Hello. It’s 4:30 AM. Today I woke up at 5PM. Jetlag is kicking my little british ass, and I feel like I’m in covid again. I am wide awake and can’t be arsed.
Anyway, I’ve been working on this post for a few days now, but figured I’d finish it up. Pretty beautifully written email from them. Let’s have at it.
how do i stop feeling like a stranger in my own life?
hi tom,
hope you’re well! i’ve been really struggling for years now with the feeling of a constant discomfort. i feel so stifled trying to do things that normal human beings do, like have relationships (platonic and romantic) and express myself. i have friends and honestly a decently vibrant social life and i’m not on the brink of killing myself or something, but this feeling is always kind of lingering in the back of my mind and i can’t make it go away.
i think the issue is being too self aware of all of my flaws, and then trying to, like, preemptively spare other people from being exposed to my own perceived awfulness. i know a majority of this is just all in my head, but how do i get out of my own head? how do i start living my life? how do i learn to live with being vulnerable and opening myself up to other people? i’m 19, almost 20, and even though i know i’m still young (relatively), i can’t help but feel this ponderous dread, like i’m wasting my life away being so obsessed with how others perceive me and how awkward i know i must come off. it’s like a metastasizing tumor. spare sage wisdom?
cheers
Fucking hell, yeah sorry mate, that sounds fucking rough. I’ve experienced glimpses of that, but never to that extent. Really feel for you.
Couple things:
- Shut up your head is wrong mate. Course it is. We’re all on our phones being miserable letting algorithms lead us deep into the night. That’s not in our human nature. But: THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT, and you should feel ZERO guilt about it, because we’re all in this fuckin’ digital spiral together, despite all of us experiencing different severities of it.
- No one thinks your a nob head. Well, maybe a few people do. But people think I’m a nob head. People think my mates are nob heads. You can’t please everyone. All you can do is do your absolute best, be kind, and accept that not everyone’s gonna feel alright about you. And that’s okay. Some people are pricks, and you don’t need them to like you. Some people just don’t. That’s OK.
- Stop reading self help books or looking too inwards. Advice is only advice, we learn so much more from experiencing it. Get out there, man! There’s a whole fuckin’ world!
Okay, but that’s just some words of re-assurance. How do you exactly “stay out of your head”?
Here is what works for me:
- Make plans
- Have a calendar, and have structure (even if its bullshit. My structure in covid lockdown – and weirdly right now – was every night before bed I eat toast and watch The Office. Even if it was 4am, I’d do this. We need routine).
- Connect with people (In person, over the phone, on fuckin’ discord. The biggest thing EVER that gets you out of your head is realising everyone else has their own little world with all their own dread, and love, and heartbreak, and joy, and pain, and trauma, and excitement, and pain, and hope). Don’t matter how you do it, whenever you can, try to connect with someone. Even if it makes you anxious. You have to connect with people, it’s the way out of this.
- Listen to loud music (This can really distracts the horrid thoughts. Yes, it’s helpful to inspect them, to get therapy, to have deep chats. But balance is equally important. And if you spend all your time facing inwards – which I have, many times – you get fucking miserable. As hard as it is to accept, the solution to this is not to sit by yourself and think.)
- Go in nature
- Be with animals
- Get into communities about things you love (Online or in person or both)
- Get sunshine
- Eat well (Sometimes I just grab a bag of spinach and eat it. I look fucking nuts. But the effect just having some good in your system does to your head is fucking mental)
- Be creative (Especially at things your shit at. No expectancy there. I love drawing but that’s never gonna be my fucking career. It’s just fun innit).
- Exercise (but don’t fuckin go to the gym and become a sigma male if you don’t want to. Just go on a little walk when you can. Does lots of good to be in the world).
- Try and be nicer to people (then you’ll be nicer to yourself)
- Try new things
- Try and actively think about stuff you like / love, not stuff you hate. (We will always hate loads and always love loads. Just what we hate often jumps out to us a lot more)
- Have some fuckin’ FUN. (Whatever is actually fuckin’ fun for you, go do that. Then come back to your problems. Also, go do something that one of your friends or family finds fun. Go with ’em, even if you don’t reckon it’ll be good. They might convince you!)
If any of those speak to you, then do them. If none of them do, then fuckin’ do one of them anyway it’ll be fine or worst case a bit bloody boring.
Also by the way (side note) life is not a movie. I think the digital / social media age has made everyone think they’ll have one conversation and then be healed, because of how romanticised poor mental health is. Or that you’ll have one movie moment where the sun catches your eye and all your trauma will lift off you. Life (and especially depression) is one step forward, two steps backwards. It’s tiny fucking little steps. But hey, steps is steps innit. Movement is movement. And to quote the Big Man: “one day, you’ll look back at where you started, and be amazed by how far you’ve come“
This is my advice. Keep on going. You fuckin’ got this.
Also, really get into some good music. Listen to these if you don’t got none, these uplift me always:
(and if you want some full albums you can bang on just to go on autopilot, get on Sgt Pepper by the Beatles, or Sable Fable by Bon Iver, or of course: Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen)
Cheers guys! I am going to go and try to fucking fall asleep. I won’t. But this is the price we pay for travel. !!!!!
Goodnight and goodbye.
