We’re all human, and life isn’t perfect. Neither is our physiology. 40 million people in the US struggle from diagnosed anxiety, and 350 million people in the world suffer from depression according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I think this is some Bullll Shit. Is there anything we can do about it? According to Yale Psychologist Judith Rodin, the answer is yes. In an experiment she conducted a study on depressed subjects in nursing homes, and found a 93% improvement in Alertness, Activeness, and overall happiness, because of this one variable: Autonomy.
Autonomy is defined as “External freedom from control or influence; independence”. Now, I grew up with (and they would agree with me), 2 extreme control freaks as parents. As Behaviorists, my parents’ drive to control negative or positive outcomes in my life was, I think, genuinely a very caring, well-intentioned attempt at protecting me from failure or “negative” outcomes.
However, by trying so hard to control every situation in my life that could possibly go wrong, what they really instilled in me was the cognitive bias of Learned Helplessness. Learned helplessness arises when a person suffers a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic even, or a persistent failure to gain control in their life or to succeed.
I never really got the chance to make choices completely on my own, and then, at 18, everyone all of a sudden expected me to make all of them. This is the point in the article where I point out that I didn’t even recognize the problem for a year or two– until I wound up in treatment because I couldn’t make food choices because what say I did have in my diet growing up, was monitored as much as humanly possible and had consequences and contingencies for abiding by it. I wasn’t just failing at making good food choices, but I relied on anybody and everybody I could to make all my choices in life for me. I needed someone to ask if we should go to any social event, I needed someone to ask if we should excercise that day, I needed someone to tell me what attractive was so I could dress, act, and get dolled up to their liking; I was a Co-Dependent wreck of a human. I was unhealthy, I was anxious all the time because all of the aspects of my life were tied to living up to someone else’s standards.
While in treatment for my eating disorder, after hearing a little about my life story, the first thing my (badass, wonderful) therapist said, was, “So you don’t have an Eating Disorder problem, you have a Co-Dependency problem.” And that woman freaked me the hell out every day by asking me questions twice– she would let me answer once, then she would say, “Okay, now what does the real Mikayla think?” I had no god damn clue. I didn’t even know what she meant. I genuinely was under the impression that everyone in the world answered questions by trying to get the right (most kind, reasonable) reaction from whatever audience they were talking to. That’s what I had done my whole life, trying to avoid the consequence of a situation set up by my parents, and just do what they wanted me to do. The idea that my “feelings” and “thoughts” could help dictate what I chose to express to others, or to dictate my own choice of action in a situation seemed super weird and foreign to me, as strange as that sounds.
As things have progressed since then, I’ve taken steps towards Autonomy and more happiness by gradually practicing making small choices just for me. I started with small things like choosing one activity to do alone per week (taking myself on a day date to the Barnes and Noble an hour away from where I live, writing at a coffee shop I love, an at-home spa day while listening to podcasts…). Eventually I started making bigger choices, like choosing my own meal plan and letting myself mix it up according to my own feelings that day, choosing to end relationships that didn’t serve me at the time, going after the job I really wanted, and filling my day with things I like to do, versus things I thought other people might have a positive perception of.
Now, I am no where near perfect at this, and this article is as much of a reminder to myself to make more choices for me instead of others, as it is to you. I still struggle with speaking up and asking people for what I want instead of quietly just dealing with whatever it is I’m struggling with, I still have a really hard time making choices sometimes (especially when it comes to eating out, which drives my partner absolutely crazy!), and I still slide back to putting other people’s perception of me above my own at times. The thing is, that I always find myself feeling more anxious and depressed, and kind of stuck in a rut when the more I slip back into codependency.
The more I take charge of my own life, base my actions and reactions on my feelings and personal experience, and the outcome that would make me feel best, the happier I get, and the more I naturally get what I want out of life. Plus, I really think people respect me more when I do.
It’s perfectly natural to want to connect with and please the people in your life that you love, just not at the cost of your own well-being. The more Autonomy I cultivate, it seems the more Vim & Vigor I end up being filled with.
Vim & Vigor 