Happiness can be as illusive as it can be abundant and often I feel that those who experience one of the two can be equally dissatisfied. I know, I have been dissatisfied feeling both happiness and the lack of it. I used to think that when I found my happiness it would fix everything, and I would shake my head in disbelief every time I found no satisfaction in a moment of happiness. Perhaps it had not been real after all.
So, I thought maybe I won’t feel true happiness before I am healthy and successful in both my work and my relationships. In a way, not being happy became constant proof of my failure and inadequacy. I lived like that for so long, it became my reality and in it, I found certainty and safety. Failure was certain, and oddly enough, that certainty of that failure felt safe.
You might already know where I am going with this. In fact, I hope you do. It took me a long time to understand this myself, and to be perfectly frank, I might never have realised it if I had not been writing this blog.
Since I began this blog, now about a month ago, I have been writing a lot less fiction and the novels I’m working on, well… they’re all just waiting to be picked up again. It is not that I don’t feel like writing, I do. The problem is that I feel like a fraud and a failure. Every time I look at my work I feel ashamed of myself. Not the writing in itself, although I am aware that I still have much to learn about this craft. No, I am ashamed of myself.
Being successful is something we all want, right? Well, I sure thought so, but I was wrong. I like the idea of being successful – of being happy, financially independent and having good relationships with the people in my life.
Apparently, I seem to not want that. The problem is I tend to sabotage myself every time I get the chance. If my skin clears even just a little, I’ll eat food that is bad for me and surprise, my acne gets a lot worse again. When I start feeling healthier because I exercise properly, I stop exercising and immediately I get more tired and feel less inclined to exercise. After all, sabotaging my body is far easier to me than taking care of it. But is it, really?
The same goes with writing. If I start to feel good about something I’ve written, or maybe about the idea of me being a writer, then all the darkness inside of me starts spilling out. I start to think I’m stupid to believe I could ever become a better writer than I am, because I am hopeless. I feel hateful towards myself when looking at the blank page in front of me and all those degrading thoughts about myself are all I can write, so I hold it in and feel blocked. It it’s not that I cannot write at all, only that I can only write hateful things about myself and I refuse to do so.
When I don’t write for a while, I start to feel like I am going crazy and my head grows ever noisier and louder and soon, I’ll end up truly blocked and unable to write. That is one of the most painful experiences I have felt, and while it is going on, I am honestly not sure how I am supposed to survive a life without writing. I just don’t know if it is possible. I spiral down into a depressive phase, and I never know when I can find the strength to claw my way out again.
Of course, I never saw this pattern consciously. It all happened without me realising it, not even for the briefest of moments.
I realised it all today, actually. I was feeling, and had been for a while, this deep sadness inside of me. Writing is the only true form of connection I have ever known, and my sadness came from the belief that it would forever be beyond my reach. I would never be able to feel like anything but a fraud and a failure.
When I have mentioned these thoughts and beliefs before, people tend to assume that I am either afraid of failure or success. I kinda thought that sounded silly, because if that was the case, I should be able to figure out which it was. I felt, and still feel, equally uncomfortable with both success and failure. I am not particularly afraid of either, but I worried that it might mean I was just equally afraid of both, which would just be very impractical.
I was wrong, and so was everyone else. It wasn’t about success or failure. I don’t like feeling like a failure, but I have felt it for so long I know it better than anything else. The certainty in it felt – feels – safe, even if I don’t want it to.
When I tried to imagine what my life would be like, could be like, if I wasn’t a failure or a fraud, my mind went blank. That, my dear reader, very rarely happens. The inside of my head is constantly like being at a party where half the people are far too drunk and the other half stone cold sober. If the drunk idiots are not making a mess of things, the sober ones are complaining in a loud stage whisper. The concept of me not being a failure and a fraud was so foreign to both the drunkards and the sober ones, that they all stopped what they were doing and stared at me speechlessly.
That was the moment I realised that what scare me is not failure or success, only uncertainty.
Some may argue that it makes little difference in the grand scheme of things, but I beg to differ. It makes all the difference in the world.
I never thought that writing about certainty and uncertainty in my last post would make me realise such things about myself, but I am so grateful it happened. I should have realised it a long, long time ago.
