The Kairos is Gone

Today, my post will involve a CAS buzz word: kairos.

For those of you who don't remember from last semester, a kairotic moment occurs when a topic or issue peaks in relevance. For example, ever year on September 11th, the kairos of talking about terrorism in the US reaches a peak. All other events aside, as we get farther away from September 11th, the kairos decrease.

Now, you're probably wondering, "how does kairos tie into OCD?" Well, it doesn't really. But today's not just a post about OCD. It's a post ABOUT posts about OCD. This is meta.

As soon as last semester concluded, I knew I had exhausted everything I had to say about the fitness industry (my CAS137 passion blog). As soon as I thought of the idea to write a blog about my OCD, I knew I wanted to take the opportunity. While my OCD was at its worst, I used to always think, "I want to write about my experiences so that other people in my situation might be able to benefit."

Unfortunately, here's what I've found: for as traumatic as many nights were, and as long as I fought OCD, now that I'm almost fully recovered, it's actually hard for me to remember exactly how I felt during those times of hardship. It feels like the kairos is gone for talking about my OCD. This doesn't make writing posts about it impossible. I do remember what I went through, but it's hard for me to exactly recall the feelings I had.

At first, I didn't think much my forgetfulness. For a while, I just chalked it up to me being a generally forgetful person. But then I realized that what my forgetfulness implies is an important lesson learned: humans have a tendency to paint their past with feelings and mood that they currently have. For example, someone in a bout of depression is more likely to describe a past event as less enjoyable than if they were happy.

It seems that now that I am living a generally happy life, I am tending to generalize my past as happy.  This is a good thing: if I can "exchange" bad memories for good ones, I will take it. However, this phenomenon does much more harm for people suffering from mental disorders. If someone suffering from depression goes through a brief patch of happiness, when they next experience their bout of depression, they're likely to remember their happy times as non-existent. This could further feed the cycle of sadness, as many people with depression often convince themselves they can't be happy by believing that they've never been happy before.

So, I hope you can see that this small observation I made a couple weeks ago turned into a useful realization. Let me know what you think in the comments!