Unhappy moments are just part of life

"What's wrong with me? I'm just not happy. All I want is to feel good."

As a psychotherapist, I hear this often. When I ask people what they want out of our work together, often they talk simply about being happy or feeling good.

People whose marriages are in trouble or who are in the midst of divorce, whose spouse has recently died, who've just lost a job, who have a chronic illness, who were abused or neglected as children, all have told me they can't understand why they feel so bad.

I guess no one really wants to be unhappy. It seems to me, though, that our unhappy feelings often make perfect sense in light of what has or is going on in our lives. Much of life is not easy, or pleasant, or fun, or rewarding. There are a lot of things that anyone would, and ought to, get down about.

Unfortunately, in our quick-fix, feel-good culture, we have little tolerance for uncomfortable feelings of any kind. We work hard to avoid them, or whatever we think might cause them.

And when we are unhappy we'll do almost anything to get over it as quickly as possible.

We struggle mightily to present a facade of happiness to those around us. We assume we are the only ones who ever feel unhappy, failing to notice that the people around us are often working just as hard as we are to "put on a happy face."

Even among some mental health professionals, feeling down in the dumps or sad has become an "illness" that has to be treated and cured.

Now, we certainly need to pay attention to our sad feelings. And often one of the best things we can do is simply to talk to the people around us - friends, family, colleagues - about how we feel.

Frequently such conversation is all that is necessary in dealing with such feelings. Of course, we may also need to make some changes in whatever it is that is getting us down.

There are other times when we may need more specialized help: when our unhappiness seems to never go away, when we have the "blues" even though nothing is particularly wrong, when we get so down in the dumps we lose feeling altogether.

Sometimes psychotherapy, perhaps in combination with medically prescribed and supervised drug therapy, is necessary to help us deal with such unhappiness (though even therapy will not help us to always feel happy).

When we're unhappy, then, we want to talk about it, make changes if we need to, and perhaps even get professional help.

We also want to remember that no one feels good all the time. Life, everybody's life, is like that.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaracare Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."