How to…

February 22, 2019February 21, 2019 ~ tmdvir ~ Leave a comment

How to cope when someone you love and who loves you questions your entire life philosophy in 21 easy (and sometimes repetitive steps)

Take deep breaths
Stop yourself from crying cause you know they just can’t handle your tears
Regret step 2 and wonder if you’ll be able to get in touch with those feelings again
Try to redirect
Try to redirect
Try to redirect
End the conversation trying to remember that this person whom you love who loves you means well
Remind yourself that just because someone means well doesn’t mean you have to put up with their bullshit
Talk to your friends about it
Talk to your friends about it some more
Talk to your friends about it until you get in touch with the feelings from step 2 again
Cry
Remember that you’ve intentionally picked people for your life who do not do this
Revel in that intentionality
Talk to your friends again
Embrace the funky mood you’re in
Remind yourself that you knew when you started this journey that some people (including ones you love who you know love you) wouldn’t get it
Remind yourself that you are happy with your life and it’s working for you
Count down the days until therapy
Keep living your life doing yoga, reading, seeing friends, writing blog posts, going to your new job
Remind yourself that you’ve got this

My Fault

February 19, 2019February 18, 2019 ~ tmdvir ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been in a kind of headspace where my automatic response to things is: “it’s my fault.”

When there’s a misunderstanding, I think, “I should have been clearer.”

If something goes wrong, I think, “I could have assumed.”

If I feel upset, I think, “I must have misunderstood.”

I am feeling weaker and weaker the longer this goes. But I’m also feeling angry, not at myself (YES), but at the other people.

Why couldn’t they have asked more clarifying questions?

Why couldn’t they just tell me what they needed or wanted?

Why couldn’t they drop the question when I told them it was upsetting me?

I grew up often feeling or being told that my feelings are my fault, that people around me had no role in my feelings. Ironically, I also grew up often believing or being told that other people’s feelings were my doing.

Read: everything was on me. My feelings, their feelings. It was all my fault. My responsibility.

It’s easy to fall back into this pattern. To not have the conversations that need to be had with the people they need to be had with. It’s easy to just say, “It’s my fault.” And adjust a little, and maybe things will be ok, for a little, and maybe they won’t be ok for very long.

I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to talk to these people. Explain to them what I think went wrong, and how we could both work together to make future conversations go more smoothly. But that’s a lot of work. That’s a lot of trust. And I don’t know how they’re gonna respond. They might tell me it’s all my fault. That I wasn’t clear enough, or I should have known what they were thinking, or I was misunderstanding the situation. They might totally miss the point. That I know all these things might be true, and I’m trying to find a solution. I might totally miss the point and think in resignation, maybe it is all my fault.

Feeling vs. Dwelling

February 5, 2019February 1, 2019 ~ tmdvir ~ Leave a comment

One of the main focuses of my therapy for the past two and a half years-ish, has been letting myself feel my feelings.

Now, those of you who know me well, might be thinking “she doesn’t need help with that!” And it’s true, I have a lot of feelings, and most of them I’m pretty good at feeling. I’m good at feeling momentary feelings that come up:

Sadness the night I rehomed my doggo
Happiness at a friend’s wedding
Loving warmth when I’m playing with my nieces and nephews
Irritation when my parents say something annoying

But I’m not so good at feeling the deeply buried things. Feelings associated with decades of beliefs that feel overwhelming to face. Feelings associated with a lack of self-worth, with fears of ending up alone, with surety that there is something deeply deeply wrong with me.

My therapist has slowly and gently pushed me to go there. To go into the depths when something pushes me to do so. Instead of shutting down the moment these deep and scary feelings come up.

Because, really, who wants to go there? Who wants to dive into the abyss of deeply held beliefs, grab something from down there, and bring it to the light. It’s embarrassing. And it’s extremely painful.

When I tell my friends this. When I tell them I’m trying to sit with these heavy feelings that come up. I get three general responses.

Support
Curiosity
Horror

The support is always nice. It means I can lean on someone else while I’m weathering the storm that’s bound to be monstrous. It means I can share the thoughts that come up without fear of being judged or told I’m crazy.

The curiosity is always amusing. And while in the moment I rarely do anything with it, I enjoy touching base with those people later on to explain why I’m doing what I’m doing. Why I’m sitting with these feelings that many of us would rather just push down and walk away from.

