The theme of this blog is Dim Reflections. The images are unclear. The appearances aren’t quite what they seem. Reality is hidden, shrouded, distorted. It’s like a cheap carnival ride that is mildly amusing, but not exactly fun. It’s slightly nauseating, until it is overwhelmingly so. Sometimes it’s just another maze of mirrors. Curiously disorienting but frustrating. Sometimes it’s a funhouse mirror. Kind of funny if you look at it just right, but then the novelty wears off and I just want to move on. But there’s nowhere else to go. It’s just more mirrors. More dim reflections.

I’m lower than usual this morning. I’d say ‘sad’ but that often implies that something has happened to cause, or at least explain, the presence of the emotion – the ‘sadness’ – that would otherwise not be present.

My experience with persistent depression is that it usually works the opposite way. I start out behind. I begin from the bottom with an emotional weight dragging me down, and then I go looking for plausible explanations to account for it. And I have no shortage of suspects.

Why this particular sadness? Why now, in this present moment?

It can sometimes be helpful to make a list of possible reasons. I’m never very confident my list is correct or complete or even totally honest. But it can help me identify concrete action steps to address specific triggers. Sometimes that works.

The word ‘triggers’ is an interesting one.

My initial reaction is to prevent the triggering. But who is holding the gun? Is it my finger on the trigger, or somebody else’s? Is it my gun? Is it a real gun, or just a clever fake, or is it all in my imagination?

I guess for maximal responsibility and sense of control I should always assume I’m the one holding the gun. It’s my finger on the trigger of my gun pointed at my head or chest. On this view, I shouldn’t blame others for triggering me, I only have myself to blame.

The supposed benefit of the “all on me” view is that it suggests the possibility that I might someday gain mastery of my emotional self to such an extent that I am never triggered. Inner peace. Serenity now.

The harm is that, to the extent that I am still triggered, or trigger-able, it is all and only me. I am completely and utterly alone in my struggle. And that seems anti-human. To completely insulate my individual emotional life from the influence of others isolates me from our shared humanity in a way that seems both unattainable and undesirable.

And it seems to exclude and absolve everyone outside of myself of our relational connection, our mutual culpability, our shared responsibility for collaboratively creating the interpersonal community we necessarily inhabit together.

And even if I can somehow manage to never allow myself to be triggered, I’m still going through life with a loaded gun pointed at my head. That doesn’t seem like a healthy situation, even if it is perhaps the best I can hope for.

The second implication is, if I can’t eliminate the triggers, I can at least be mindful of them. I guess the benefit lies in having the awareness that I am about to get shot a split second before I actually get shot. Again, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that split second, although experts recommend pausing, breathing, calming, embodying, distracting, and redirecting techniques. It’s a morbid picture, because as far as I can tell I’m still getting shot. I’m just getting ready for it first.

The metaphor breaks down. An actual bullet is not going to allow me time to breathe, or pray, or sing, or dance, or go for a walk, or drink water, or recite my mantras and memory verses, or put on my safety vest, or dodge out of the way. And, though my only experience is being shot by a BB gun back in 5^th grade (and yes, I thought I was going to die), I don’t expect a bullet to hurt less just because I know it’s coming. But for emotional triggers, it can help.

And so I’m writing about it. I have a lot more to say, but I’ve been at this for a while already this morning and thankfully I’m feeling less heaviness, less sadness, less ‘low mood’ as the therapists call it.

I didn’t really sort anything. I didn’t list all the possible explanations for feeling low this morning and work my way through each one. But now the sun is up and it’s getting warm outside and I have weekend yard work to do that I really don’t want to do, which means sitting here writing more is probably just a bad faith attempt to give myself a plausibly acceptable excuse to not do what needs to be done. And I’m almost out of coffee.

Happy Saturday!