Our moods dictate how we see and define the world, because a mood is really nothing more than an attitude. And I have always believed that life IS attitude. How we define ourselves and our place in the world directly influences how we think, act, and behave. We tend to divide all personalities into three types: the optimists, the pessimists, and the realists. The optimists believe that everything is always going to turn out
for the best, the pessimists believe that nothing is ever going to turn out for the best and the realists hope things turn out for the best, but understand there are no sure things in life.

I have also always believed that we are the Captain of our own ship, that we are in absolute control of how we see, live, and behave in the world.  Consequently, I've never understood people who have to depend on mood-altering prescription drugs to get through the day nor have I agreed with all of the personality disorders that the American Psychiatric
Association has conjured up. Surely we can determine our own moods and our own attitudes without the help of drugs or counseling, I've always thought.

I read in the paper a couple of days ago that Rosie O'Donnell has been clinically depressed for many years and kept it a secret because of the shame she felt when she even heard the word "depressed." Because she is such an outgoing, assertive woman, she looked at depression as failure. An inability on her part to change her attitude and her latitude, to change her
feelings and emotions, to put herself in a good mood instead of a bad one.   Consequently, she talked about it to no one and simply suffered silently, day after day, month after month.

There's an old saying that says, "whatever goes around comes around." I have recently discovered first hand that sometimes you get in a mood and nomatter what you try to do, the mood won't go away. All of those years I've lectured to college students, telling them that we have the ability to feel any way we choose to feel, and I was wrong. Sometimes an event overwhelms us to the point of literally taking us over. The event, or the process, or the feelings control us rather than us being able to control them. It has been a mind-opening experience for me.

This is what happens to us in grief situations. Chandra Levy's parents tell the reporters they are heavily medicated in order to just get through the day. That without the help of prescription medicine that levels out their moods, they would have been insane with grief and worry. But there are also
other kinds of grief situations that don't necessarily involve death, injury, or missing persons. Sometimes events occur in our lives that directly effect our lives, not only for the time being but for the rest ofour lives. If we have some control over these events, then we tend to be able to deal with them. For instance, taking a new job, moving to a new house or town, deciding to go back to school; these are all significant
changes in our life that could impact on us forever but we have a large degree of control over whether we do them or not and how we react to them after the fact.

The stress and the strain of life are most likely to come from those things we don't control or can't control, especially romantic relationships. The knowledge that the rest of your life hangs in the balance of a decision thatyou literally have no control over is enough to make one sick to their stomach and to stay sick to their stomach. Not knowing what the other person is going to do is our greatest fear. Not knowing about ANYTHING is our greatest fear. If the Levy's knew what happened to Chandra, even if it the worst possible scenario, they could still begin to deal with it and they would eventually begin to heal and move on with their lives. But they will
never have peace until they know for sure.

It's the same way with relationships. They are so filled with uncertainty anyway, but not knowing what's going to happen next is the most daunting task many of us have to deal with. And sometimes, it becomes so consuming, the weight of the dilemma so crushing, that we have to seek help in order to
give our mind a rest and get some relief. Because no matter how hard we try to make these worrisome thoughts go away, they just won't go.  I've always told my students that learning never stops. That I go into each semester hoping to learn as much from them as they do me. This is just another example of continuing education. Sometimes, we run into situations
whose proportions and potential consequences are so permanently life-changing that, try as hard as we might, we can't manipulate the way we feel. It's hard for many of us, especially type-A personalities like me, to ask for help. But sometimes we have no options.

Sometimes we have to ask, just to survive.