Being vulnerable is hard. I’ve just come out of my latest depression, which has lasted maybe 8 months, likely a lot longer. It’s really nice not being depressed anymore. Everything is so much easier. I’m not exhausted and tired all the time. I have way more mental energy. And I feel happier, like my usual silly happy self. It’s nice.
It’s also come with a lot of vulnerability, as I try to work out who I am again. This always happens after a depressive episode, it seems. I remember writing on Facebook, maybe 5 years ago, about how I’d just come out of it after a year or two, and had been locked away for so long that I couldn’t remember who I was anymore. Lots of my friends sent beautiful messages, reminding me of the things they cherished about me.
Now I feel in that state somewhat now. Not quite as lost as before, but still in the dark a bit as to who I am, who I could be, or who I should be. But I also have support like I’ve never felt before. And that’s changed things. It’s no longer a daunting, barely conquerable task, but rather, something I can figure out with the help of people close to me.
I have a creative outlet in my acting class — our first showcase is next week, and I’m extremely excited, if also a little nervous! And everyone in my class is really lovely, and I feel like I’m getting to know them a little better each time. David, Desna, Leslie, Archie, Bridget, Claire, Ronan, Aison — all people I look forward to spending more time with, all friends I never knew I’d love so much.
I met Eleanor there, who fast became one of my best friends, even though we rarely see each other away those sessions, and during the drinks and chats we get to have in the Gregson bar afterwards. I’ve learnt so much from her, she’s so good. We’ve taught each other about ourselves through exuberant honesty, she’s like a sister to me. And it’s because of her that I rediscovered the joy and excitement of just hearing someone you care deeply about chatter away, something I’ve not been aware of in such a profound way since listening to my actual little sister tell me her tangent-filled stories of wonderful nothingness when she was tiny. I’m always excited to be close to Eleanor, and I miss her when she’s not there. To be honest, I miss her even when she is there, but we’re not standing next to each other, or haven’t hugged or shared a look in a few minutes.
I have Peter and Molly, friends I’ve known for years but reconnected with in a new way late last year. Now we’ve gone to festivals together, chatted for hours about everything from feelings to theatre, and I love them both enormously.
I have my Granny, who’s always proud of me, and I of her. I’ve written at length about how she helped set the groundwork for who I could be in my piece Granny’s Gifts, but it only dawned on me later how she became something like the mother I never had.
And, of course, I have Beth, who I fell in love with instantly just a few days before Christmas last year. We’re completely on the same wavelength, she loves me endlessly, and I love her too. She’s quirky and wonderful, and undoubtedly the goodest person I’ve ever met. She is endlessly supportive, and has seen me through this depression without a single utterance of complaint or criticism. She is such an inspiration to me.
I have never felt more supported. It’s lovely, like an invisible hug that’s always surrounding me.
But yes, I am vulnerable at the moment. When you’re as open and honest and happy as I am, it does bring with it a huge amount of vulnerability. That’s all fine, until it’s not, and I start to feel a bit scared again.
The insight that made me want to write again was that, when I’m feeling vulnerable, I have a habit of concentrating my mental energy, and pushing away the vulnerability with analysis, repositioning myself into a persona that feels safe. But experiencing this consciously for what might be the first time, I realised how much it takes over my mind, and leaves little of the parts of me that I most love. I think, to get here and see that, I needed to experience something better first. A state of vulnerability that doesn’t feel as scary.
I wrote down something earlier today, a reminder to my self: “Look after people. You’re very happy (and calm) when you do”. And that’s true, but it doesn’t just mean other people; it means I should look after myself, too. Because it feels good to do that. To be my own champion. To have an encouraging inner dialogue that believes in me, enabled and supported by the lovely people in my life now, but ultimately driven by the sense that I do, actually, quite like myself. I make myself laugh, I read and do interesting things, I have fascinating chats — and I enjoy life. All without really trying to. The person I am is a person I absolutely approve of. So yeah, I like myself now.
I did something “wrong” earlier, sending a few too many messages to a group chat because I got over excited. Eleanor helped me out there, messaging me so I could channel my hyperactive mental excitement into a chat with her, instead of flooding the chat even further.
She gets it. She’s been there, she’s done it, she’ll probably do it again, but she’s also wiser for it. I’m not quite there yet, and I don’t know if I ever could be, but I know I have friends to help me out, so it’s all good. We can’t be complete on our own, but that’s what friends are for. But I did feel bad in myself, like I’d done something wrong. That’s nobody’s fault; I felt the same feeling last week too, when I did something equally as inconsequential — I’d misread a letter, or hadn’t replied to a text, or made some social faux pas. Of course, a big part of my mind blew it out of proportion and I started guilt tripping myself. But now that I’ve caught it, I can confront that response when it happens again. Deal with it, because I know what’s happening. Question it, challenge it. Eventually I’ll vaccinate myself against those toxic, self-critical thoughts. That’s the end goal, but for now, it’s still gonna be a little hard sometimes, and that’s OK.
My therapy is helping. It’s got me diving into things I’d forgotten, and realising stuff I never even knew about. Like how, thinking about it now, my mum would make stuff up just to hurt me, so I was always being told I was doing something wrong — something actually meaningless, a total non-issue — causing a maelstrom of blame and guilt. And that’s a heavy thing to have in your emotional history, especially being untreated for so long. I reckon that lead to me focusing so much of my energy on protecting myself, predicting the future, and desperately trying to learn from mistakes that were never really problems in the first place. So yeah, of course it makes sense that I’m hyper-defensive sometimes about getting things wrong, or not understanding something. But I’m working on it, trying to find a healthy balance between preparation, introspection, and acceptance.
That took a bit of a dark turn, but it’s stuff I’d never thought about, and it helps to be able to write it. It lets me collect my thoughts, it slows down my mind a little, it lets me flush things I’d be happier having outside of my head. And later, I’ll record a reading of this and play it back, giving myself the insights I’ve made along the way but couldn’t hold onto for long enough, all joined up and connected. That’s when it will really hit home, and be the most helpful, when I get to hear the end result of all this processing.
For now though, that’s enough. As strong as I wish I was, I have to admit that ultimately I am still vulnerable, and I have limits. I might be able to push myself a little further than others, when it comes to intellectualising emotions, but if I stay in that space too long then I’ll burn out, and won’t have enough energy left to live the rest of my life. So let’s call it there. I hope this wasn’t too hard to hear. I’m gonna go watch TV now 🤗