In times of crisis or need, everyone always says to “reach out” they implore those that are beaten, bruised, or suffering to seek counsel from those they love and find solace in the fact that they are cared for. But I have found that “seeking help” is not such a simple task.
No one wants to hear the same old boring story about how you’re sad, or in crisis. Sure, sometimes people will entertain dramatic tales of whatever extreme situation has triggered or come from your mental health, but how do you say to the people in your life, “I am sad every day, I feel lost, anxious, and insecure for seemingly no reason.” That story is far more dull.
How do you rely on the people in your life when as days drag on you become less and less reliable, responsive, and functional? How do you expect them to stay invested when you offer nothing?
I suppose then, people advise you to seek professional help. Pay someone to listen to your never-ending repetition of the misery and dissatisfaction you heal. Not to knock therapy, I encourage it, and to be honest and extremely grateful for my access to counseling. But at times that too can feel exhausting and pointless.
Even in a safe space, I find that authenticity is difficult to find. Which is, by nature, a personal problem. I hold a sense of apprehension before sessions, worried that I’ll disappoint the licensed woman who sits beyond the screen of my phone, in my lack of progress. I feel the compulsion, to lie; to obscure my lack of efforts in changing my life. Because maybe I don’t actually want to help myself. Maybe, I just want to wallow in my own misery, and let myself fully rot away with the passage of time.
Reaching out, is hard. It requires a sense of vulnerability that can feel especially unsafe when you are in an ocean of grief or pain; and sometimes, impossible when you have immersed yourself in numbness to seek reprieve from the storm.
How do you tell the ones you love, the ones that may love you, that you are so deeply flawed that you can’t even stand yourself?
I’ll mention it casually, sure, ” I cried a few times this week”. Or maybe “my mental health hasn’t been so great lately”. But it all feels so shallow and almost disingenuous, in comparison to the deep well of rather distasteful self-loathing I feel immersed in.
And then I can’t help but think: “Am I self-absorbed, in wanting people to know, to acknowledge my pain?” “Am I just addicted somehow to feeling this bad, in fixating on it?” “Am I the source of all my misery? Should I just be more ‘positive’?” “Do I want everyone to put me on some grand pedestal at my pity party and tell me what a sad sad life I’ve had and how they will do anything for me to feel better?” “Am I just a human, traumatized and in pain, needing healing and craving acceptance and love?”.
I think myself in circles, asking a million questions in search of clarity yet only burying myself deeper and deeper in self-doubt and conflicting theories.
“Let it go”, they’ve said, “You’re overcomplicating things”.
But how do I stop asking all these questions, and complicating my own life when I have been doing this since I can remember?
Is this just how I am? Just how my brain works? Why am I like this? If I find a Reason, will I find a solution? (Do I want a solution?)
Is it ADHD? Is it the trauma? Is it genetics? Is it fate?
Is it just me?
If you found that exhausting and exasperating to read, trust me when I say that I feel the same way.
I don’t want to show this part of myself to the people in my life, not even my therapist. I don’t want people to know how useless, and unnecessarily self-sabotaging I am. I am ashamed of the person that I am.
They tell you to reach out, to seek help, in times of crisis.
But at the end of the day, it’s all up to you to pull yourself out of the hole.
There is no person so magnanimous or magical that they would be able to heal all your wounds, no person so perfectly equipped with just the right words to change your life. And frankly, often the people who do step up do so because they want to “save people” or satisfy some hole in their own life. To find meaning, or feel better about themselves. Or maybe, I’m just telling myself that because I can’t imagine a truly altruistic person. Maybe, imagining that the world around me is ugly and self-serving comforts me and helps to assuage the guilt I bear when looking at myself.
They say to reach out
But will that help?
Or will it just result in losing the last people that might have cared because they see how little I am worth, and how small of a person I am.
Lorelei.
07/27/2022
Extraordinarily Ordinary 