Opposite to Happiness: depression, despair, frustration

She phones me – this young girl, my ‘talkmate’ who I speak to on the telephone to improve her spoken English – to tell me it is her birthday. I chirp birthday greetings and make it plain I am happy to chat on her celebratory day. With no attempt to camouflage her low spirits she says: “I am thirty and I have no hope at all of getting married; of having no problems, of getting a teaching post, of my family being even fairly well off. No future to look forward to.”

All this so true. She entered Peradeniya University after her first attempt at the AL exam and followed an arts course. No employment for a couple of years until she got a low ranking government job. Her monthly salary cannot be much, but with that she bears most of the family expenses of an accident injured father, rubber tapper mother and four younger siblings.

She lives with her grandparents, both disabled. She has a friend who wants to marry her, but she cannot forsake her family even to the extent of moving to live with him. Is it any wonder she was distressed and felt hopeless turning 30?

Replication of her story and her life’s path is widespread in this country of ours, common to both genders. Young men however have more avenues open to them to dissipate their desperation and in many families are cosseted by female members: mothers working on estates and sisters slaving in garment factories, for example. Thus the burden of economic instability and unproductive, poverty encouraging policies of governments have fallen squarely on the underprivileged women of the land.

Bad over here

I have no statistics at hand but surmise from conversations had with many mothers, a father and young girls in their late teens or young adults who seem to cope. But maybe they suffer desperation and a losing of faith and hope for the future, keeping it hidden to spare their families the extra burden of having a daughter teetering between wellness and desperation.

The father I spoke with – a driver – has three children: one with a degree and working in a very prestigious firm; the son in his final year – statistics and electronics; and the youngest just past her OLs who started work recently in a restaurant; her target being the hospitality trade. They had their secondary and senior secondary education in the English medium, though Sinhala, because the two girls were in a convent and the boy in an international school. They are well adjusted but have friends who show positive signs of depression and severe frustration.

Well-to-do young ones and those proficient in English are employed or proceeding with higher studies and able to cope with the pressures that are the lot of most Sri Lankans. The less privileged particularly, are adversely affected by high costs and economic travails. Over-anxious, even nagging mothers and excessive competition are other negatives that assail teens and young adults. Worst of all is that the education system has let down Sri Lankan students by not preparing them for alternatives to university entrance – very narrow and restrictive. Late marriages are the order of the day by personal choice or forced on them. The elites choose being single, enjoying greater independence.

Suicides occur among the young but much less than in former years. Young ones contain their frustration to manageable levels mostly because of the strong family system that prevails in our country. The support of the extended family is strong.

I chose this topic which is diametrically opposite to my two previous articles in this column which were on happiness, since depression and the unhappiness of frustration come inevitably to mind when happiness is mentioned. Black and white, good and bad and such like pairs float around together. An added reason for writing about depression is an article from the NYT by a much admired writer/columnist – Maureen Dowd, 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner.

Western countries

Maureen Dowd starts her article thus: “It was ‘the summer of girl power’, a tour de force by a glittering troika; pink dream houses, songs and sequins, Barbie, Taylor Swift and Beyonce buoyed the economy and sent women’s confidence soaring. So I felt sad talking to friends dropping daughters at college, to hear of rampant anxiety, campuses awash in SSRIs – serotin boosters found in drugs like Prozac and Lexapro – and long waits for therapy.” Mercifully, except for the very rich and sophisticated, therapy for teenagers is unheard of over here. Drugs are peddled in and around schools and many parents are not only wary but scared stiff with doubts about their children succumbing. However, I am sure the roaring drug trade has not ensnared too many youngsters. The govt has failed to clamp down effectively on drug devils.

Dowd continues: “Many young college women are ping-ponging between anxiety, without pills, and numbness and body insecurity. These young women seem to have everything, yet they are unable to fully enjoy a stretch of their life that should be sizzling with adventure and promise.” All the women I spoke to about happiness for my previous article, said their happiest days were school days and when in their teens. I agree. Does this hold for the present junior generation of teens and young adults?

