Yes, You Need Other People

This is something that I didn't grasp for a long time.

           These past few years, as I've worked through and come to some sort of decorum with issues related to low self-love and self-worth,  I've accepted that surviving and thriving in this world requires having others in my life. The love of other people, the support of other people, the sense of belonging to other people in a variety of capacities: these are all essential to our well being as humans.

          

           Despite having confidants, friends and family to support me many times I failed to understand that it was ok to rely on others when there were hard times that overwhelmed me.

So much of what I read, what I learned from media and the individualistic culture that dominates our world was that you could never rely on others. You always had to stand alone. You always had to be able to cope with what life gave you. You could never share dark times with others or expect others to help you. Perhaps the message I heard the most though was you had to be enough for you. Your own sense of self worth was what would carry you through.

These days, I tend to see this as misguided if not flat out wrong. None of us by ourselves are enough to sustain us through life. I mean that materially and emotionally.

Humans are highly social creatures. We are not solitary creatures like tigers and sharks. As Yuval Harari writes in Sapiens:

'A colt can trot, shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage on its own when it is just a few weeks old. Human babies are helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for sustenance, protection and education.'

The term 'sink or swim' is applied to people striking out on their own to make it in life. Yet if our species was really geared towards that kind of existence, we would give our children up to nature like sharks do. We wouldn't bothered to raise our kids at all we'd leave them to forage on their own and they would thrive.

As we all know though, leave a human newborn alone by itself in the wild and it's almost certain to die.

We need our parents and are families to look after us. Sometimes that sustenance protection and education from our caregivers can go (to one extent to another) our whole lives.

But it's not just our parents or family we're dependent on. Most of you reading this have a smart phone, a device you probably had no part in manufacturing. You also didn't create it nor did you come with the idea for it the first place.

At a more basic level most of you reading this rely on a system of food distribution network to keep yourselves fed. You rely on electricity companies to keep your home powered and on government pipes to get clean water.

Sure there are some survivalists and hermits that go the extra step of withdrawing into the wilderness. But if humans beings were wired for that kind of existence there wouldn't be over seven billion of us and we wouldn't be living in towns or cities. In fact we probably wouldn't have the kinds of technology and innovations that allow us to live and thrive.

Humanity's strength has always been our capacity to cooperate with one another. We have built societies where we can work together and come up with solutions that are for the common good of our communities. Any time we've thrived its been because we were lifting others up.

It's ironic that we live in an age where so many (especially in the first world) are dependent on others materially yet expect our emotional and psychological needs to be met entirely by ourselves.

Again if that was the case we wouldn't socialize or bond nearly as much as we do. 

We wouldn't even need to confide in any friend or loved one about personal doubts and insecurities because...those insecurities just wouldn't be there.

 We wouldn't have the rich body of art and literature that comes from the disappointments, heartaches and tragedies that come when we fail at love, friendship or other relationships.

We wouldn't have record numbers of young people struggling with mental illnesses. We wouldn't have so many people in our rich first world societies struggling with a sense of loneliness and a lack of belonging.

Whether we really want to admit it or not (and mostly we don't) we are emotionally vulnerable at many, many points in our lives. Yes, we can learn to improve our sense of self-worth and self-love. I definitely have. But this doesn't mean that we can expect ourselves and others of ever reaching a point where we can be 100% secure 100% of the time.

Sometimes were all as weak as infants and the strong fronts, the ones we put up to others to make ourselves seem so inhuman, stop us from having the breakdowns we need in order to put ourselves back together in a better way. 

And as we put ourselves back together, often we'll need someone or many someones to help us know where to fit those pieces in. 

Something Every Depressed Person Should Hear

I've almost always experienced depression from an inside perspective. Apart from, you know debilitating self-loathing, another disadvantage this gives me is that I often have a hard time seeing what depression looks like from an outside perspective. 

 

Still, the great thing about being human is you can put yourself (to an extent) in another person's shoes with some mental effort. Most of us don't do this as often as we should but I don't think anyone would say that trying to grasp another person's perspective is a bad thing.