The horror makes me sad. The horror are the friends that say “as long as you’re not dwelling” and “how do you know you won’t get stuck?” The horror is me years ago. The me that thought that if I let myself be sad, I’d be sad forever. The me that thought if I let myself feel fear, I’d be bringing bad events into my life (cause bad energy, y’all). The me that thought that feeling some feelings was bad. And if I wasn’t happy all the time it was my fault, my doing, my own negative perspective.

The thing is though, feelings, all feelings, are temporary. Quick side note here: depression and anxiety are not exactly feelings, especially if you have a diagnosis. Those may not be temporary and I urge you to go to a therapist to figure our what’s up. And back to the main show. Feelings are temporary. Happiness, sadness, anger, hurt. With time they really do pass. And they’ll pass either way. But if you let yourself feel them, they’ll pass and be gone. If you fight them and fight them. Push them down. Pretend they’re not there. Pretend you can just ignore them away. They’ll come back. Maybe not for years or decades. But they’ll be there waiting for you. They’ll come up in the weirdest moments and you might not even know what hit you.

Yesterday, I had a really tough day at work. I kept making small mistakes that felt like they were piling on. I wasn’t all there, and this isn’t a job that you can just go through the motions with. You have to be present. I kept being drawn to go down a path where I call myself stupid and judge myself harshly for being so dumb. I kept trying to remind myself that mistakes are a part of life, a learning experience, that that’s how my work sees them too. But my brain wasn’t having it. I needed to go down that path. Face the fear that my mistakes were insurmountable. Wonder what might happen. Cry it out. It’s a weird call to make, I know. To listen to old, maladaptive thought patterns in my head. But the thing is, they’re there anyway. I could fight them and invalidate them and keep telling them that mistakes are good. But what’s the point if they don’t listen?

Yesterday I chose to give them their voice. I chose to let them say “you’re dumb.” But just because they say it, doesn’t mean I have to listen or to believe them.

There’s an art to all of this that I’m not sure I’ve captured yet.

An ease that allows these beliefs to come through without allowing them to take over. A surrender that says: I know you’re there, I hear you and see you, and I’m still gonna do my thing, but I hear that you’re worried and I appreciate your sharing that.

Writing from the Middle

January 15, 2019January 13, 2019 ~ tmdvir ~ 2 Comments

**The first part of this post is copied directly from a small journal I usually carry in my purse.

november 28, 2018 – The hardest thing for me in writing memoir and personal essay is not tying everything up nicely with a pretty bow. It’s so tempting to give the audience what I know they want: a story arc that ends in a win, in redemption, in transformative growth. But if the adage is true that if your ending isn’t happy you haven’t reached the end yet, what do those of us in the dirt and the muck do about telling our story? Is the challenge to find a happy ending in where we are now? Because after all, we all have many story arcs throughout our lives. So can we only tell stories that have ended? Or is the challenge to tell a story that hasn’t ended yet? To strip ourselves bare and show nauseating uncertainty? I’d bet it depends on personality. And for me, the truth lies in the latter. In telling the story not after it’s resolved but in the middle of conflict. When you just don’t know.

~ ~ ~

Don’t get me wrong. A story can be retold from many different perspectives. Once from the middle and once from the end. Telling a story sideways (from another person’s perspective) is always fun. But I have found it immensely annoying that most of the stories we read are told after the fact. When we’ve applied our grown-up mind, reached a new level, and made sense of all that’s happened to us.

When you’re in the middle of shit, there is something so invalidating about being shown the end. About being told this is where you might end up. Sometimes you just have to sit in the shit. You don’t want to be pulled out. You’re not ready to. You don’t know where things are gonna take you, and that’s ok.

It’s ok to sit there.

You don’t have to move until you’re ready.

But I’ve tried writing from the midst of a conflict, and I find it nearly impossible. It’s incomprehensible. My brain is off on so many tangents, analyzing so many things, that anything I put down on paper makes no sense.

I can do my best to describe it.

To describe how every morning for the last three days I’ve woken up in a mood. On Friday I just kept crying. And crying I can do. On Saturday I was anxious. My mind was reeling through painful scenarios that may happen and whether or not I’d be able to handle them. And how my different attempts to handle them might go. Today I woke up just plain angry. I think it was the showy kind of anger. The kind that keeps me from realizing that I’m still scared underneath.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to take it slow some of the days. And on the others I’ve been lucky enough to have early mornings with people who want to know how I’m really feeling. And lucky enough to trust them enough to tell them.