I feel very frightened when it comes to any change, both physical changes and emotional changes. I, like most others on the spectrum of course, just don’t handle it well.
Changes in feelings are as difficult to me as anything, just like more physical changes like when we get a new train time table, when I can’t get the drink I always drink or when someone moves my things without permission. Well, actually, it doesn’t matter if they get permission or not – I just don’t like it when someone touches my things.
Someone once touched my gloves, she tried them on without asking and said they felt amazing and asked where I bought them. I didn’t wear them for about three years after and washed them several times since. I try to wear them now, about five or more years later, but they will never feel as comfortable again and they used to be my favourite pair. I will have to get a new pair, but I can’t find any that look similar.
My point here is, these things are terribly important to me. Neurotypicals often don’t understand, and I know the woman who put my gloves on didn’t mean any disrespect, but by her action I lost my favourite pair of gloves. They are ruined to me now. I can’t just get new gloves, because I want gloves exactly like the ones I had. Any change just isn’t right and even after looking for gloves for years, I can’t find any that I like like those I had. You may see now, that any change at all is truly something that influences my life – sometimes in more extreme ways than this.
Emotionally, it was always the same. Growing up I cannot deny that I was of an unforgiving and sometimes ruthless nature. If someone wronged me, I walked away without any hesitation. I would not forgive anyone for making mistakes, because I felt they had no right to be forgiven and I would not place myself in a similar situation twice. My feelings could change from compassion and empathy into cold numbness in the blink of an eye.
As the years passed and I became a young adult, I started to see the fault in my ways. I changed, I learned to forgive. Not because of others, but because it was too difficult to continue to carry all that hurt inside me. Letting go, forgiving, was a great release from that pain. Only, I never knew how to regulate it, as you will see.
Any change is painful to me, so instead of dealing with situations as they arose, I did the same thing over and over again. I let people hurt me again and again, and simply forgave them every time. By reacting in the same way every time, I felt safe.
I am a person very set in my ways, but I realise I have to work on finding some middle ground. Now that I see how I have fled from uncertainty towards the safety of certainty in most aspects of my life. I now see why I sabotage myself.
It is not that I am running towards certainty, but rather that I am fleeing uncertainty.
Happiness brings uncertainty, it does. To me, the uncertainty of happiness was always less appealing than the certainty I knew in unhappiness.
It is not because failure is safer than success, it is just that failure is the demon I know. Had I lived a life filled with success and happiness, I suppose I would feel the same fear, only it would be of failure and unhappiness.
Realising I was not afraid of success or failure, but the uncertainty that comes with any change, it set me free.
I don’t know how to be happy, I really don’t. I know how to be unhappy. In fact, I have great experience in this area. I think it’s time to get more used to uncertainty, and I am not the kind of person to wait for things to happen. I like to act, so I started thinking about how I could make myself fall in love with uncertainty.
I had this idea, and it might not work for others, but for me it might do wonders. I will force uncertainty upon me to get used it. Yes, I will.
I decided on a challenge.
I will eat or drink something I have never had before every single day for full month.
I know, many would not be troubled by this, but if we want to challenge ourselves and confront uncertainty in an attempt to love it, we must choose something that works for us – and not necessarily everyone.
I don’t eat things other people make, because I can’t. Taste and texture are vital to me when I eat. Eating something others have cooked feels like eating a huge spider, wiggling and struggling on your plate. I can get sick, vomit several times and lie in bed for days when I force myself to eat food someone else has prepared. Drinking or eating something with a strange texture or an unexpected odd flavour can provoke meltdowns for me.
This is not a challenge I take lightly, but a challenge that I hope can be the first step towards learning to love uncertainty.
I am doing this, not to provoke meltdowns or to fail, but to change myself and succeed, therefore it had to be something I believe I can get through.
I think I will start this on December 1st, but I’ll let you know. I need to figure out the best way to document this. This is a really big deal to me, so I want to make a big deal out of it! I need to make a big deal out of it to make sure I go through with it. (I did do the challenge. Click here if you want to read about it)
Also, if you have ever done something like this to get more comfortable with uncertainty, or want to do it too, let me know! I am open to suggestions!
