memories of it. I found this fascinating, since I have a rule about anticipation of anything. It's a pretty simple rule: I don't do it.
My sister was recently pregnant with the first kid between me and my two siblings. People kept asking me if I was excited, and I kept lying and saying yes. The truth is, excitement is part of anticipation, so if I can help it, I don't do it.
Here's the problem with anticipation and excitement: both are forms of expectations. And expectations, more often than not, at least for a depressive, are a really good way to get yourself disappointed. And disappointment is a stronger trigger than almost anything I've run into over the years.
So why do I lie about this? Do you know how it sounds if someone asks you if you're excited about your soon-to-be-born nephew and you say, "Not really," and shrug? All of sudden, you're somehow that psycho. You can try to explain that expectations are a thing you don't do, but people just look at you and nod, and you can tell they're thinking there's definitely something wrong with you.
I could be wrong, but I don't think depressives have any more unrealistic expectations of life than anyone else. I think it's that we don't handle the disappointment of life not conforming to our expectations as well as someone with "normal" brain chemistry.
I suspect this is also related to why depressives have a reputation as being pessimists. Honestly, science itself is kind of all over the place on this issue. One theory suggests depressives hold a negative bias on the world, the next suggests that depressives are realists and non-depressives hold a positive bias. It really just depends on what you're reading. But science aside, popular views of depressives are as pessimists, or persons with a negative bias.
I'm not coming down either way in this post. But I definitely do not believe that striving simply not to have expectations of a situation--positive or negative--makes me a pessimist.
The reason I'm writing about this is that lately my ability to suppress expectation has been, at best, fluctuating. And in fairness to the popular view of depressives as pessimists, it is easier when, if I'm going to have expectations, they're low, or even negative. That means anything greater than what I was expecting is a pleasant surprise.
Positive expectations, however, are a real problem. A couple of months ago, for reasons that are too long to go into, it looked like I might get a full-time job. And for the two to three weeks where this seemed like a real possibility, I was incredibly happy, which might be an argument for positive expectations. The problem is, when it didn't happen, I spent the next month so low that my therapist consistently kept me late and was worried that I was a danger to myself. I probably was.
I like to think I'm getting back on track of being even keel and without expectations. A lot of times to do that, I have to hold to negative expectations until I can wipe the slate completely. Again, this probably leads people to believe I'm a full-time pessimist. Instead, what I strive for, and what I suspect a lot of depressives strive for, is a completely neutral slate.
All this is to say, next time you ask a person if they're excited about something, be it a new job, a trip, a new baby, whatever, if they hesitate, or don't give you the exact answer you're expecting, consider for a moment that excitement might be a dangerous state for that person. Better yet? Ask the person how they're feeling about the subject, rather than asking them if they're feeling the "normal" emotion, or what they're "supposed" to be feeling.
Everyone, depressives or otherwise, deals with life's events differently. Not making assumption goes a long way toward making those who don't function within what we've codified a "normal" emotional sphere less like outsiders.
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