White Knuckling Through Normalcy

A couple of days ago I wrote On Stepping Back into Life because I was trying to figure out why I was slipping into unorganized depression right when things seemed like they were getting better. I felt better for maybe a day, but -shock!- knowing what’s going on doesn’t actually stop the thing from happening, it just helps us get through it.

I still feel like I’m getting beat up. I think the main conflict is, “How can I ever trust myself again?” I tried to kill myself! I certainly wouldn’t trust anyone else who made an attempt on my life, but I have no option but to somehow make amends with myself. After a brief recovery period, you can’t just live your life according to what other people think is best-that’s how you end up in the wrong life and eventually you blow it up to escape.

You don’t have to experience suicidality for this. Maybe you made a stupid decision about a relationship, moved to the wrong place, trusted the wrong people. Somehow you ended up alone (either in reality or in your perception) and the only person to blame was yourself. This sets up the bifurcated ego. You’re trying to look out for yourself while also viciously hating yourself. It’s not easy to get those things to reconcile.

But you absolutely must. Otherwise it will creep into everything.

It can be extremely obvious in relationships. Maybe for a long time you wanted a partner, but once you find someone who really likes you there’s already a problem. How well can you get along with someone who loves the person you hate most in the world? Anyone who wants you must be stupid or using you, and paranoia sets in. The same thing can happen in any situation where you receive praise, like a job. This is behind a lot of the “impostor syndrome” in academia and elsewhere.

If the tension between “I’m going to live my life for my own happiness” and “I am my own worst enemy” is not resolved, then of course the quiet normal periods in life are going to be fertile ground for emotional turbulence. Change comes with adrenaline. Action comes with focus. When we don’t have those things and we’re in “normal” mode that can feel the worst. There’s so much space for thoughts to wander.

It’s easy to get “I’m not ready,” “I’m afraid,” and “I’m not good enough” confused when the voice is coming from inside. “I’m not good enough” is obviously coming from the darkness, but if it can disguise itself as the seemingly supportive “I’m not ready” then you might not realize you’re sabotaging yourself. On the other hand, a lot of us end up in terrible situations for way too long because we’re afraid that the voice saying “get out” is coming from the dark and our thoughts are trying to betray us.

As I see it, there are always three paths in these situations-when life has your frustration tolerance down to zero and your skin is crawling and you just want things to be “right” even though you have no idea what that would look like. Do I blow up my life because I’m uncomfortable? Do I stay in things way too long because I can’t let go or trust myself? Do I have faith and hold on for a little while and hope things go right-side-up?

"I'll bet one of those options is better just because it's not what I'm currently doing!" Me, every single day.

I don’t have faith in much of anything at this point, so that last (least destructive) path is the hardest. I tend to lean towards “blowing up” but after 15 years of running from things I’m getting tired of it. I’d like to feel like there’s some continuity in my life instead of weird, disjointed chapters. So somehow, I have to learn to trust myself, but how?

I asked the internet, and this list from Healthline is representative of most of the advice out there:

Here are some tips to help you learn how to trust yourself:

1. Be yourself. If you fear how others will look at you or judge you, you might find it difficult to be yourself around other people.
2. Set reasonable goals.
3. Be kind to yourself.
4. Build on your strengths.
5. Spend time with yourself. 
6. Be decisive.

And here’s my list of why this list is dumb

1. Who am I and how can I determine that after an extended battle with mental illness? How do I just find the courage to “be myself” and not fear others when my illness has created a situation where I have lost lots of people precisely because they were afraid of who I am?
2. WTF is a reasonable goal? How can I trust myself to be “reasonable”? Is it just something I can do today? How do I build a future like that?
3. LOL JUST BE KIND TO YOURSELF YOU DUMB BITCH, IT’S EASY IF YOU’RE NOT SO STUPID
4. Build on my strengths. I guess that’s good general life advice but I’m not sure how that helps me trust my decisions, other than the ones building on my strengths. My main strengths are: finding the flaws in other people’s work, rebuilding my life over and over, and attracting weird guys at gas stations. I think maybe I have built a life on my strengths and it’s not great. 
5. As a person with social anxiety disorder I have spent a lot of time with myself, so I can promise you-that bitch can’t be trusted.
6. I think “Be Decisive” is the only one of these I can get behind, just because it’s extremely liberating to make a decision then move on with whatever the consequences are rather than sitting in the indecision for along time. Of course, this also plays to my “blow up the whole thing” tendencies. I’m always extremely decisive in those situations.

When I first started to come back from depression, I used the question “Will this hurt you?” to make decisions, but it didn’t work well. When your brain is constantly running and trying to pick apart all the negative possibilities, everything has the potential to hurt you. Maybe the better question is “Will this hurt you more than you could tolerate?”

If you’ve already lost the person you thought you were going to spend your life with, then the potential of another break-up shouldn’t be too onerous. If your career has already changed once, so what if you must change it again? These are known pains, and I think if it’s a known quantity then you should feel confident taking a calculated risk.

It’s scarier for unknown pain. Are you ready to have a first child? How will you feel if you move away from your family for the first time? Can you handle the change of retirement? We can’t draw on our own experience for unknown pain, but there are resources in other people. You’ll never know for sure, but if you can talk to some people who are honest with you, maybe you can feel comfortable taking that chance, too.

Whatever you choose, know that everything changes, and nothing goes as planned. My mantra for years has been “Nothing ever goes as planned and nothing ever stays the same.” That can be scary, but it can be empowering. Most of our choices today don’t have as much weight for the future as we think.

Making a choice not to change anything is also a choice. Sometimes we have to white-knuckle it. It’s like swimming across a lake. The choice to get in the water and swim was well-thought out. I knew the temperature, I knew the distance, and I knew my capabilities. About halfway across I always get scared, just because I’m thinking about it. Maybe something swims by my leg (a tiny fish) and in my mind it’s certainly the Loch Ness Monster. There’s a column of cold water upwelling and I think I’ll get hypothermia. Maybe I'll get hit by a boat, maybe I'll get a random cramp and drown. Who knows? But I can’t stop. Once I’m on the other side, the psychological battle I was fighting while swimming disappears instantly. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.

Right now, I’m pretty sure I’m in the middle of the placid, sunny lake. Everything is fine, idyllic even, but my brain is freaking out because it doesn’t yet know how to enjoy peace. I believe that will come. I also believe there are good things once I cross. If I panic, I will drown or need to be rescued, but I am completely capable of handling this myself. I just need to keep swimming.