 

As a depressive, trying to think of how others perceive me can also help me understand challenges those who don't suffer from depression have when they look at those who do.

 

One common question I think a lot of people who want to help a loved one with depression face is -What do I say to them?

 

This is a tough item to advise on even for someone who has regular struggles with depression. Many times, we depressives don't always know what it is we want or need to hear. When I'm in a depressed state I sometimes don't have the mental clarity to know what is I need to hear or need to do to feel better. All that I can really feel and comprehend is misery.

 

Depression also makes your entire perspective on life skewed. Everything gets filtered and twisted through a negative voice that makes even the most well intended advice come off in a critical light. For me this is especially true with advice such as 'Oh, maybe you should exercise more.' or 'Try and list all the positive things in your life.' While is this very well meaning advice and might help some people, a depressed mind will often process this as 'You see, this is something you could easily fix. You don't have any excuse for why you feel this way. You suck.'

Depression is very clever like that. 

 

Lastly, knowing what to say to a depressed person is hard to know because everyone experiences it differently. Although depression can generally be defined with terms like 'deep and ongoing sadness' and 'crippling despair' people experience it differently from one another. What triggers episodes in one person might not be a big deal for another person. As such, advice, comforting words or activities that might help one person won't necessarily be of benefit to another. I've known some people who use yoga to treat depression. For some that doesn't work mental exercises do. 

 

With all of that said though, and keeping in mind that what works for me might not work for you, I do think there's one message that depressed people need to hear, often multiple times. That is:

'You're okay.'

I think often we, (people) try and give advice to depressed people first without really making it clear first that we recognize the person's pain and still accept them. You may not necessarily understand it but you see that they are struggling and to be in that struggle is okay. 

 

From my own experience and based on what I've shared what other depressives, we very often know that we can take actions to make our lives a little easier. Often we're already in therapy and browsing tons of articles to try and understand and cope with our condition better.

When depressives get into a mood, we often know that our feelings are ridiculous in many cases. I know logically that the negative criticism I'm bombarded with is often not accurate. However, it's so powerful that it overwhelms me.

What we often lack in those dark times is not ways to feel better or a sense that it's okay that we feel this way. That our feelings or lack thereof are real and that the people who matter to us see this and value us nonetheless.

Everyone's a Failure...and That's Okay

 These are some of my recent failures

1) A short story was rejected from a publishing magazine. (15th rejection in two months)

2) An activity in a lesson I taught didn't go well like I planned. 

3) I was turned down for a lucrative student coordinator position at a university.

4) An assignment I turned in for my certification program wasn't up to scratch and I had to redo it...for the third time.

5) I was turned down for a date. 

 

 

I've enjoyed other failures in my life as well. 

 

6) I've failed to get a book published. 

7) I've failed to stay in a long term relationship.

8) I've failed at exercising everyday.

9) I've failed at reading at least one book a month.

10) I've failed to be kind, non-judgmental and considerate in every social interaction with every person. 

 

 

I am a failure. I have been a failure. I will continue to be a failure. I will lose and I will lose badly. I will have my ego and self-esteem maimed by own shortsightedness and laziness.

I will have dreams crushed under my souls as I try to stumble my way into finding them. 

 

I will never succeed in all things I want to do. Even if I had a thousand years to achieve everything I wanted, I think I would still fall short on certain things. 

 

Failure, is the essence of my life...and the same is true for you. 

 

Even if you've never enjoyed those ten failures I listed, you've failed in your own special ways. 

 

Like me, you've probably been hurt by some failures more than others. Some of these failures have kept you up at night or reduced you to tears...or both. 

 

Like me, you've wasted a lot of time abusing yourself over roads you took and others you didn't take. 

 

Like me, you've probably kicked yourself again when you consciously fail to implement the advice about failure you read in every feel-good article or blogpost. You know the one that usually goes along the lines of...

Yes, dear friends, we are failures; unequivocal failures. Yet I don't want to end with the same platitudes about how 'true failure is giving up' or 'if at first you don't succeed try, try, try again'.

There's nothing wrong of either of those sentiments. 

 

It's just that you and I have heard them far too many times before. I'm not sure at this point hearing those mantras again benefits anyone.

