so, today's post.  it's a reply to davey wavey.  who's that?  well, he's this super adorable and very positive guy i came across randomly on the internet, and after reading one of his posts, i started typing a response in the comments section.  however, upon completing my thoughts, i realized that it was way too long for the comments section, and that it would be against my better judgment (and basic internet etiquette) to post it there.  instead, i'll put my response here.  maybe he'll read it, or maybe not.  this comment would experience the same fate if it went into his comments section, because he has a very large following and probably can't possibly read all the comments.  anyway, that's what i have a blog for!

so here's his post.  i'll also include some of the text of his post below:

I suppose it might be possible to “have” what could be considered a bad day. But I think that this statement is incomplete and misleading.

For example: Tonight, I had a bad dinner. I heated up some taco meat from the distant past, and added some dried up cheese to an even drier tortilla. I’m trying to clear my cupboards, so I accompanied my dinner with a few less-than-satisfying baked potato chips leftover from the month prior. Indeed, I “had” a bad dinner.

But moreover, I “created” a bad dinner. Saying that I had a bad dinner leaves out a crucial detail: I am the one responsible for said undesirable culinary creation. And that crucial detail makes all the difference!

he goes on to make the analogy to when we feel we've had a bad day.  we can look at it as having "had" a bad day, or as having it because we created it.  so, this is my response:

hi davey.  first visit to your site.  you're adorbs!  i wish you lived in my neighborhood and could cheer me up every day.  are you really that upbeat and chipper?  awesome!

not to be a dissenter, but i want to pose a question, or thought experiment, or whatever you want to call it.

you know how those buddhist monks who've been practicing meditation their whole lives have proven with EEGs and such that they know how to use their minds, and meditation, to consciously affect body states, such as heart rate, the relaxation state of brain waves (from alpha to delta), blood pressure, release of stress hormones, and many other important bodily functions?  well, i think that certainly proves that the human mind has an incredible capacity to control what are normally thought of as automatic or reflex bodily functions.  and i love that that's possible.

however, these guys are trained, practiced.  kind of like your very fit body, you've worked toward that body, and now can do things that a chubby body like mine isn't (yet anyway) able to do -- like push-ups.  can't do those.  i wonder if it's fair to say that we can create a better day for ourselves as if it's an across-the-board ability for people.  maybe that's something you have to learn, work toward.  maybe it's something that some people, because of their upbringing or mental health predisposition, are farther from being able to control than very healthy individuals.

for instance, sometimes people have an adrenaline system that's haywire.  i'm one of those individuals.  because the glands in my body which release adrenaline aren't something i have learned to control, and i don't even know where to learn how to control it, how can i create a different situation for myself in a single day?  i'm not sure it's possible.  just like i'd have to train (and in the right way) in order to be able to do a push-up, it would take some time for me to acquire the ability to control my adrenaline in everyday situations.

in case you don't know, when your adrenaline system kicks itself into high gear due to some minor trigger, it's not only unpleasant (sweating, increased heart rate, shaky hands, etc.), but my ability to use my brain in the normal, logical way is diminished.  i know that there's nothing to be panicked about, yet i feel panicked.  and it snowballs.  sometimes it gets to the point where i'm completely convinced that there are all these things wrong, and i'll even end up in a fit of tears.  not always even sure why, other than my body's fight-or-flight response being falsely triggered.

so sometimes, having a bad day is, in my opinion, a state of health you're experiencing.  there's a pretty thin line between physical and mental health, since neurotransmitters are so involved in things like reaction time, pain sensitivity, sleepiness, etc., so i'm coming at this from the perspective that i have an ailment.  and it's a totally natural process for living things to die and disintegrate, sometimes before reaching maturity.  so i also don't think it's a fair posture to say that if someone is ill, they're not being what they should be.  some people just get sick and suffer, and some just get sick and die, and some suffer and then die.  what if it's just my natural state to be someone with this mental illness, who will suffer pain for much of my life before i ultimately expire?

maybe it's just my lot, and bad day after bad day is something i have to either accept or work *really* hard to overcome.  and to me, that makes it different from someone who doesn't have this condition, and doesn't have to work so hard to think themselves into a better mindset.  so the supposition that a person can simply sit down, take a deep breath, put things in perspective, remind themselves of the good in their lives, and turn those brain chemicals right around just seems too strong an assumption.

some things we don't simply don't create, or don't know how to create.  i love the positive message you're trying to spread, and i myself also try to think this way.  but i just wanted to point out that it can sometimes feel insulting to folks with mental illness or imbalances to hear that they can *think* themselves into a better state.  while that might be true, the psychiatric community is still not sure how it works.  there are even people who believe you can imagine yourself healed, and heal something like cancer.  this may also be true!  i don't know.  but if i told someone with cancer that they can create a healthier body for themselves, i think they'd be offended.  i'm not offended, but i felt like i should bring this up.  i do believe it's possible for me to control my panic attacks, and will be trying out neuro/biofeedback as soon as i can afford it, as a method of training myself how.  but right now i lack not only the skillset, but the instruction manual.  and i think this is the case for a lot of people.  and for this set of people, they're not creating their own bad days, at least not the way they see it.