agency and pathways

As soon as the plumbers had driven away last week, the asbestos removal people pulled in. We were scheduled to at long last have the asbestos removed from the basement pipes of this old house. I don't know -- you get cancer, and you start to think about stuff like that. Shouldn't we get the carcinogens out of the house, dear?

A couple of the guys who were doing the removal were smoking cigarettes through the whole process. This seemed unfathomable to me. Sure, they wore masks and the whole area was sealed off for our protection, but smoking while you remove asbestos? This was a different world view from mine.

It reminded me of a recurring conversation that Glen and I would have in grocery stores in our years together. Seeing someone who was buying a cartload of soda pop, junk food, and processed meals, and who themselves was already obese, my thought was, "If you're that overweight, why would you eat like that?" Glen's firm answer was always, "Paula, they're obese because that's how they eat." "But then why would you keep eating that way?" "They're that way because that's how they eat." We'd go in circles with our different takes on this. For years and years, well beyond the divorce, this difference in our perspectives nagged at me. I knew it had something to do with how we each saw the world; even knew it had something to do with what happened to the marriage. But I couldn't get at what that difference was.

Sometime in the past couple of years, I stumbled upon the positive psychology concept of agency and pathways, and the grocery store puzzle (as well as the marriage puzzle) made new sense. People with a sense of agency have a felt sense that "I'm captain of this ship called my life, and I know how to steer it." People without a sense of agency are less likely to be focused on actively steering; they are then more susceptible to feeling victimized by, resentful of, and sometimes helpless against the storms that cross the ship's path.

When you have a sense of pathways, you can see, even if it involves lots of trial and error, strategies for managing the challenges of steering the ship. At least you think you can see strategies. The thinking you can is the sense of having pathways, and it keeps you engaged in the steering process, greatly increasing the chances that you actually will solve a problem. Believing you have pathways connects very directly with your sense of optimism -- and then, by extension, your happiness.

In the past month or so, I have gradually felt my own sense of agency slipping away from me. It's been fascinating, in a private and morbid kind of way, and this fascination in fact was part of what worried me. There was a part of me that wanted to see how this played out; what would happen if I let myself get really depressed? When that thought became my dominant thought, I knew it was not a good sign.

When you start to think, "What a drag. I will have to eat food every day throughout my life," there is something amiss. Doesn't that sound like depression to you? Yah. I long to find the self that says, "I get to eat every day for the rest of my life!"

It became, or has become, hard to imagine feeling well. I began to envision feeling worse more clearly than I could see feeling better. When cars drove past me, I'd wonder: "Do those people feel well? Does anyone feel well?" And reading "Body & Soul" magazine a couple of weeks ago, I found myself thinking: "Why are they including these recipes? Who would want to eat? Who would want to go to all the trouble of cooking this blueberry pie?" I began to think more about death than about life. Not in a suicidal way (at all) -- just a nice, moseying, ruminating drift toward darkness in my thoughts.

So a part of me was thinking these thoughts. Another part of me was saying, "Whoa, paula. These are really not rational or useful thoughts," and a third part of me was thinking, "This is kind of compelling. I'm not sure I want to turn around from this dark path."

But I knew I needed to. And I knew that Laura was the Master of Turning Towards. So a few nights ago, I said, "La. I think I may be getting depressed." Honestly, it was like I think it must feel for an addict who finally says, "I think I may have a drug problem." You don't want someone to intervene; you're at least ambivalent. But by Grace, fundamentally I want to be well. And I knew I had to trust that this would matter to Laura as much as -- or even more than, in that moment -- it mattered to me.

Of course it helped instantly to start talking about it, and of course Laura dropped everything to spend the evening helping me talk about it, helping me generate pathways out of this. I am a firm believer that suffering lessens when you share it, just as joy expands when you share it. I am determined to do whatever I need to do to keep a more optimistic perspective, to keep my treasured, core sense of agency. It's hard when you feel like crap, and can't remember feeling well. I miss my well self. I am accustomed to being pretty happy in my life. Quite happy. And I am losing sight of that, enough to know that I need to flag down some help. Casey's death added to the sadness, but this little tendril has been approaching me for awhile.

I want to make sure I stay ahead of the creeping vine of depression.

Thanks for listening. I'm okay -- really I am, or will be. Naming and then calling out to the spooky things along the path -- I see you, dark thoughts! -- is one of the ways I intend to shoo them away.