Pick Your Poison

I am a huge fan of Mark Manson; if you aren’t familiar with him he writes a brilliant blog (markmanson.net) and is the author of ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*$k’ and ‘Everything is F*$&#d: A Book About Hope’.  As a chronic people pleaser and worrier, he is a great read, (my personal favourite article on the blog is “Fuck Yes or No”, written for the purpose of relationships, but I basically apply this to life; if I’m not saying HELL YES to something…then I’m saying no.)  In his first book ‘The Subtle Art’ he wrote “Life is essentially an endless series of problems—the solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next. Don’t hope for a life without problems. Hope for a life full of good problems.” Read that a couple times, because it’s true, and it’s important and that’s basically the whole point I’m writing about today.

When I was younger and in the deepest depths of depression and anxiety I avoided life as much as I could.  I was simultaneously terrified of everything – being embarrassed, people seeing how messed up I was, screwing up – and didn’t care about anything, so my solution was to avoid all of it.  I retreated away from everything I possibly could – I stopped talking to any friends I had, I didn’t go to school, I barely responded when my parents or doctors spoke to me, I just stayed in my room as much as possible and tried to be invisible.  It wasn’t to get attention, I didn’t want help, I just wanted to not have to face all the things that scared me or I didn’t have the energy to care about.  I knew how I felt inside was NOT normal and so I just didn’t want to interact with anyone else.

But this didn’t mean I avoided problems…I still had plenty of problems.  I still felt awful. I still (sometimes) worried about what other people thought.  I still felt guilty that my parents were worried sick and trying to help and I wasn’t meeting them halfway (or any part of the way).  I still felt embarrassed about how I was hiding.  I still felt lonely.  When the phone calls trying to reach out and help stopped I was still hurt that those people had given up on me (though I didn’t/don’t blame them.)  I still knew that I couldn’t spend my life how I was and that with each day that I stayed hidden in my cave of shame it got just a little bit harder to crawl back out of it…but each day that went by, the more anxious I would get, and the deeper I would dig myself in.  Eventually getting back to the surface – to life – seemed completely impossible, which is when I, and probably many others, thought “well then I just shouldn’t continue to live then.”  If wanting to end my life isn’t a problem, I don’t know what is.

It is hard to avoid “problems” (challenges, struggles, adversity, roadblocks etc).  One way or another you are going to have to face SOMETHING, but if you look around at the people in your life and think about those that are the most content/fulfilled/optimistic they are generally the ones who aren’t shying away from life.  It’s not that they have it easier than anyone else (though it may appear that way), it’s that they take the challenges/problems they are faced with and address them and then use what they learn from their experiences to propel them forward. As Kenny Rogers said “every hands a winner and every hands a loser.” As in, it isn’t about the cards you’re dealt, it’s how you play them.

Now, when I was younger I didn’t have the tools to do anything differently than I did, but what I realized later on was that I got the tools I needed through experiencing the things I did.  Sometimes we’re equipped with the lessons we need to do a job before we ever have to do it, other times we have to learn as we go.  Before I worked as a waitress and bartender I was PAINFULLY shy, but when I suddenly found myself unemployed and desperate for money I took a job at the bar we hung out at all the time.  I started on a Sunday afternoon because it was usually quiet then and the main bartender would have the time to train me.  Well, turns out, that Sunday was the busiest they had ever had; there was about an hour of time to spend learning before suddenly every table inside and on the patio was full, with just the bartender, one cook in the kitchen and me working.  It didn’t slow down until 11pm and by that point I hadn’t had time to really think about what I was doing, I just had to do it.  I made some mistakes, had moments where I felt embarrassed, and definitely thought about dropping everything and quitting, but I didn’t want to leave the other people hanging just because it wasn’t ideal so I pushed through even when I was uncomfortable (I also hadn’t worn the right footwear so when I say I was uncomfortable I don’t just mean outside of my mental/emotional comfort zone, I also mean physical.) And at the end of the day, I learned most of what I ever needed to know to do that job that day, because I had to…and had I not been thrown to the wolves, so to speak, I might not have ever pushed myself enough to discover how good I was at that job.  Additionally, had I chosen to walk out, well then I would have had to face the problem of being embarrassed and feeling guilty for letting those other people down…plus I still wouldn’t have had a job. Running away wasn’t solving a problem…it would just have been choosing a different problem.

Eventually that was what happened when I was younger too.  Once I was fairly stable on medication I still didn’t WANT to go out into the world, but I also didn’t WANT to be alone anymore.  I didn’t WANT to be accountable to anyone else but I also didn’t WANT to be a burden that my parents had to constantly worry about. I didn’t WANT to be invisible…even while I did.  Neither option I had was actually that appealing to me but one was just slightly less appealing, so I made the choice to try the world again.

Sometimes in life you’re gonna have to pick your poison.  Sometimes none of the options are going to go down easy, none of them are going to feel good, all of them are gonna have side effects that, while they might not kill you, will be unpleasant. And when you’re faced with situations like that you will have to choose which of those side effects you can live with.

Now, that’s not to say that I 100% agree with blanket statements like “Being overweight is hard. Losing weight is hard. Choose your hard.” That is WAY over-simplifying what I have been talking at length about being a VERY complex and personal situation.  It is easy to say “choose” or “pick” in theory, but the reality has a lot more layers than just fight or flight.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (and then again, probably 100 more times), just because we KNOW the answer, doesn’t make it easy to choose that answer.  I KNOW I shouldn’t lay back down in bed once I’m up in the morning, that doesn’t mean I don’t do it sometimes (ok, super mild example).

You are not defined by any single choice you make.  If I had left that job that day, it would have been fine.  I would have been embarrassed.  Knowing me at that time, I likely never would have shown my face at that bar again, and eventually I would have gotten over it and only thought about it now and then and maybe cringed a little.  But I would have survived and in the grand scheme of things it would have been a tiny drop in the bucket.

Before I made the choice to take my meds properly, I made the choice not to.

Before I made the choice to DO THE WORK that my psychiatrist/counsellor gave me to do, I made the choice not to.

Before I made the choice to try to make friends, I made the choice to avoid the ones I had had.

Before I made the choice to work in a bar, I made the choice to avoid talking to strangers at all costs.

Before I made the choice to focus on my health, I made the choice to blame external factors for why it wasn’t good.

Before I made the choice to face things that scared me, I made the choice to avoid anything that was uncomfortable.

Not one of those choices, either on their own, or even collected as a group, defines me as a person. All of those are still just a small portion of who I am.  So, if when you’re picking your poison you’re choosing one that makes life afterwards truly unpleasant, don’t beat yourself up.  Instead of wasting energy berating yourself ask yourself questions:

• • • What about this option was more comfortable for me than the other one?
    • How do I think I would have felt if I made a different choice?
    • What is the worst thing that could have happened if I’d chosen the option I felt was hardest?  Is it actually that bad?  Does it matter that much?

Some days we’re all going to wish someone else would just tell us what to do, but whether we like it or not, when we make those tough choices for ourselves we are going to feel a lot more pride and purpose…it might not feel great in the moment, but it’ll come.

Alanis Morissette is quoted as having said – “I never regret anything I do. It’s part of who I am now, and I like who I am now.”  That is how I feel about my journey to get here.  It was a wild ride, and not always in a good way, but it has gotten me to where I am now, where I feel good in my skin, my mind and my heart and I truly don’t think I would be who I am without all of it, poison or not.