I woke up this morning to a few messages from someone who seemed to be having a rough time trying to get over someone or something. I asked who. This person who had messaged me...we weren't friends. I think we had chatted a bit many years ago. Then he had made some snide comment about me. Which I thought I had let go off but clearly not. And then weeks later I get this message. I ask for details...to be fair, mainly to be polite. I really wasn't interested. The state in which all my projects have now reached video-game level complexity and my damn controls are jammed. So someone else's life really just irritated me.
The person declined to give any further details and I asked why he thought he should contact me. He said that his own friends wouldn't understand him and think he is making too big a deal about stuff. Then he said, "Forget it. Let it be." And I let it be for 5 minutes. Then I told him to not contact me again and blocked him.
When this year began, I had thought that I would not block people or behave with such emotional immaturity. Well, I couldn't manage.
Iknow that what I am about to say now will sound churlish given how fragile and tender the issue of mental health is. But I will say it anyway. You know how people say that if you are going through something dark and you are not in a good place, you must reach out to someone and talk? I think no. Don't talk. Write it out. Talking doesn't help unless the other person is willing, able and strong enough to handle the listening. And the average, untrained person isn't. Forget untrained people. Even trained people, unless they come with strong references, can do more harm than good.
People just don't have that kind of emotional wallet to pay for your low moods. I care deeply about people's mental health as well as my own. Yet the way I am snapping with people around, clients, teammates, friends, etc., , you would think that I don't.
This has happened before and I did reach out to people I was close to. And it didn't help. For one thing, no one will really know what you are going through. They just won't. Just as you won't ever know - in your heart - why they said what they said. They are all good, kind people who will operate from their own value system and your priorities will just not be theirs. Like when this person contacted me the first thing this morning, when I was trying to understand the feedback I had received on 5 courses I had to deliver today and then also have a 1 hour call with someone else...he was just one more mess in my day to deal with. At this point, each one of my projects feels so sticky, that his message felt selfish. Now obviously, he wouldn't know what all was going in my mind. But maybe he was anyway feeling abandoned and alone. And now that feeling may have been multiplied.
This is why I feel one should write. Not a public blog but a personal journal. For people to respond to you, you also have to be receptive. And to be receptive, you have to empty yourself out. And you have to do this by letting people off the hook.
I sensed today that I am getting a little too touchy about feedback. Rather, I am currently working with 8 clients, and I feel irritated with 6 of them. I never get a straight answer, something is always wrong, everything is last minute and haphazard, and most importantly, I feel that I am letting all of them down. (How all these 8 clients have come together at the same time is the reason why I will actively seek out a manager or someone to help me out with.)
All these assignments are special and I just feel like I am not doing justice to them. And I am not doing justice because I feel, in turn, let down by all of them. No one cares about my schedule when I had told them that I have other work. And even as I write it, I see how silly it is. They don't owe me anything, really. Yes, clarity and softness would have been good. But I bet they expect the same.
And I realise that it's bothering me a lot now because I am running on empty only with corrosive expectations as fuel. So from tomorrow, I will write all my dark thoughts in a diary, get free inside, and work.
The work is really precious. All 8 projects. Each one them is diamond in the rough. I should be behaving like it's the time of my life. But I am not.
Someday I will write about journaling as my preferred coping mechanism. I honestly think that people do want to show up for you, be the sweetest, strongest version of yourself when you are feeling down. But they can't. Your sadness can be triggering for them. I stopped 'talking' about my down days when I realised that what can someone else tell you that you don't already know? And who is above the mess themselves?
All of this is just my own experience, of course. It's not based on data or research. So if you are going through a rough time, get help if you need.But write a diary. Only for your eyes and yourself. Just the way your handwriting shifts as you write through different things is a good indication of just what all is going on.
I found that writing didn't solve my problem. It helped me gauge how vast the mess is. That's still something.
Will begin tomorrow again.
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