With all the luck you’ve had, why are your songs so sad?
— Reading in Bed, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
Masking the moody bitch
Most people who don’t know me well think that I’m confident, outgoing, and funny. Which I am, with the right people. And most often I have to act like it with the ‘wrong’ people. Alcohol helped for a time, but it’s far from a perfect solution — it’s not even a good one, at least not for me.
When you’re surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you’re by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don’t feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you’re really alone.
— Fiona Apple
Obviously, there aren’t many people who know me well and/or are my kind of ‘right people.’ Nevertheless, we all learn to mask our emotions, moods, and thoughts. Thanks to years of not acknowledging my innermost personality traits — being a socially awkward and broody loner — I learned it too, sometimes the hard way. Until I reached breaking point and decided to cut the crap. Because we only have one life, so why not live it the way we want to? (Easier said than done, I know, but bear with me…)
Cry me a f*cking river…
About 10 years ago, I experienced a period of anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. The worst phase lasted about 1,5 years, during which I sometimes couldn’t even leave the house at all… It took me five years, therapy, medication, and a lot of breakdowns to learn how to handle myself well enough to once again be a “productive member of society” (whatever that means by any standards other than classic capitalism). The most important thing that got me through all of this was the hope that it ‘will get better’ one day. It won’t stay this dark and desperate forever. Learning about my individual struggles — ADHD and its comorbidities, like anxiety, depression…you know the drill — helped, though it’s the start of a steady learning process with ups and downs of its own.
It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.
Of course, once your demons found you, they will stay with you. They will love you, take care of you, scare the shit out of you, guide you, and force you to grow. Again and again, often for the rest of your life. Welcome to the shit show that is mental health issues.
Sit with it. Learn to live with it?
Nowadays, my demons only visit for a few hours, worst-case scenario they are with me for two or three days. Knowing — or rather hoping every time — that I will only feel like that for a limited time makes it easier. Nevertheless, this does not make it any more enjoyable per se. Just easier to get through without more inner turmoil than absolutely necessary.
Because brain work — writing in general, thesis work in particular — is often difficult when my mind and moods are all over the place. I resort to manual tasks as much as I can during these times. Which means cleaning, cooking, baking, decluttering, rearranging, sewing, or DIYing whatever comes my way. Never mind that I never learned to sew and for every wearable piece I finish, I have to trash three pieces I botched. Also never mind that I don’t really like cakes all that much, not to mention cooking. And that I’ve decluttered several items I had to repurchase afterward because, well, shit happens. Again and again.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
— Charles Bukowski