The Paradox of Bravery: When Letting Go is Holding On
#11 - Everything is hard until it isn't and why stoicism isn't brave
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My head has been so full recently that it's been difficult to find a way through it all.
The end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 has been anything but smooth sailing. After coming back from a difficult festive period, I along with 40+ other colleagues, many of whom I call friends, were laid off and so I found myself without a job, in the second week of January - Happy Fucking 2024 Ya’ll!
The last couple of months have been overwhelming, painful, confusing, emotional, frustrating and I’ve never felt so lonely and lost. But there's also been many moments of wonder, of connection, of happiness (which I’ve always struggled with), of generosity and love, that have meant I've been able to come back to the edge where I seem to live day in and day out, rather than fall completely into the void (maybe even an extra step back from it sometimes).
I have two or three pieces I've written or begun writing and they are swirling in my mind and body like tornadoes; made up of complex thoughts, emotions and a deep desire to not only process the content but to make sure it's true. For me.
I know it will be true for many of you who read it (when I hit publish), but I have a responsibility to myself to pause on some of this so I don't end up tricking or forcing my way through something because it would 'get it done'.
"Sometimes the most uncomfortable learning is the most powerful" - Brené Brown
I'm feeling very unsure of myself (even more so than before) especially given all the recent turmoil in my life. In my search for understanding how I feel, what I feel, what I think and what my life has been and could be…
Receiving my AuDHD diagnoses as an adult, as I’ve written about before, brought both immense relief and grief, but now there is neither of these things leading the charge, at least they are now backgrounded behind and amongst shame, confusion, fear, curiosity and yearning. I’m always yearning.
There are so many things and learning, whilst unlearning is like being tethered to a post while you run in the same spot until nothing but sheer will or luck frays the cord, and you leap forward into a new known. A new unknown.
Yet, I get re-tethered each time, the cord is perhaps longer now, the scenery has shifted a little and I have a little more stamina in my heart to go again but is this what it will always be? Will it always feel like this?
Effort and effort, some pain and more effort for what are seemingly tiny incremental gains and changes? After fighting for so long, it doesn’t feel sustainable.
What does slow progress feel like for you?
Here is another fight alongside the many I face, not having patience with oneself or being able to recognise the evolution that has already occurred.
That post I was tied to at the start was much bigger, it's roots where far deeper and my cord much shorter... And yet it still feels the same. It's pull is still as strong and the suffering still hasn't turned into acceptance or drive.
I have to be reminded that I've made progress, I have to be confronted with the truth of things and that 'it's going to take time' before I can even begin to see through the noise of it all and make another brave step in the same direction. But I can’t seem to hold these positive things as close to my heart as I can all the ways it’s not going ‘right’.
For the record, leaning in, rather than leaning out, is way braver than stoicism.
I was ‘coping’ and almost proud of how well I was dealing with all the pretty huge changes and massive feelings going on, how strong I apparently felt and was being but this was stoicism. This was a false sense of ‘having my shit together’ and when I said to my therapist ‘I know I need to lean in and not away from’ she replied ‘that’s way braver than stoicism’…
So why don’t I feel brave?
Well, I'm worried - worried I'll lean too far and all the things I've been doing to protect myself won't then be in reach to bring me back or catch me if I fall... If I fall.
I can’t be brave if i’m not able to step in with both feet, let alone leap.
My last therapy session was around Parts work, based on the Internal Family Systems model (IFS) where we ended up speaking to and getting blocked by, what this model calls the Manager. I just call it the ‘protector’ and its very good at it’s job, too good in fact and its overbearing protection of a lot of the other parts is no longer serving me. It definitely needs to just chill a bit.
Finding and accessing the ‘protector’ surfaced a lot of things and they’ve been churning away since the session, but i’m exhausted. I’m so incredibly tired.
In the last week or so, I couldn't tell you any more specifically than that, I left the house once. Which was in fact Friday night and it was just a trip to the supermarket (two in fact). By the time I'd driven there and walked 2-3 aisles, made maybe 3-4 decisions, I was drained. By the end of the second supermarket I was beyond done.
I was simultaneously proud I'd made it out the house and survived, relatively unscathed, and yet deeply sad and frustrated that it was so hard. To even get out the door. For a trip to the supermarket to be such a huge thing for me.
Everything I'd offer as advice, comfort or understanding seems out of reach for myself right now. This isn't new and it's why I'm generally the one people come to with things because I know 'all the things' and will also be your biggest cheerleader but right now, the last few weeks especially, I could really do with keeping some of that for myself and being able to actually listen to it... to listen to the kid that’s just saying ‘oh man this stuffs hard isn’t it, maybe I just need a nap or something yummy’
But there's the rub... I can't listen, yet, and the protector part of me is really fighting to keep the status quo because it’s known. It ‘knows’ just having a sleep or eating something nice or being kind to myself isn’t going to get me very far… at least not on its own.
It has to be hard, it’s going to be hard and if I really want things to get better, to feel better, it’s going to feel pretty fucking shit for a while… but stoicism isn’t the answer either. I don’t need to ‘fix’ anything right now… but a break from it all would be nice though.
This piece, like many of mine, was written in around an hour (with some edits) - I don’t tend to hold on to pieces for very long if at all, which might be why the other pieces in draft are growing in size and expectation - but this piece started with the simple thought that 'my head is very full'. This was the only thing I really knew to be true today and although I've been writing and processing and of course thinking, I haven't paid attention to it all as a whole or even called it all out.
I’ve just been letting it all stew amongst all of the other things. I haven’t let it just be.
So this is what I'm telling myself and something you might need to hear to:
Sometimes, taking a step back from it all, acknowledging that it's all a lot is all you need to do because that's ok.
It's ok for it to be hard, it's ok for you to not have the answers or know what your next step is. It's ok.
The point is you're trying - and trying is better than giving up.
Thank you for reading and spending some time here with me. Remember, you’re never alone.
Above all, I hope you know you're never alone.
Casper x
I found this poem by Charlotte Mew this morning during a conversation with a friend about another one of Charlotte’s poems. It spoke to me in a number of ways so wanted to share it with you.
Not for That City
By Charlotte Mew
Not for that city of the level sun,
Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze—
The shadeless, sleepless city of white days,
White nights, or nights and days that are as one—
We weary, when all is said , all thought, all done.
We strain our eyes beyond this dusk to see
What, from the threshold of eternity
We shall step into. No, I think we shun
The splendour of that everlasting glare,
The clamour of that never-ending song.
And if for anything we greatly long,
It is for some remote and quiet stair
Which winds to silence and a space for sleep
Too sound for waking and for dreams too deep.
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Ahh, Casper, I can hard relate to all of this. I think even though we have learned so much about ourselves after diagnosis, sometimes it still comes a surprise that our journey can still be so up and down, I know that's how it feels for me sometimes.
I thought it was very poignant that you mentioned right at the start that you've always struggled with happiness, this is something I've also been talking about in my therapy sessions recently. It feels that I can pinpoint a thousand different ways that I feel anxious or depressed but sometimes feel quite strange when I realise that I'm feeling happy! I wonder if this gets easier with time and acceptance of ourselves. We do deserve to be happy.