Chrysalis
I've been laid up for a few weeks with a persistent foot injury, and, after aggravating it multiple times because of impatience, I finally decided last week to commit to staying off my feet as much as possible. That's shitty for multiple reasons, and it makes me feel worthless and all that jazz, and I expected canceling some of my weekly plans would bring about a spike in depression, and it did.
If nothing else, I know my mind.
The thing that was curious enough for me to blog about it is how much of a car wreck it was. I forced myself to just stop, and it became suddenly very clear how little I wanted to.
I do way more than I want to do in a given week. I have something social or semi-social going on every day of the week, including weekends, and now it's really obvious why I feel perpetually exhausted. It also seems like maybe this exhaustion was intentional to some degree, like if I'm working so hard to put myself out there, then it's okay that I don't do anything outside of that work. It's fine if I don't clean up my apartment. It's okay if I don't move around much. I've earned the right to not take care of myself because I've been doing so 'well' at this Pavlovian exercise of 'be social, feel accomplished.'
Fast forward to last weekend. I'm at mom's, and I went there specifically to do nothing and just mooch on the couch. Mom keeps making a fuss about my foot, and she's suggesting all these actually-helpful things, and I just keep getting annoyed about it. Why would I do that? Why am I so violently opposed to help?
Lots of reasons, as it turns out. One, part of me just wants to suffer. It's what I'm used to, and that part tells me it's all I deserve because it's explicitly incapable of learning, or acknowledging my worth as a human being.Two, Jesus, fuck, am I terrified of asking for fucking help! I can't think of anything more horrifying because I was conditioned to equate that with seeking attention, and that same unlearning part of me wholly believes that seeking attention is the ultimate sin. To do such a thing would justify my sense of worthlessness, it says. It would be a clear sign of fundamental weakness, it declares.
And so, somewhere along the way, I decided to stop asking for help, and I chose to push myself to exhaustion in order to stop listening to the parts of me that were trying to do the things I told myself I wanted to do. I am in awe at my capacity for self-sabotage.
I don't know that I'm doing a good job of tying this all together, because that's how it is in my head. I don't ask for help because I don't want to be seen as attention-seeking, and I expand this to basically not communicating at all unless it's a concise, fully-formed thought that would in no way be seen as self-aggrandizing. I then run myself into the ground, maybe hoping to slip up and do something embarrassing enough to justify disappearing completely, or maybe just to avoid having to deal with my shit, all while deluding myself that if I just keep doing it, the day will come where everything just clicks and becomes better and life becomes effortless.
Why would I fall for such a thing? Besides the obvious answers about fear and self-loathing and my wide array of daddy and family issues, I mean.
That's the rub, you know. I know all these answers. I know it hurt me profusely to hear my family dismiss my pain by saying I just wanted attention. I know that it's terrifying to offer up my thoughts when I completely doubt my own competence, even when I know it exists and have demonstrated it routinely. I know that despite all my gains (and there have been many, many gains), some part of me still just wants to die and will do anything to hamper my efforts to build a life.
And I know that some blog post isn't going to fix it, and I know that there's nothing I can write or say or think that will make expressing myself any less terrifying, or asking for help any less humiliating. I know that my only option is to do it, succeed at it, and convert every inch I earn into a monument to my worth.
I am inexorable, and I know this because I have tried very, very hard to be otherwise. I'm never quite able to swing it, so I guess I'll just have a life or something, I dunno.
If nothing else, I know my mind.
The thing that was curious enough for me to blog about it is how much of a car wreck it was. I forced myself to just stop, and it became suddenly very clear how little I wanted to.
I do way more than I want to do in a given week. I have something social or semi-social going on every day of the week, including weekends, and now it's really obvious why I feel perpetually exhausted. It also seems like maybe this exhaustion was intentional to some degree, like if I'm working so hard to put myself out there, then it's okay that I don't do anything outside of that work. It's fine if I don't clean up my apartment. It's okay if I don't move around much. I've earned the right to not take care of myself because I've been doing so 'well' at this Pavlovian exercise of 'be social, feel accomplished.'
Fast forward to last weekend. I'm at mom's, and I went there specifically to do nothing and just mooch on the couch. Mom keeps making a fuss about my foot, and she's suggesting all these actually-helpful things, and I just keep getting annoyed about it. Why would I do that? Why am I so violently opposed to help?
Lots of reasons, as it turns out. One, part of me just wants to suffer. It's what I'm used to, and that part tells me it's all I deserve because it's explicitly incapable of learning, or acknowledging my worth as a human being.Two, Jesus, fuck, am I terrified of asking for fucking help! I can't think of anything more horrifying because I was conditioned to equate that with seeking attention, and that same unlearning part of me wholly believes that seeking attention is the ultimate sin. To do such a thing would justify my sense of worthlessness, it says. It would be a clear sign of fundamental weakness, it declares.
And so, somewhere along the way, I decided to stop asking for help, and I chose to push myself to exhaustion in order to stop listening to the parts of me that were trying to do the things I told myself I wanted to do. I am in awe at my capacity for self-sabotage.
I don't know that I'm doing a good job of tying this all together, because that's how it is in my head. I don't ask for help because I don't want to be seen as attention-seeking, and I expand this to basically not communicating at all unless it's a concise, fully-formed thought that would in no way be seen as self-aggrandizing. I then run myself into the ground, maybe hoping to slip up and do something embarrassing enough to justify disappearing completely, or maybe just to avoid having to deal with my shit, all while deluding myself that if I just keep doing it, the day will come where everything just clicks and becomes better and life becomes effortless.
Why would I fall for such a thing? Besides the obvious answers about fear and self-loathing and my wide array of daddy and family issues, I mean.
That's the rub, you know. I know all these answers. I know it hurt me profusely to hear my family dismiss my pain by saying I just wanted attention. I know that it's terrifying to offer up my thoughts when I completely doubt my own competence, even when I know it exists and have demonstrated it routinely. I know that despite all my gains (and there have been many, many gains), some part of me still just wants to die and will do anything to hamper my efforts to build a life.
And I know that some blog post isn't going to fix it, and I know that there's nothing I can write or say or think that will make expressing myself any less terrifying, or asking for help any less humiliating. I know that my only option is to do it, succeed at it, and convert every inch I earn into a monument to my worth.
I am inexorable, and I know this because I have tried very, very hard to be otherwise. I'm never quite able to swing it, so I guess I'll just have a life or something, I dunno.
Comments
Post a Comment