I hate when my moods line up with beautiful weather. I feel like I should be outside, when all I want to do is be inside. It’s work to listen to myself. To let these days “go to waste.” But they’re not going to waste. It’s ok to enjoy blue skies through a window.

It’s ok.

This morning I woke up and was ready to call yesterday a bad day. I woke up anxious and went to sleep anxious. And isn’t that bad? But the truth is, in the middle of those two points, I had a wonderful day. I did enjoy the sun. I did talk to people. And walk around. And I even laughed quite a bit.

It’s tempting to try to minimize days to one emotion or one category. But most days are not like that.

Telling a story from the middle is hard. I’m not even really doing it right now. Though I’m not at the end. I don’t know why I’m waking up moody. I don’t know when I’ll stop. I now understand how hard it is to capture the chaotic middle of things.

Last week I got pie with a friend and I told her my first week of 2019 had been going surprisingly well, but that when I’m on a high note, I’m always aware that it’ll eventually end. Always prepared to let it go.

She asked if I am as quick to remember that when I’m in a dip.

Now I am.

Oh How We Cope

December 29, 2018December 29, 2018 ~ tmdvir ~ 1 Comment

I used to Facebook stalk on the regular. I’m not talking a light stalk–going a few pictures or posts deep into someone’s profile. I’m talking a deep stalk–going to their first ever posted picture and coming back through time with them. Quickly.

Oh, how time flies.

I really hate the word stalk. It gives a malicious tinge to what I was doing. I associate it with some sort of inevitable follow-up violence. And that’s not what drives my dives into people’s pixelated personas. I seek connection.

I struggle to connect to people sometimes. The reasons are long and complicated and often being worked on in therapy. But put simply: I have a deep belief that people cannot be trusted, and a hard time challenging that belief.

Ironically, connection for me has become more and more about revealing my real, raw often unflattering self to others. And that kind of vulnerability requires trust or at least faith that even if it goes horribly wrong, there will be some recovery.

And so, for some time, when I was in an especially dark place, a place I still struggle to show the people with whom I want to feel connected, I would turn to Facebook. I’d scroll through my feed until I’d happen upon a friend. It was usually a friend I once felt very close to, but haven’t talked to in some while. Often it would be a post revealing some big exciting news like a puppy, a baby, a house, a marriage. And then I’d click. And I’d go back. Back in time to the beginning. I always just went through the pictures. I like the stories I can put together with pictures. Eventually, I’d make it back to the present. Often in tears about a lost connection. And I’d go and find another friend. And do the same thing. Until hours would pass and so would some of the darkness.

This was how I coped with the hard feelings. The feelings of deep loneliness. The fear that I would end up utterly alone. The hurt that no one cares about me. The sadness that something is utterly wrong with me.

But one day, I recognized this coping mechanism was giving me this false sense that I was connected with people. I recognized that Facebook and Instagram were keeping me tied to people I hadn’t talked to in years and had little intention to talking to again. I realized that instead of really connecting with someone during these dark times–instead of reaching out and revealing my darkness, and *fingers crossed* being met with kindness and compassion–I was sitting on my computer for hours.

~ ~ ~

A few days ago I was talking to a couple of friends about how we use Facebook, and why we add friends when we do. I don’t really use Facebook anymore. I have an account so I can see events and use messenger, but I rarely log into Facebook itself. I used to add anyone and everyone I met. I used to have Facebook so I could use dating apps. I used to add friends so that my Hinge circle would be bigger.

While we talked, Facebook stalking came up, and we chatted about that for a while. One of my friends said, “I always go back to the start when I stalk.” And I got so excited that I wasn’t alone. I said, “I do that too.” He retracted. He was joking. But I wasn’t. That is what I used to do. I’d do it to myself too. Start from the very beginning. Usually, I’d just do my profile pictures. I don’t have all the time in the world *wink, wink*. I’d go back to this close-up picture of my face. I’m not centered. I’m off to one side. My hair is up, but some flyaways are dramatically moving in the wind. I’m wearing a striped fitted t-shirt I got from old navy. It’s white and light peach and mint green. I’m smiling. There’s movement.

I’m alone. But someone is there, taking the picture. I can’t remember who.

And I think that sums up my brain. My brain always focuses on my aloneness. It never remembers who was there, in the background, making me smile and capturing the moment for me.