How do you celebrate?
When something great happens in your life how do you celebrate?
Here are a few things I do:
It depends how big it is. If it's something huge I might buy myself a cuddly toy, medium I get myself a nice box of chocolates or go out for lunch. Small I might buy a couple of individual chocolates from a fancy shop.
As you can tell I like chocolate
We have a very old, super popular Italian bakery near me. They have chocolate florotine cookies (my favorite) and other amazing treats.
I do the same, and will stop in there for a special occasion.
Yes there's a sensational Italian bakery near me! You've inspired me to get a cake next time I do well
chocolate is very important, lol
in fact, my main account may have been unconsciously named that way
Haha I approve
Nap.
Honestly I've not celebrated anything in a very long time. I've not been hitting any big milestones so not got anything to celebrate.
I think I've achieved lots of little things though like a small 4% raise, learning things I always wanted to but thought I never could, improving my life in little ways like keeping my place clean (hard with ADHD), not ordering takeaway and doing proper savings and budgeting.
I could do with a non-matetialistic treat, so is love to hear some ideas in that vein.
Making myself a fun coffee drink then putting on loud dance music and dancing in my kitchen is a low-materialistic treat I've taken.
Taking a bath can be, too.
Shit I'll celebrate a sunny day when my whole family is home by simply preparing a nice dinner for us and spending time together, happy and joyful. I'll sing until I've annoyed everyone and we laugh, just because the sun is out and I'm in a good mood. Good moods are worth celebrating as they don't come everyday
Plenty of things to celebrate if you look small. I hope you find something small to celebrate soon!
I don't, but then again I'm suffering from dysthymia.
I had to look up dysthymia, but it sounds awful, I'm so sorry 🫂
I don't have PDD, but I do have a variety of mental health symptoms that overlap with the symptoms of PDD, and while I'm doing a lot better these days, I have previously suffered decades of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation that I wouldn't want anyone else to go through. 😅
If not celebration, what are ways that you cope or find joy?
I remember through those times rewarding / tasty food became a bit like a lifeline. I do not know your depression, but my depression was very anhedonic, so as a baseline everything was less enjoyable.
So I had a lot of "craving" behavior, seeking easy and quick rewards because I couldn't motivate myself to do much else and nothing was enjoyable anyway.
Cooking for others became a major coping strategy, as cooking for others triggered my sense of responsibility, which helped with the depressive / motivation issues.
Basically I could leverage stress to animate my unwilling flesh (even though it was, you know, stressful and awful), and getting good enough at cooking then setup a reliable pattern of rewards.
Eventually I noticed if I ate at restaurants too much or outsourced my cooking to something like prepared or frozen meals to save time, I became much more miserable and sank more into my depression - honestly cooking kept me alive in multiple senses.
Anyway, I wonder if you have something like that, not necessarily celebratory - but like a spring bubbling up from the ground that sustains you.
Short answer: I drum a lot in my session room.
But joy? That word is weird to me. I just do music nonstop these days and I hope I don't happily walk in front of a train. That's basically it.
I find a little "joy" whenever I listen to certain music, or I'm playing certain music.
That's it. Sorry my response isn't a lot more happy than you hoped for.
Its extremely rare for good things to happen, usually I just appreciate the moment before it ends.