Depression as a Reaction to Inappropriate Optimism?

I'm starting to realize this within myself and thought it might be helpful for others. I'm starting to wonder how much of my own depression is a reaction to my mother's adamant optimism. This is a woman who - if you told her you had a brain tumor and only six months to live - would tell you, "Well look on the bright side, you have six months! You could've gotten hit by a truck and have no time at all!" Now this kind of forced optimism might be helpful, but it also completely denies that a tragedy has just struck. And it completely denies the person experiencing the tragedy the right to be afraid, shocked, horrified, sad, mad, or anything else. In defense of mom, I think this is her attempt to make me feel better, but it actually does the opposite and makes me feel unheard.

As an adult and a therapist, I know that changing negative thinking patterns will make me feel better. However, I initially felt an intrinsic, deep-seated resistance to this when I first heard it. In examining this resistance I realized that what I "heard" when people said you had to change the negative thinking patterns was that I had to think like my mom. I thought the antithesis of depressed thinking was a bizarre and surreal, Pollyanna sunshine, perpetually perky, outlook on life which felt false and shallow to me.

The older I get the more I realize that life and being healthy in it is about balance. Adopting the other extreme - unrealistic happiness - is just as bad as being unrealistically unhappy. Neither one of them presents a balanced, complete view of the picture at hand. Yet, maintaining an entirely negative viewpoint is not "real" either.

An example? I was stuck in a nightmare of a traffic jam yesterday on the dreaded I-35. Previously I would have had a conniption fit. I would have stressed about how long it was going to take, how stupid it was to have taken I-35 in the first place, and obsessed on the poor driving habits of the people around me. However, taking the opposite viewpoint - that this was all just lovely and not a problem at all would not work either. That just wasn't real. So I tried the middle ground. Unfortunately, this sucked and was truly exasperating. However, I wouldn't die, having a conniption fit only made me feel worse, I had survived such things before, and by the end of an hour it would all be over and I would be going along my merry way. So I just had to figure out how to pass this miserable one hour. Fortunately, I didn't have anywhere I had to be so I wasn't going to late for anything. If I had to be in a stupid traffic jam, this was a fairly good time for it.

There - a balanced viewpoint. It still felt "real", but I didn't drive myself crazy with it either.