As of today, it has been three months since I created this Substack. Woohoo! When I made it, my goal was to get some of my writing out into the world, primarily so that I could gain comfort with friends, family, and strangers reading what I have to say. I have published several pieces and made it this far without wanting to crawl into a hole at the thought of being perceived, so I would consider my endeavor a success!
My second post on Substack, which you can read here, was a life updates post. In case you don’t feel like reading that post, or you have forgotten where I “started,” I will provide a quick recap:
Last May I moved to Wheeling, West Virginia and started a job as a mental health therapist at a residential facility for teenage girls in state custody. I was very passionate about my job but quickly became burnt out and left that job in March of this year.
I went on two trips that were just about a week apart from one another, also in March–a trip to Asheville with my fiancé and a bachelorette trip to Las Vegas–and coming home from these trips furthered my unhappiness with my life in Wheeling.
I had another job lined up but had a very bad mental health time (which I call my “menty b,” short for mental breakdown, much to the chagrin of the people in my life who beg me to take my issues more seriously), and I left that job after only three days.
I did not work for a long time. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next or even who I was really, and that was when I got back into writing.
That is my short summary of where I was about three months ago. A lot has changed in the time since then–three months is a quarter of a year, a not insubstantial length of time–while certain things remain the same.
I would say that the biggest difference between then and now is that my mental health has significantly improved. Suffice to say, it would have been hard to get much lower than where I was in March–I was coming up on a lot of bad anniversaries, feeling stressed and traumatized by forces in my life at the time, and experiencing seasonal depression–but I am still proud of myself for the progress I have made. For me, a good deal of healing has always come from establishing healthy routines. This means prioritizing sleep, making sure to get in some movement every day (even if it’s just a short walk around my neighborhood), sitting out on the deck to get some sunshine when the weather allows it, eating (even if Clif Bars, my old reliable comfort food, are the only thing I can stomach), and talking to friends as much as I can.
I had tried to be open and honest with the people in my life about what I was going through, but I always assumed that no one other than Ian, my fiancé with whom I live, knew what things were really like on a daily basis. I got lunch with my friend Amelia recently, however, and said as much. Their response was, “No, we all knew you weren’t leaving the house.”
So there’s that.
In all honesty, my friends were truly such a Godsend to me during a difficult time and have been just as much of a support system to me in the past. I have really, really good people in my life and try to make maintaining contact with them a priority, even when it is difficult.
Another thing that I had to work through during my “menty b” was divorcing my self-worth and self-concept from achievements and external validation. Let me explain: I want to be the kind of person who is intrinsically happy with myself and who knows exactly who I am, but that has never been me. My self-confidence is something that I have slowly built up over time and something that I have worked hard to attain. For pretty much my entire life, getting straight A’s in school and providing support for other people so that they would like me gave me a sense of validation that fueled my identity and kept me going. I collected achievement after achievement like they were Pokémon (do you like this analogy?) and always had to wonder if I did nice things for others because it was the right thing to do or because I wanted to feel good about myself. I still often find myself asking, “Am I actually a decent person, or have I just fooled everyone around me?”
In March and April, when the trajectory of my life came to a screeching halt and I took a break from everything and scarcely left the house, I was forced to grapple with this question head-on. For the first time ever, I was not in school or working. I wasn’t devoting my time to helping others. I wasn’t doing anything other than existing, and I had to decide who I was in this vacuum of sorts.
During this time, I listened to a lot of Taylor Swift. This was partially in preparation for the concert that I went to in June and also partially out of personal relevance. Do you want to hear some of the lyrics from the songs that I had on repeat? Here they are.
From the song mirrorball:
“And they called off the circus, burned the disco down
When they sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns
I’m still on that tightrope
I’m still tryin’ everything to get you laughing at me
And I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why
I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try
I’m still on that trapeze
I’m still tryin’ everything to keep you looking at me”
From the song this is me trying:
“They told me all of my cages were mental
So I got wasted like all my potential
And my words shoot to kill when I’m mad
I have a lot of regrets about that
I was so ahead of the curve
That the curve became a sphere
Fell behind all my classmates
And I ended up here
Pouring out my heart to a stranger
But I didn’t pour the whiskey”
From the song Anti-Hero:
“Did you hear my covert narcissism
I disguise as altruism?
Like some kind of congressman
Tale as old as time
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day, I’ll watch as you’re leaving
And life will lose all its meaning
For the last time
It’s me
Hi!
I’m the problem, it’s me
At teatime
Everybody agrees
I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero”
Catching any common themes here?
Anyways, as I sat singing Taylor Swift to my cats (not kidding, this is something that I did almost daily) beneath the three college degrees that were mounted to my wall, unused, I decided to return to the basics, the things that I most like to do: reading and writing. I set a goal for myself to read thirty books this year, and I reached that number by July. At risk of sounding cliché, being able to escape into so many good books was as integral to my healing process as maintaining healthy routines and relying on the support of friends. I have always loved to learn about new places (real or fake) and stories and jump into someone else’s skin for a little while. Thanks, books.
Returning to writing fiction was also very special for me. I mentioned before that writing stories was something that I used to do a whole lot of before I abandoned the practice in my adulthood. Well, I’m back into that now, working on a piece of fiction as often as I can. I have two friends that I let read what I write and a note on my desk that reads, “It doesn’t have to be good.” This is so very true and important for me to remember. Antithetical to the point of gaining comfort sharing writing with others through this Substack, my works of fiction are for me and me alone. And I think that is how I can be sure that writing fiction is authentically me–for once, there is no one for me to please or fool.
In the midst of all of this healing business, I did find another job, and I am lucky enough to be able to work from home. For better or for worse, I don’t think that being a therapist is for me, at least not at this point in my life, so I pivoted into looking for jobs in case management and landed a position as a service coordinator with West Virginia Birth to Three, a state-funded agency that provides early intervention services to children under three with developmental delays. Go, me.
And finally, there are a few other updates in my life that are not quite as important as those I have shared so far. I’ll share them below.
The Taylor Swift concert was as good as, if not better than, anticipated.
I also got to see boygenius in concert three days after the Taylor Swift concert. I love this band SO much and listened to their album “the record” pretty much every day for two months because it is the perfect length to listen to during a two-mile walk. They were incredible live.
I was a bridesmaid in my friend Vanessa’s wedding, which was lovely.
I have gone on a couple little trips with friends and family this summer–a day trip to Cumberland, Maryland with a friend who lives in D.C.; a hike at the New River Gorge National Park with my family; a weekend at Deep Creek with some other friends. Hopefully, there will be some more little trips to come.
As I settle into my new job and as the summer speeds past, I am reminding myself that my mental health will get better and worse and then better again but that I have people to support me and things that give me purpose and fulfillment. And I wish you all the same.
Until next time,
Alexa
Some pictures of life since the last “Life Updates” post:
Vanessa’s Wedding
Taylor Swift