Adolescent despair has been copiously analyzed in recent years, Dowd says, and identified as contributory and harming are social media; ‘microtargetting algorithms’ that inflame envy and conflict and divisive politics; unending school shootings; Covid sequestration; a planet devoured by flames and floods; never enough achievement and consumer culture; anxious parents and doting grandparents creating tension; “a digitally connected yet emotionally disjointed and spiritually unmoored society.”

These conditions are prevalent in this country too and parental over anxiety and competitiveness are very present and very injurious to school goers and even university graduands. Our children don’t usually rebel, unlike in the west where often parents are scared of their own kids. It is a moot point and advantageous that in our country most people profess a religion and children in the majority are at ease with being religious.

Buddhist clergy stress meditation and, following the initiative of Most Ven Uda Eriyagama Dhammajeeva Maha Thera, sathi practice (mindfulness meditation) is included in school curriculums or are extra-curricula. Religion is a firm mooring to the elderly. Many young ones too observe sil or give service at temples and meditation centres to cater to those in sil on poya days.

Covid and segregation impacted on all of us and the resultant anxiety had a lasting detrimental effect. Then stormed in effects of climate change. Continuous news telecasts and paper headlines bother us. Political news is also very disturbing. I for one have given up watching TV news in the late evening. I catch up when MTV repeats its night news the next morning at 6.30. Why? Because my sleep was horribly disturbed by parliamentary debates, politician’s pontification and protest marches. Nightmares intruded.

The Wall Street journal ran a front–page story on “The Booming Business of American Anxiety”. To quote: “A search for anxiety relief on Google pulls up links for supplements in the form of pills, patches, gummies and mouth sprays. There are vibrating devices that hang around your neck and tone your vagus nerve, bead filled stress balls that claim to bring calm.”

Mercifully we as a nation are so much more social. We speak with friends and share our fears. We are not loath to bare our fears, even neuroses. We have solid, comforting solace givers and spaces. Hence not much pill swallowing or therapy sessions. Additionally, being citizens of a poor, developing country, we have to contend with more national stresses and pressure, thus decimating the time available for wallowing in self-pity.

Women, proven from experience, get hit harder because they are more closely connected to emotions, but less affected because of relationships, nurturing natures and fraternities.

Post script

I feel I must give here what two of my friends said in reply to my questions about happiness. I list their answers under numbers 1 & 2.

Definition

: 1. Happiness is a choice: you choose to be happy or sink into negativity. Contentment is happiness. It is a sense of joy and relaxation of mind and body arising from the absence of negative emotions like jealousy, hatred, ill will.

2. There are degrees of happiness: ecstasy to contentment.

What makes for happiness?

1.True Love! To Love and to be Loved is the greatest… Love sustains Happiness.

To hold the hand of a loved one while watching a glowing sunset at December in the South, in my Motherland.

2. Happiness is a state arising from the combination of love, compassion and empathy. Happiness is a subjective emotion. What makes me happy may not make another happy.

What was your happiest moment?

1. When I was able to sell my property and have sufficient finances to share with, and care for many people in need. Some of the left over dribbles, I still love to be able to give away and lift up another … and see the smiles on some wilted faces. (She got built forty houses for the poor).

2. Motherhood – giving birth to my children brought me the greatest joy. My whole being was infused with a deep love that seemed to transcend everything else I have experienced before.

What would you like to do/happen to sustain happiness?

1. I would love to give away everything if I can….and be a silent cornerstone or support system, to unobtrusively help to lift our Nation, our magical Motherland, out of the doldrums of corruption and disunity, and help build a New Society of Peace, Contentment, Equality, and Joy. Impossible dream, some would say, but surely, I can have dreams, magical thoughts of Happiness for All, that will create Happiness for me.

2. I am happiest when I make others happy. If I can bring a smile to a person who is troubled, lonely or insecure, I am truly happy. So it is giving.