Euphoria and Depression: The Misguided Demand For a Singular Feeling.
Euphoria is most commonly thought of as a state of intense elation, but what we do not acknowledge is that even being happy can be damaging for our mental health.
Bipolar depression is characterised by dramatic shifts between extreme sadness and manic episodes, where one experiences euphoria, grandiosity and excitement. These happy emotions are not a break and relaxation period from the depression, but form a part of it and can be just as damaging to one’s state of mind.
Feeling carefree, excited, blissful and joyful seems perfectly normal. Euphoria can be an amazing experience and one of the most pleasurable aspects of being alive: sexual satisfaction, love, and life-goal achievements should all be celebrated. However, occasionally, a person’s euphoria is found out of context. As a symptom of depression, schizophrenia, oxygen deprivation, or substance abuse, these feelings are purely symptomatic of our bodies’ biological reaction to a chemical imbalance. As neurotransmitters fluctuate in their regulation, or the drug wears off, the individual is still depressed, just in an alternative state.
When we feel one way to an extreme, it is inevitable that we must tip the other way. High adrenaline-inducing activities, such as skydiving, parachuting and bungee jumping generate the most amazing feeling, yet are soon followed by a natural come-down, not too dissimilar from a drug-induced version. Our bodies chemically regulate neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin to ensure a sense of balance that these activities and substance abuse overthrows. It is only natural to one minute be euphoric and the next, feel empty and down.
Our capability to feel multiple emotions is what allows us to achieve such a meaningful balance. One extreme is required to pull us back from another: the extreme itself is unsustainable.
Happiness is wonderful and the one emotion that everyone strives to achieve in constancy; but there is a misconception that we should be happy all the time, hence why some may resort to artificial recreations through drug use. Ironically, setting such an unrealistic goal of being happy all the time decreases your chances of being happy, as you become angry at your lack of happiness!
Anger, however, is still an emotion to be appreciated: energising us with a rush of adrenaline that, if focused and channelled rationally, can help to enact change for the better. When suffering with depression, one may become angry at themselves for feeling this way and place blame on themselves. Whilst this has the potential to further toxify their self-perception, a claiming of responsibility can also aid a reclaiming of control. If one is angry at themselves for feeling negatively, then it becomes accepted that they, in turn, have the power to feel a different way and can seek help.
Sadness, too, has an awful press for being a sign of weakness and withdrawal. But, without sadness, how could we truly appreciate being happy? Sometimes it is experiencing the worst times in our lives that allow us to really appreciate when things are going well for a change.
A constant state of euphoria may become unrecognisable as happy. The nature of humanity is to always strive to be better and, it is possible that if one was always euphoric, the feeling would cease to exist. We require each and every emotion to define our present feeling: if we are not happy, we must be unhappy and vice-versa. We define who we are by what we are not and thus rely on the existence of opposites and others. Without sadness, anger, fear, what is it to be euphoric?
Arguably, it is a rejection of this complexity of emotion, bottling them up, or letting them overwhelm us that contributes to emotional disorders, such as depression. There is no one feeling or emotion that supersedes all others. The regulation and balance of each and every state of mind is what allows humans to exist as the complex beings we are.
Every euphoric triumph will most likely come with, or be followed by a moment of self-critical judgement. This not a weakness: this is the very motivation we need to strive for our next elative experience.
