Lesson 5: Becoming a Sad Bastard Is Actually a Good Thing
Often to overcome hurdles in mental health, we must allow ourselves to delve into realms of sad bastard-dom. Really, these realms don’t exist. It’s all just your ego talking shit about how you ‘should be’, as though really you’re really effing cool like Steve McQueen (is he supposed to be cool cause he jumped a little fence once, or just because his name sounds good?). You’re just waiting for this inner coolness to be fully exuded someday, right? Fingers crossed. I mean, you haven’t been cool for thirty years, but still, fingers crossed. Next year maybe.
AS IF NEXT YEAR. You will never be cool and trying is ruining your life. Getting over yourself and dealing with the feelings of being small that may come with accepting help (god forbid), with such things as medication, self-help literature, therapies etc, could actually help you start patching your life back together.
I’ve recently been doing a ‘Find Your Strengths’ course through West of England Works, a service aiming to help somewhat challenged individuals like myself with employment. A younger version of myself might hang his head in shame knowing this; the service, the course, how sad it immediately all sounds. ‘Find Your Strengths’. Psssh.
Well a younger version of myself can fuck off. Did I correctly predict and envision the type of sad-acts and motivational cartoons that would come with such a course? Yes. But guess what, I’m a sad-act too, and a visual learner who still as an adult likes cartoons, so the pictures demonstrating the differences between assertiveness and passivity genuinely helped me understand them. Now who’s the wiener? I mean winner. Me.
I’m not going to judge Norman or Carol’s lives, I need to find my strengths same as them.
And, as with everything before it, counselling, psychotherapy, CBT, anxiety management courses, medication, hypnotherapy, life coaching and so on, once I settle into a thing I realise it’s not such a big deal. It’s helpful. That’s why they call it help. I have no right to feel small about it unless I’m going to look down on other people doing the same thing. If you look down on Carol and Norm (I’m hoping we’ll get to a stage where I call him Norm) you’re a bad person. They’re doing something to help themselves, that’s all. And in reality that’s more commendable and courageous than sitting on a high horse of insecurity masquerading as superiority.
They’ve overcome those barriers of needing to be something they’re not and avoiding the problems they have. Have you? Or are you still telling yourself that you’re fine and you should always be able to manage by yourself? That those bouts of depression, anxiety or rage, those dependency problems and breakdowns are just part of being human. Something somehow beyond your control but also totally manageable by yourself and maybe one day they’ll just sort of go away.
You lose nothing by trying new things except an illusion of pride. What you gain is genuine, positive change. Information. Techniques. Inspiration. If I put my preconceptions aside there’s always at least nuggets of these things to be rewarded with. Being too proud to ‘lower’ myself to such outlets only cements me in a life I was dissatisfied with.
Am I a sad bastard? Maybe I am. I’ll get a tattoo proclaiming it rather than fumble through life not learning how to manage myself. Also, who was I kidding before, when watching hours of video game playthroughs for games I don’t even own, or every animated DC film in order? When my interests include badminton and chess. When I have two separate Madonna playlists on Spotify. When I see a Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit board game and genuinely gasp with joy. Nothing I’ve ever done has exactly screamed cool. But I don’t need cool, I need to enjoy my life.
Steve McQueen? Steve McLame. I’d rather hang out with Norm and learn how to get my shit together.
