Returning to the self

“if mental health is measured by the ability to be productive and “con- tribute” to society (in correct ways), then failures of mind (and body) lead to failures of labor lead to failures of contribution lead to failures of personhood.

The failure of personhood, as we’ve already learned, is endless.

But if unwellness were not failure, if it were not measured by productivity and societal contribution but simply by how unlivable life feels, then perhaps we would be allowed to be as unwell as we need to be—and then ask for as much care as we need to make life feel more livable.”

- By Mimi Kuck in Dear Elia

This past weekend we celebrated one of my absolute dearest friends and humans ever. This is the kind of friend who, as I said in my teary speech about her, knows when I’m feeling down or up or happy or sad before I’ve said a word on text or in real life. She can sense it, from all of 5 doors up the road, and has done so, even when we lived in different countries. We barely see each other in the flesh… kids and the many practical and emotional cups we need to feel full, almost full, half empty etc. But we understand each other better than I ever imagined possible for people as busy, as overwrought, as pulled in 50 directions and, quite frankly, as exhausted as we are. And we understand each other in a way that I believe is deeply caring. We trust each other’s ability to articulate our feelings and not only to hear the other but to really make space for the other to not feel gaslit.

Reading Dear Elia helps me see again how often we gaslight ourselves and each other, even those of us who care deeply for each other. We relate being unwell to failure; we relate being wobbly to not having enough of a grip on ourselves; we insist that we teach our children ‘grit’ and thus, when as adults we can’t seem to stick through the difficult and debilitating stuff with a smile, we berate ourselves while we are down. We almost never allow ourselves to be not ok. If and when we are, we are always striving to be better. To not be better or ok is not easy in the society in which we live.

Because of how much we are trained to dislike our states of anything other than happiness, we really cannot ask for help, let alone care. If this is how we are, just as a society, on a regular day, sit for a moment and think about how little of this we can even begin to ascribe to mothers - not even new ones - just mothers.

There we have it. We simply cannot. When we can, it’s because there’s a different internal dialogue that has been constructed with care and intention. It’s not the normal din of the day. It’s not the normal colour of the sun.

To be unwell and to live in a society that pretends to speak a language of understanding what the distinction between well and unwell is one of the greatest travesties of our contemporary era. So much talk, so little feeling. So much description, so little depth.

And so, it means a lot to have a friend who encourages me to simply feel and who can smell my feelings without words. That’s nice. I’m quite chuffed with that.