Bad mood is a good term. Precisely by neither referring to the curmudgeonly circumstances nor making any psychological diagnoses about the curmudgeonly. Both could play a role, but the term doesn’t mean to touch that. He provides a purely symptomatic description that is not interested in the causes of the emotional cloudiness.
Sometimes you are in a bad mood, even when everything is going well all around, you are sitting in affluence or have a fit and well-trained digestive and, above all, nervous system. After all, a good mood doesn’t need a cause, even if horrific lottery prizes, fulfilling love practices or pharmaceutical products could act as boosters. There are more specific terms for this: Then you are not just in a good mood, but suddenly rich or satisfied or high. It doesn’t have to hurt anything, but a good mood is enough in itself.
It can even happen that you increase your mood after you have noticed and defined for yourself that today you are groping around as a real grinning bear. The other way around, unfortunately, it works just as reliably: in a brief moment of self-reflection, realizing that what you are in a bad mood is probably the bathtub is already full of gloom. All you have to do is climb in to bathe in it and let it slosh over the edge.
The worsening of the bad mood works even better if the hint comes from another before you have noticed it yourself. “But you are in a bad mood today” is a remark that violates the sense of justice and immediately allows what was assumed to be completely unfounded. All attempts to deny the obvious, as a result, seem very implausible and let the mood sink further.
But once it has been thought or said, a general clarity has been brought into the situation. There is no longer any reason for the other person to take any facial expressions, defeatist statements or skipping actions of the bad-tempered personally – only an emotional safety margin is required, if only because of the risk of infection. And a little empathy can’t hurt if it doesn’t lead to some nerve-straining worries and attempts at consolation. It’s part of the rendezvous right now that there’s nothing you can do about a bad mood.
From now on, mitigating circumstances apply to the ill-tempered, to a certain extent he is relieved of responsibility for what he does and what he said. Shoulders and corners of the mouth are now allowed to hang, it is not necessary, perhaps even not desired for a while, to maintain contact with the outside world beyond murmuring or grumbling.
The fact that from now on he is at least relieved of having to present himself with cheerful or even neutral courage against internal resistance could already have a mood-lifting effect. Everything else is made by time. Because at least one good thing has a bad mood in all its baselessness: It passes, even if nothing changes. Forbearance and patience are required in dealing with one another. And one should be aware of this: Even a good mood can be an imposition. Especially when it’s artificial.
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