Dear Reader,
I have given myself a pat on the back recently. I pretty pleased with my efforts in attending (self-motivated) all therapy sessions over the past ten months. To be quite frank, I have nothing more to say. It is all out. To do this internal work, I have had to step away from my peer groups, simply due to the fact that I do not have the language to ever even answer the questions put to me by friends, who have never engaged in such therapeutic processes. I mean, like I know they’d like to be able to help, but I have seen when I have opened up and tried to explain, how quickly people run a mile and become scared shitless. I think I have to pinch myself to remind myself of how confident I have become navigating the shadows of my psyche. I dare not invite anyone in anymore who isn’t fit to converse on the esoteric worlds.
The point is reader, when you do work on yourself, you feel different, your sense of identity changes, for god’s sake there were nights when I lay in bed and my body odour smelt different. The murky shadows of the unconscious sent me down spirals I didn’t even know existed.
But now, I feel and ooze such inner self confidence and contentment. I have dived into the deepest waters of my unconscious and reached for my pearls. I wear these pearls with delight now. I am happy.
And now I do the long walk back into my social circles. I dip my foot back into the exoteric world. Society.
And I see myself now, as a new and improved version of myself.
I am happier now, even with the way I dress. My clothes reflect my true self. I prefer to wear more casual boho style. A simple change.
A change that comes with stares, judgement and silent social disdain.
And I see how quickly over the past ten months, my friends who I grew up with, so quickly have completely forgotten about me.
And how quickly that wave of stigma comes rushing like vibrations, like my very presence breeds tremors of fear.
If only they knew……
The whole inside of my my body, my organs, my tissue, my bones, my heart, everything feels new.
My aura has changed.
I need to exercise patience.
They don’t seem to be able to talk to me anymore.
Like I am a stranger to them.
So much so, that the dynamics of these 30 something year old women has completely shifted in ten months. Little did I know that coming back some of these women would really fucking hate me. And some of them just vibe soundness too.
In this microcosmic social clique where most women with their home-crew always feel safe, I feel completely volatile, and totally unsafe to show any signs of vulnerability. Maybe, it is that I can see things more clearly now, that some people don’t want to change, and my very face is a reminder to them, that they cannot face themselves.
So, they shut me out. They go about their secret plans. Then they arrange weekends away with some of the social clique, make pathetic excuses when I ask why I was left out of the invite last weekend? No one takes responsibility for leaving anyone out. And yet these small little winks and branch off WhatsApp groups flutter off and I am left with that reminder of isolation and loneliness once again. The very feelings I spent the last ten months learning to process and raise my internal vibrations away from.
It is at this point. I have to ask you all to STOP. Pause. Pause a little longer.
Is it me? Or is it them? Or does it matter?
Could I practice non-attachment here if I wanted to. Don’t let it bother me. Wait until the next time. Make an effort and I will get invited. Get invited and then worry if I should go out and buy clothes to dress like them again. To fit in to the social circle.
Or is there some way of opening up the conversation, from their side? Because I understand that my friends here, haven’t the foggiest of what went on behind the gatekeepers doors to the unconscious. So, they are looking at me, possibly not registering, that I am ten times more scared about being accepted into society again than they are. Sure for Christ sake, they’ve been out on the beer, getting the shift, getting Sunday morning cuddles of their husbands and boyfriends, having lazy fry ups. And me worried that if I eat sugar I might set myself off, and what if they want to corrupt my healthy regime I am loving. Like, I’m even scared to have a pint in case the fucking thing comes back.
All these complexities and unwritten social rules, boundaries, it’s all fucked up straight away again.
And these women in their 30 something don’t give a fuck. They don’t have to you see. The stigma only exists in my eyes. Stigma cannot exist in the eyes and minds of those who have never experienced depression or anxiety. It is a case of survival of the fittest when it comes to 30 somethings. The biological clocks are ticking. And here am I feeling like a new calf who won’t be let into the other field to her little sisters.
I suppose the message I am trying to convey is, could ye women out there in your 30s take a look around your social groups, particularly, your longest held ones since school. Ask yourself this question, are these tight knit circles stigma free? Is there maybe someone in our group not present for a while, and can we make a balanced effort to include everyone, and maybe pass the baton from the usual leader in the group to someone else, to do a round robin check on everyone, especially the ones who haven’t been at social events for a while. This might help dilute the bitching and toxic habits and make space to break the stigma, to let there be breathing space for me and those other women out there in this predicament come back in and have the craic again.
And if you can do that, then don’t start by asking me questions. Tell me all that you have been doing and go into depth on it. Because I have all my talking done. I’m ready to join in the space again and listen attentively.
But I cannot do it right now, because that wall of stigma is too high for me to climb back into the social circle by myself.
Please make space to help to feel like it is possible to fit in again without judgement.
Some of what I have written might sound dramatic, but it is real, and I am quite sure there are others feeling it too.
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