Duality

I’ve been feeling low. And I’ve also been feeling good. This seemingly strange duality is troubling. How can these two things be going on at the same time inside my head?

Recently, I told my doctor about how I’ve been feeling. I had been resisting this truth in my routine appointments with her. When she’d ask how I was feeling, I’d tell her, good, because that was true, too. I wanted to be the model patient. I wanted to feel great, all the time. No symptoms from the disease. No side effects from the medication. Just great. 

Admitting to feeling low means admitting that things must not be all good. I think that’s what I’ve been struggling with, because how can I feel low if my life also feels so profoundly good. How can I feel sad if I have a loving husband, a supportive family, wonderful friends, a beautiful place to live, and a genuinely fulfilling life. And then, when I acknowledge that, I just feel worse. 

The medication has side effects, they tell me. That might be causing the spiralling thoughts. The brain that just won’t turn off. The self-talk. Sure, maybe it is the medication. But maybe, there is more to it.

I know that I am not alone in feeling low or anxious from time to time. And, I know that it will pass. The tension between happiness and sadness, contentment and anxiety, joy and sorrow are no doubt part of the human experience. However, the message we get from society is that we should strive for constant happiness and resolution, even though life is rarely like that. And so, is it about accepting the complexity? Will doing that allow us to live more fully? As one of my favourite quotes says, You need both the light and the dark. One does not exist without the other. It must therefore be possible to have a capacity for more than just one feeling or one emotion or even one reality. 

Years ago, I did the silly little love languages quiz. C and I did it together. ‘Acts of service’ are his love language. And mine? ‘Words of affirmation’. I crave validation, reassurance that I am doing it right. That I am not a disappointment. A burden. That I’m cherished, wanted, loved. Don’t we all want that? 

I told C how I talk to myself. The way my words punish me and make me feel like I’ll never be good enough. How could you possibly say that to yourself, he asked me. I’m not sure, and when questioned, it does make me wonder how I can reasonably ask for words of affirmation from the people around me when I can’t give them to myself. In fact, I wonder if the words of affirmation wouldn’t be more powerful, more effective, more important if they came from me?

However, it's easier said than done. I tell myself to love myself; I tell myself to have compassion for myself, but it’s not enough. I need to believe it, too. So, a few months ago, with this in my mind, I made the commitment to go to therapy again. I can acknowledge the good in my life. I can also recognize that I want to build my capacity for things like speaking kindly to myself so that I am able to support myself when I feel like I can’t stop negative thoughts from spiralling in my head. 

Initially, I resisted my own idea of going to therapy. I worried it would be a personal echo chamber and that it would push me to focus on the things that felt ‘wrong’, and in this way not provide an opportunity to grow and expand and “show up” in a better way for myself. At the same time, I felt I owed it to myself to give my brain a break from the constant chatter, the constant hamster wheel, the constant commentary.

Through all of this, I consider little Hilary. The version of me that was plagued with anxious thoughts. My five-year-old self that wouldn’t leave the house – not for skating, for swimming, for trips to the grocery store. My six-year-old self that called my mum from the school secretary’s office every day at lunch time to make sure she’d be picking me up from school. My seven-year-old self that would go to a birthday party and immediately phone home in a panic to be picked up. My eight-year-old self that wanted desperately to join swim club but couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And on, and on. 

Recently, my therapist asked if there was something I was proud of. It took me a moment, but when I answered, I told her I was proud of myself for leaving all I knew to move north with C. The little version of myself, and even the teenage and adult versions of myself would never have imagined I could do such a thing. Yet here I am. Leading a life I love. Living it. 

So, maybe, as I work to tame the tangled web of thoughts in my mind, the anxious maze of vines, I can think back to the little version of myself and see just how far I’ve come. I can celebrate the love in my life, the beauty in my life, the wonder and the awe, and I can acknowledge that there are difficult moments, too, and that these things can and do coexist. These difficult moments can inspire me to work on myself, because, I guess, if I were to give myself some words of affirmation here, I am capable.