Stop Comparing Yourself to People Whose Parents Graduated From College
And Other Things I Say to Myself When I Start to Spiral
Let’s be honest. There is no way to fully embody the human experience without feeling the full range of human emotions. A lifetime is nothing if not a series of upward and downward spirals.
When I say “start to spiral”, I am referring to finding myself descending down this literal emotional spiral depicted below:
If you can recall a typical day at the playground, you remember the slide and its slippery slope. It is an easier journey sliding down than it is climbing up. Our inner lives aren’t much different.
Granted, in this current version of global reality, there are no shortages of events that could push one waywardly down this spiral. A few months ago, someone asked me “what’s stressing you these days?” and, with pure hubris, I replied “Nothing” which was technically true at that current moment. I added that I had a pretty good handle on the typical stressors in my life and how to subdue them if they dare to emerge. I wasn’t wrong. I had just forgotten what spiraling feels like. Oh, but life has a way of always evoking memory.
It was a spiral, like any other spiral. It happened “slowly and then all at once”. Love and light gets real fear and darkness real quick.
The hair is always the first to go. Then, the diet. Movement becomes the walk to and from the train station. The skin dulls, then breaks. The scattered mess turns to complete disarray. No one is helpful. Everyone is annoying. If only you could get just one fucking moment! But, time is moving faster than you can organize your thoughts and life doesn’t stop just because you can’t catch your breath. Decisions have to be made and there is a bill due that you remember only after its late and “I know I haven’t texted you back in three days which is ironically the amount of days its been since I’ve cooked myself a decent meal”. Not really sure what I would do without my corner deli. I promise no one deserves to see me like this anyway. Please just give me a moment to exhale and to get my head straight and to feel human again. I hope you’ll still be here when I’m done. I just need a moment to light this and put on some music. I promise I will be fine…
Because I Feel Like I Should Be Somewhere I’m Not:
Comparison is the ultimate thief of joy. Stop comparing yourself to people whose parents graduated from college. People whose parents stayed together. People whose parents knew how to love them. People whose parents never hit them or berated them. People who grew up with stable housing in nice neighborhoods. People who didn’t have to work through college. People who have never experienced trauma. People who had “normal” childhoods. Just stop. How could you ever experience life in the same way that they did? How could you have known how to do things that no one ever taught you? That no one even knew how to do themselves? Your starting point is not the same as their starting point. Your ending point won’t be the same either. It’s not fair to compare yourself.
Because I Feel Alone and Misunderstood:
Remember when you were younger and wanted to be an actress so you would watch television with the subtitles and act out the scenes? Remember when you first found out you were selectively mute for years? Remember when your teachers would let you sit with them after school and give you snacks because your mom was always working late? Remember whenever you cried on the couch your dog Princeton would come to cuddle with you? Remember when your nephew saved your life? Remember when your ex held you after he told you that you had Trichotillomania and that he had it too? Remember when you were scared at your neurology appointment and the nurse prayed for you until you sobbed? Remember when someone wanted to meet you because they loved your book so much? Remember when you found out you and your best friend were born in the same hospital two days apart? Remember when you decided to adopt Maggi? The feeling is real, but it isn’t permanent. It isn’t unique. It isn’t exceptional. And it isn’t avoidable. You will be alone sometimes. You will be misunderstood sometimes. You won’t be alone all the time. You won’t be misunderstood all the time.
Because I Don’t Understand the Point of It All:
You’ve met three of your great-grandmothers. THREE great-grandmothers who you have distinct memories of. Most people don’t even meet one. One of them lived to be over a century and one of them has currently lived for over a century. Two real life centenarians in your bloodline. They witnessed multiple generations of humans who came from their lineage. They saw this country, THIS WORLD, go through so much. Generations upon generations of southern women. This is the point of it all. Maybe not for anyone else, but it is the point for you. You are meant to bear generations. You are meant to witness the fruits of your loins. You are meant to experience what this world has to offer. Slavery lasted 400 years, ya know. You are from a surviving people. You are meant TO LIVE and LIVE WELL. You are meant to thrive. By the grace of God and the will of many, you are here! Find someone who understands this and can help you carry out your purpose.
Because I Feel Crazy and Ugly and Want to Perish:
When is your period coming? I promise its not too far away. No, seriously. Look at the dates RIGHT NOW. Okay, I get it. I remember very vividly the other times this has happened. It’s almost dysmorphic how your perception of self changes so often. Some days you don’t even recognize the person looking back at you. I get it. I know you don’t want to hear how it is a perpetual loop you are tormenting yourself with. I know you don’t want to hear how your outer world reflects your inner world. I get it. I know you just want to cry and scream until you burst out of your skin and watch the pieces of yourself shatter to the ground. I get it. I wish I could tell you that you won’t ever feel like this again. I wish there was a simple and quick fix. I wish there was something better to do than feel all of these things but feeling all of these things is the best thing you can do because it reminds you how alive and how human you are. I know you don’t want to hear that shit. Trust me, I get it. So instead of all that, I’ll just tell you to book a hair appointment, order Thai food and take a nap.
I love a metaphor. LOVE a metaphor. When I think of depression, I think of the visual depiction of the downward spiral on the emotional scale spiraling so much so that it gets stuck in the ground. It literally becomes depressed into the earth, the soil.
Furthermore, this creates restriction and settlement within the earth. Fixed, constricted energy. Instead of groundedness and stability, it becomes immobility and compression. Think of a stubborn earth sign👀 Spiritually, “earthly/worldly” things are materialistic, temporary and self-serving in nature. It includes money and other material possessions, sensual (relating to the senses) pleasures, and human-centric concerns, like status and ambition. It also includes the overconsumption of entertainment and other things that can distract us from actually feeling these positionally low emotions.
Instead, we cling to the earthly things because it is what we can see, taste, touch, smell and hear in the moment with little effort. It is what is most easy to process. It is also what can deepen the spiral. By choosing distraction over actually feeling your feels, conscious awareness wanes coinciding with suppression which leads to stagnant energy continuously circulating throughout your body. Weighing you down even further.
Now, I will never say don’t indulge in a little hedonistic relief. Times are what they are and everyone needs a lil bit of something. Just don’t use it as a numbing agent. Face the shadow!
Below ground is associated with the underworld and many times these depressive episodes can feel deep and dark, like the depths of “hell”. However, sometimes it can feel familiar and communal. Our personal hells can feel a bit like Sin City. Sure, its dark and full of unhealthy vices but all our friends are there so its cool. We suddenly start to get comfortable in the very place that stunts our growth.
In Tarot, The Devil card is associated with unhealthy attachments and addiction to material things. It also represents temptations and obsessions that cause us to spiral and lose control. The visual of the card shows loosely chained victims in front of a devilish creature symbolizing that the choices we make are what keep us stuck in bondage. Do you see the connection?
The further we fall down the spiral, the deeper and darker things become. But, isn’t darkness necessary for growth? Aren’t death and life (spiritual, or otherwise) two sides of the same coin?
Yes! But only when we are consciously aware of the spiral. Only when we understand that darkness is a balancing act and not damnation. Only when we understand that death (spiritual, or otherwise) is a part of a necessary cycle and not a final destination or liminal space to hang out.
My world doesn’t end when the spiraling starts but I am prepared for life as I know it to expire. I brace myself for the journey into darkness. I embrace the death of my current reality. I trust the versions of myself who have spiraled time and time again to guide me back to my inner knowing. I know the descent isn’t dangerous. I will always ascend again.
The danger lies in descending without being consciously aware.
Your Cosmic Advisor,
Monique 💫