 

What I don't think we hear or read as often though is this: 

 

Failure is normal and it doesn't have to be our enemy.

There will never be a time when you or I will not have to deal with failure. We will never know a period of our lives where we are not falling short in some way. 

 

We may succeed at some things, we may make many dreams come true after years of enduring doldrums and false starts. Yet with each success will come new challenges and we will fail at some of them.

Failure will always be with us. Yet that is okay because failure in the end is not an enemy unless we make him one. Failure can be our greatest friend.

 

He's the personal trainer who yells at us during the race but takes the time to point out how we can run better next time. 

 

He's the teacher who checks our work everyday to make sure that we are spelling our sentences correctly. 

 

He's the drill sergeant who breaks you down day after day to your very core so that you can rise again stronger.

You may never be able to love him but I think we can all learn to respect him. So the next time you fail don't hurt yourself or try and attack Mr. Failure for doing his job. Instead reach out with an open palm and give him a firm, professional handshake and a smile. He's been with your first day and he'll be with you to your last and he's the strongest ally you will ever have. 

Don't Tell Me How Good I Look- Inner Conflict Over Weight Loss and Body Image

Exercise. It's a good thing. We all know it. Yet there was a period of time where I let my fear of what others thought stop me from doing it. However, it's not the sort of fear you're thinking of. 

I wasn't afraid of people thinking I was fat. I was afraid of what people would think once I was thinner.

My weight has fluctuated a lot throughout my life. I've been through periods of being very slim to overweight to pudgy; though I've never been obese.

I've never really exercised much either, not consistently anyway, until recently. 

About two months ago I began doing cardio about forty to seventy minutes a day and I've notice that I've begun getting slimmer and feeling more energetic. 

My writing has also been flourishing. 

Now, for many people the story ends there. Not for me. 

Because there's something about exercise in our culture that's always bothered me. 

This issue many times stopped me from developing a serious exercise routine and was always at the forefront of my mind. 

The truth was, I didn't want to lose weight because I didn't want others to judge me more favorably. 

Something about the idea of getting compliments like 'You've lost weight, Sean!' annoyed me.

I was open to the idea that exercise could make me healthier but the thought of losing weight and the way this would change how I was seen in the eyes of others bothered me. 

I didn't like the idea that simply by getting thinner I would suddenly become a more valuable person. 

I didn't want my shape to define who I was and so I didn't exercise regularly until a very severe bout of depression prompted me to start moving as a way to get endorphins firing. 

My new routines have helped a lot and yet as I'm beginning to get thinner I can't help but shake the feeling of discomfort.

The fact that our society judges people so much based on physical appearance alone, has always driven me a bit nuts. 

Whether its clothing, abs, waist lines, breast sizes, hair color etc. we live in an age that I feel is incredibly superficial and shallow. 

For many people. Image, looking good for the camera in their phone is the only thing that matters. 

Idealized and unrealistic bodies are everywhere in our media.  Most of the pictures floating around social media are selfies and body shots. Much has been written about how women and young girls have been negatively affected by media pressure to conform to a certain body image.

However, while this might be a more intense pressure for women, men are also facing more and more pressures to have perfect Ryan Gosling and Channing Tatum bodies and this is creating more and more eating disorders among teenage boys and men.

The emphasis on so many amazing physiques is ironic when you consider how obesity rates in the US and many other developed countries have exploded in the last decades, meaning a significant portion of the consumers looking at these images don't resemble their images. 

Now, I'm not advocating for people not engaging in exercise or trying to lose weight. Being active is good. However, I think as a culture we need to get away from placing so much of our value and the value of others on physical appearance. 

 

We need to focus on promoting the idea of exercise as a way to improve one's health not how you look in the mirror. 

 

We need to have realistic expectations for our own appearance. Image is important but it's one component of being human. 

 

Above all we need to be okay with who we are regardless of how we look and we need to know that we are all more than an image, more than a profile picture or an Instagram snapshot.  

We are all complex, imperfect, eternally changing and evolving beings and we cannot ever be defined by something as simple as our skin, waist line or face. 

We are so much more. You are so much more.