Tonight I did an incredibly rare thing for me. I expressed my suddenly unbearable internal misery in 15 tweets of self-pity.
I simply could not be either positive or silent any longer, despite using every hard-won technique in my extensive repertoire of mental health management. Go look at them here https://twitter.com/stitchsarah if schadenfreude is your thing. Or maybe you'll just be disgusted.
It wasn't fun or pretty. Some very kind people contacted me with beautiful messages, for which I am truly grateful, but overall it wasn't a good exercise. I ended up ashamed, disgusted with myself, resolving to try harder to keep those feelings away from public view. I'm well aware that this post is an exercise in ritual self-humiliation in futile expiation of the above-mentioned shame. Along with all the risks of being transparent about imperfection.
Folk wisdom says it's best to be honest, to share your real feelings. But look at what the images for self-pity show. It's an emotion that is mocked and despised. Where's the distinction between so-despicable self-pity, and the honest and necessary acknowledgement that one is desperately unhappy?
Naturally I'm fighting to turn away from this. Yes, I'm practicing gratitude for every scrap of good in my life AND the lessons from the difficult stuff. Of course I'm doing my bloody utmost to be positive. Most of the time it works. But not all.
2 comments:
I frequently verbalise the moments when the black dog is lurking, and have melancholy and self doubt all the time.
I tell myself that knowing that I am like this, and telling people I am like this makes it better.
Somedays it's just me and the shadows.
Somedays telling the world is enough to make you re-focus on your own technique to get centred again.
that was very good to see, thankyou. I think you may be right.
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