A plaidoyer against "being composed"

I recently checked into a mental health clinical program. The official term is "psychosomatic", and while I do believe that my current physical ailments that brought me here are a result of my mental health, and in particular patterns that I've lived all my life (and potentially my ancestors before me), what I've come to notice is that what I'm really here for, at this point in my life, is to deal with some really deep-seated fears that, thankfully, have been in my face a lot lately. Like, a LOT.

And I freely admit that, most of the time, I don't feel super grateful about that. But there is something to be said about being in a container that, while by no means entirely comfortable, is providing a framework that allows one to feel somewhat safer than, say, in a grocery store, or at a family dinner, to challenge oneself to no, not shrink back and say sorry when someone steps on your toes (or bulldozes over them with a shopping cart), but to say: "Hey, what the f, could you please not do/talk to me/treat me like that?!", and be fairly certain that, even if the reaction should be a less-than-pleasant one, there will be others whose job it is to step in and help, and hold the situation. In fact, I was only half joking when I told a friend this morning that I'm not entirely sure I'm capable - or willing - to live in "normal" society anymore. Whatever that even means.

I was thinking about titling this article "A plaidoyer for yelling at your kids", but I realize that might be perceived in the wrong way. Obviously, I don't want more children traumatized by parents who can't, let's say, determine the source of their frustration, and simply take it out on their kid because that's the easiest, or most convenient, or simply closest target. And I fully acknowledge that

a) I don't have any kids, and have no idea what the pressures are involved in raising them, and being a parent, and responsible for another human being. Or living things in general - hell, up until recently, I would very successfully kill any houseplant I was given, and would loathe to imagine what I could have done to a pet. (Things changed, thankfully.) And

b), I'm aware that it's a very fine line that I'm certain every parent (and non-parent, too) is tiptoeing along every single day: How much is too much? When am I simply using my child as a scapegoat for whatever the heck is going wrong with my life right now, and not just once in a while, but habitually?

And maybe this is where the difference is. But let me backtrack a little, and give you an example.

In this clinic, the patients are responsible for cleaning the dishes and tables after each meal. There's a team of two each day, so everyone (who signs up for it, because there's only 14 shifts to go around, but 24 patients - but that's a topic for another time) only needs to do this one day a week. This morning, I went to breakfast thinking I might be late, (weekends are wonky, I'll spare you the details), and already running stories in my head about the person who was on duty with me. Some of those had been running since I've found out who that was. Anyway - all this to say, I already wasn't my most regulated self.

When I got to the room, my dish-partner in crime told me I could just relax (even though I was, in fact, not late), because she wasn't gonna be there for dinner (insinuating she didn't wanna be there for lunch, either, but you're only allowed to miss one meal a day - it is, after all, a mental health facility), so I was gonna be on my own for that.

She wasn't being snarky, or obnoxious about it, just quite matter-of-fact, and was also saying she'd been thinking about how to make this work (for her) for the past two days. Regardless, my trigger of "not being considered" switched on - and really, I shouldn't say regardless, because, well, she didn't consider me. So as I sat, and ate my breakfast, I felt this coming on, and debated (habitually) whether or not to say something about it, because, well, that's what I'm here for, right?

So I did, and kept watching - knowing by now that, with this, the story doesn't end for me. I sat down. One of my groupmates was sitting at the table with me. I watched myself wanting to talk to him - say anything to him, to make the awkwardness that very likely only I perceived go away. To make sure I still had friends, even though I just did a terrible thing by speaking my needs, and setting a boundary (that conversation, by the way, went very low-key - she got a bit defensive, but not in any way that I needed to react to, we agreed we knew better for next time - all peachy). I didn't. Talk to my group mate, that is. Or at least not right away. I even paused for a moment, realizing I wasn't chewing my food, and eating mindlessly (again, fodder for another story). I did ask the person questions I didn't really need to ask, to make conversation - a very clever way to make sure we were okay.

