[kypro]

No, not at all. Her parents were fairly abusive and distant when she was growing up. She basically raised her younger siblings herself while they were in prison or abusing drugs.

I suppose I consider her "lucky" for managing to rise above all that, but even then it's not like she's achieved any huge amount of success or anything.

My theory these days is that she learnt how to deal with negative emotions growing up, and that was by simply by not over thinking things and not letting things get to her.

She does this unusual thing where if I try to get here to think about something bad, she immediately (and I suspect automatically) changes subject. I think that could be how she learnt dealt with the trauma – just live in the moment and focus on positive things.

To be honest I think "happiness" and "depression" are really complex. I'm sure there are correlations, but I'd guess it's a product of a huge number of physical and environment factors throughout one's life. As much as I'd love to live in the moment and be happy like her, for whatever reason I'm simply not wired like that. But also I'm aware there are people like me who think very deeply about things yet still manage to be happy, so I assume in those case their default mental state is just naturally more biased toward happiness and positivity.