Got Flowers?

Early in my treatment for depression, before my therapist knew me well, he tried lots of what I like to call "the little tricks" he learned in "therapy school."

The one that came to mind last week was when he told me to buy myself a flower.

Yeah.

Here I am, sitting in your office, paying you crazy sums, suffering from severe depression, and you want me to buy myself a flower?

Which is pretty much what I told him.  But I didn't stop there.  I let him know in uncertain terms that if I had to buy my own flower, for goodness' sake, I would only feel worse.

I believe this suggestion came shortly after his "go home and take a nice relaxing bath" idea.  At the time I was a mother to four children under 11, one of whom was a toddler.  My husband traveled, my bathtub was dirty, and taking a bath in the afternoon was about the last thing I could do.

I suggested he find out if these trite ideas actually made anyone happier or only increased the anger the patient feels for her therapist's lack of understanding of what life as a stay-at-home mom is like and that if I wanted to feel happier then tell somebody else to buy me a damn flower.

Ahem.

I might have been a bit of a challenge for him.

But that was then and this is now.

Ten years and a decade of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors later, I have a higher set point of daily happiness.  

Or maybe it's that my depression threshold is lower?

What I mean to say is that now that I'm no longer depressed, I do occasionally enjoy buying myself flowers. Especially this time of year, when it just seems too long to wait for daffodils to bloom.

Ah, Spring.

You do make me happy.