There's something really important to note here: I'm not condemning myself for these actions - and this is a work in progress, and has been a long time. I realize that all these tactics are a means to protect myself, and I actually love myself for them. AND I'll need to confirm that to myself, again and again, because like I said, it's not something that I've been able to authentically feel, or express to myself, for a very long time, so the inner beater-upper is still in the background, ready to strike whenever I let my guard down. (If this is you, here's what I do: Hand on chest, hand on belly, a few deep breaths, loosen up the jaw, eyes closed, or looking in a mirror. Saying "I love you, Jess" - or, if I can stomach it: "I love me!" Also shaking it off sometimes helps, or doing a little dance with little me.)

Back to this morning, I noticed myself getting into doing mode - suggesting that maybe I could take care of lunch dishes, thinking about helping her, also making sure she knew breakfast wasn't over yet (i.e. she would have to wipe the tables and all that she was doing already again, potentially, as people do like to sleep in on a weekend), asking her if she wanted a matcha latte that I was making for myself... thinking about helping her again, or at least hang back until breakfast was really over... should I wash my own dishes since she just started a machine (even though more people were coming in)... was she really okay? When she asked someone for help hanging around so I could also see what was happening, maybe I needed to know for later... You know. Just your regular, run-off-the-mill making-sure-everything-was-under-control-we're-still-friends-and-nobody-hates-me obsessive dance. (And this is the moment where I'll go give myself a hug and shake.)

I did eventually walk away, and even though I returned to ask her if she wanted me to wait with her until breakfast was over, things could have gotten much worse, as far as coping mechanisms go. Instead, I went to my room, and realized how much energy was drained even in this fairly small encounter with my fear.

There was another conversation that happened at breakfast, the contents of which have been on my mind for a while now, and in particular over the past few days. The hospital I'm in has several stations. The one we're on is on the 3rd floor, there's one for geriatric psychosomatic patients on the 4th floor (the insinuations of which I'm not even gonna start thinking about), and the psychiatric ward is on the 2nd floor, nice and close to the ground, even though the windows are still guarded I believe. Right now, as I'm writing this, someone downstairs is yelling their by now very familiar "Hello! Hello!" with much emphasis, which is followed by a banging of what I assumed was a letter box, but I can't be sure.

The conversation I had with my co-patient this morning was about how, lately, I've been wondering if the people downstairs really are the normal ones. As Harley Quinn once said: "Sometimes, to be sane, you have to be a little crazy." And while I would probably try to find words that are more trauma-informed than this, I think she has a point.

And again, I'm not meaning to imply that people experiencing severe mental illness, and psychotic breakdowns are having a great time, and everybody should do more of that. What I'm referring to is what I'm perceiving to be an unfiltered, unapologetic expression of the inner world.

And that really is the whole point of this article: What would have happened if I had had the capacity - built either through lived experience or by having done the inner work to integrate all those shadow aspects that were running around in the kitchen with me that morning - to just say my piece, and then let it go? In the moment? Angrily, if necessary? - Again: I am in a container that encouraged "testing new strategies", and where people were around to catch any fallout that may have arisen from that. Most likely, I could have done whatever I actually had planned for the day, without the need to lie down to recoup from the emotional exertion.

"You prioritize others' needs over your own to cope with stress. This comes from the 'fawn'-response, where appeasing others is a strategy to ensure safety and avoid conflict. It can develop in environments where pleasing others was a way to avoid harm or gain approval."

(Manuela Mitevova, creator of "Hips Like Honey" and "Heart Wide Open")

So yes, it is about safe spaces. And those can, and need to be inside, as well as outside ourselves. To be able to really let go, to really express whatever it is that we need to express, we need to be so sure in ourselves, that no matter what the reaction, we know we can handle it. It is my belief that, through releasing our trauma-memories - which are, more often that not, not a "conscious" memory but rather buried in the tissues of our bodies, read more on that here - we can indeed become what I think we were always meant to be: The pure, raw expression of ourselves. No hiding, no shame. Just life.