Thoughts on… Persistent vs transitory feelings
If psychotherapy training has taught me anything, it’s to look for patterns of persistent feelings. Transitory ones happen all the time, like when I was annoyed I’d ran out of the milk the other day and I couldn’t be arsed to go to the shop to get some. Even though that shop is less than a minute’s walk away, it means getting ready and facing people which I just don’t want to do sometimes. Anyway, those transitory ones easily come and go…and like the wind, they pass. I’m not saying I don’t pay attention, I’m just saying although they can potentially feel quite intense, they don’t linger for long.
The ones I need to look out for are the ones that stay or come up so frequently that it’s a definite “thing” and seemingly immutable (good word). So when I’m feeling down for more than a few days, it’s something to watch out for because it’s so easy to spiral, things get out of control and before I know it, I’m having more serious problems. I know that being ‘in recovery’ from any kind of mental health issue is an ongoing process; in other words, the minute that I forget about it and try to pretend it doesn’t exist is probably going to be swiftly followed by it rearing its head in some way.
I think this is true of all kinds of feelings. As long as it’s persistent, it needs attending to in some way. “Feelings are indicators, not facts” — this can probably be attributed to many people but I heard it from RuPaul. Feelings can be like a little nudge which you might not mind the first or second time, but if it keeps nudging away over time, it becomes a problem. I think I’ve started being nudged a few times, like something I’ve tried to run away from coming back with a vengeance.
A lot of problems can be rooted in relationships and this is no different. Sometimes, it’s just hard to be able to articulate exactly what you want to say so instead it’s brushed off or treated with such a brazen display of nonchalance (although it sounds like an oxymoron to say), that you try to stop it being a “thing”. (Bit of a tangent but along with this, I think one of the major problems for me is less being weighed down by “big stuff” but more the little things that are almost imperceptibly adding weight because they’re not being attended to.)
The other problematic bit comes when there’s such a broad mix of stuff going on that it’s kind of hard to get a grasp of any of it, evanescent you might say (but now all I can think of is Evanescence, I’ll definitely be listening to some of that as soon as I’ve finished writing). I’ve recently had a few of those days with such a random mix of emotions or feelings that it makes me think how are these all going on at the same time? And in some cases, it’s that I’ve never had that particular constellation or configuration of stuff at the same time so I don’t have the experience. Whether it’s confusion, boredom, tiredness, jealousy, frustration, inner critic stuff…it’s just all bundled together like a suitcase that’s been packed for weeks and you suddenly don’t remember anything you put in there or where exactly in the suitcase it is.
I think I’ve vaguely written before about uncertainty and I could, if I wanted to, tar this all with the ‘uncertainty brush’ and say I simply don’t know. I don’t know how I feel, I don’t know what I want/need and I don’t really know what’s going on. Except there’s a little part of me screaming out saying that I do know, but I wish I didn’t so I’m trying to cover it all up. I think I’ve decided I need to change tack a bit so instead of asking “what is this?” when it comes to feelings, relationships etc, it’s to ask what is it right now, or what could it be?
Of course, trying to deal with that badly packed suitcase of feelings comes with its own kind of fatigue, which is what I think I might be experiencing now. If it’s a “round the houses” kind of post, it’s because that’s what’s going on and I need to figure it all out. Maybe I need a therapist. Events of the past few days, or past few weeks even, seem to have been coming to a head somehow, like sensing a change in the wind. Whether that wind is going to push me to where I need to go or make it anything but plain sailing remains to be seen. Now I’ve got that scene in Mary Poppins in my head with the weather vane. I just looked for it on YouTube and what Bert says actually fits perfectly right now so I’ll finish with that:
Winds in the East, mist comin’ in
Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ‘bout to begin.
Can’t put me finger on what lies in store,
(but I feel what’s to ‘appen all ‘appened before.)
P.S. I’ve just bracketed the last bit because I’m less convinced that’s the case, more like it’s something that’s never happened before, hence why I think I feel so uneasy. They say you should be honest and true to yourself, but what about if you don’t know what looks or feels like so your internal compass is just way off or the honesty is the really scary like a point of no return? Trying to wade through and listen to that ‘real’ voice is tough because sometimes it doesn’t come out as definitively as the inner critic does for example. Instead, I find myself clamming up because I daren’t give the uncertainty room to breathe. Plenty of weather-related words coming out as I’ve written this so I reckon that in itself is significant. I’m ‘under the weather’, there’s no doubt about that.
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