Albeit the musings I find in the people around me, I can never seem to escape the idea to write about mental health. As I'm coming to you this evening, I am more tired than I have been in quite some time and it is leaving me defenseless. This is sort of my last resort, but also the main character in my storylines at any given time.
I am fearful I consistently sound like a broken record with my conversation about not only my mental health, but mental health in general, and how hypocritical I am when it comes to abiding by the advice I give to others but refuse to digest myself. The thing about the mental health issues that surround me and those I care for is that the root of madness comes from the idea of a broken record. Everything repeats itself, everything cracks when you try to fix it, and even if you try to play through it, you're always going to come back around to the jagged part of the vinyl.
I spoke last night about the significance of music and how it can be a time capsule for situations you thought had found a home on a storage shelf. I struggled once again with my writer's block this evening, this time I'm assuming to the weights strapped to my eyeballs and decided to watch Taylor Swift's Long Pond Studio Sessions as a way to hopefully garner some sparks to get me going, or a puff of smoke at the very least. Her cadence and the way she carries herself when speaking about her ideas is a way I so desperately long for. There is a certain stride brilliant creatives take when they're speaking fluidly about how they've come up with ideas and how to relay those stories. Taylor Swift does it, Joan Didion does it, Josh Kiszka does it, and I'm assuming this flow is due to the number of times they spend creating from a natural place, it's like their own built-in narrator. As I listened to Taylor talk briefly about mirrorball and this is me trying, two of my lesser favorites on the folklore album, my perspective completely changed and my respect for what these two bodies of work grew immensely, in a way I was unaware was possible.
"We have mirrorballs in the middle of a dance floor because they reflect light, they're broken into a million pieces and that's what makes them shiny." She goes on to tell co-writer and producer Jack Antonoff that there's an element of theatrical value that goes into being a "broken" person. As long as there's entertainment for the rest of us while you're suffering, you shine, no matter how artificial spectacles will dull you. Even so, when the light no longer reflects, you're still broken pieces and you're still going to shine this next time around, so just hang onto this despair so long as it comes with a laugh track. There was a part of me that had to stop and digest following the initial statement. I hadn't considered looking at human distress in a way that makes it shine, because we are so often used to no light in the room. As a natural people-pleaser myself, I'm not sure I'll ever understand why so many of the people I've come to know are the most healing, caring, and humility-driven people. I suppose the instinct to protect those you love from the pain you've experienced is a natural noble action on one's part, and certainly, you must learn lessons from what you've gone through, but it would seem to me that those pieces keep shattering, no matter how much we try to put them back together.
when I first heard this is me trying, I had rightfully assumed it was a letter to a partner in a relationship, coming to the end of what was one of the most gut-wrenching experiences in the partnership. From hearing Taylor talk about the connection of mental health to this song, as well, I noticed a brief parallel between mirrorball in the conversation of shine in the lyrics "I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting." It creates a visual of a dulling we all experience in some form of another, some of us quicker than others. There is something almost reprehensible about "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back, I have a lot of regrets about that" and the chord it has always struck in me. When my head starts to go downhill (ironically: "could have followed my fears all the way down"), one of the worst places it naturally takes me is my contemplation of what I mean in people's lives. I've been in friendships before where, as person B, my friendship with person A is comparable to person A's friendship with person C, a wildly divisive kind of insecurity.
Naturally, I have come to do that to myself, even when I'm told by the people I care for that they feel just as caring for me there's still that sliver of doubt that creeps into my mind. I've had panic attacks over this kind of stuff, leaving me questioning whether this is a genuine friendship or if these people are friends with me because they feel bad for me, they hang out with me because they have nothing better to do or it's charity work, even at work I feel I tend to get in the way, and so the spiral beings. I didn't know if you'd care if I came back. I have a lot of regrets about that. and typically I do. My regrets conjure in a fearful way, expecting the next person to put their shoes on and walk out the door. Never once considering their devotion to this friendship and their willingness to stick around despite how out of control I feel I get, especially when I vocalize what is bugging me.
As a single woman, I am really driving home my compatibility for future suitors with all of this unraveling of mental health issues. Anyways....
Half of my heart dissecting what all of this means just won't do, so I'm afraid I will have to shelf this for another day. Though I will inevitably come back to this, I hope eventually I can come to write about something not related to mental health, though I don't think talking about it is necessarily a bad thing. It's honorable, it's brave, and it is what will help break down the idea that being depressed or being anxious is something to be punished or ridiculed or made fun of for. We're all on the spectrum in one way or another, it just shows more in specific people than it does in their neighbor. I hope, if you take anything from this, you understand that you always have someone in your corner. As long as I'm talking or critically thinking about mental health and how to navigate the nooks and crannies of human existence, I've got your back. This did not at all scratch the surface about what I want to discuss. I'm not sure how, I don't think. This is me trying.
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