A sleepless nights diversion from poetry

I was thinking about something last night as I tried to get my little boy to go back to sleep. I was thinking about the power of choices. We each have the ability to choose how we will react to things, but I suppose we don't always have the choice about how we feel about something. Not that immediate emotional response anyway. So, where does our responsibility for self-control begin and end? Am I in charge of those initial emotional responses too and I just don't realize it? I think I've been living through those quick responses lately. Failing to take the time to truly consider what my motivations are and what they 'should' be.
I've spent considerable time in my life ignoring the 'shoulds'. Those have been times of extreme regret too. Mostly because I even considered what was the right choice in the circumstances and went with what felt good anyway. So of course things ended up feeling awful in the end.
I know I am full of vaguery today, but it is a rather abstract idea. How responsible for our initial emotional responses are we? Am I less responsible if I am exhausted and the kid has been crying for hours?
Maybe what it really comes down to is pride. Pride in accomplishment is good. But being prideful is not. It puts me in a position of feeling superior to another. Isn't that funny. With our families we will spend all the time and energy in the world being proud of each others accomplishments, but when things get rough, we also will spend all the time and energy refusing to admit we were wrong.
There was a phrase on the show "House" last night. The main character of the show is a grumpy, arrogant doctor who while is a brilliant physician, does little to aid people on an emotional level. At the end of the show after he has made a difficult decision, he is told by a friend that being miserable doesn't make him better than anyone. I turned to my husband and said that there is an arrogance in misery isn't there. Thinking further I am settling into the idea. That when I am miserable, especially when truly depressed, everything else stops mattering. There is an arrogance in that isn't there. That my misery, my depression, my blackness, is more important than anything else in that moment. Don't get me wrong, I know depression can be an extremely debilitating thing that you cannot just think positively to get through. I suppose my feelings about depression only complicates further the idea of personal responsibility of emotional responses.
So here I am at the end of my post with no more answer to my questions then when I began. If anything I've even further confounded the thought by bringing in the idea of mood disorders and depression. Ugh!