In my opinion, to truly know yourself is the biggest flex going. That’s because I believe there aren’t that many of us in the wild who honestly know who we are. A lot of us know ourselves well enough to form a basic understanding—a loose pencil sketch of who we are to ourselves and the world around us—and for most of us, that’s enough.
Just to be clear, there’s a big difference between honestly knowing who you are and knowing what you want to be.
I’ve largely been whatever I needed to be in the moment in order to survive—financially, romantically, and socially. Never mind a loose pencil sketch of who I thought I was; I’d paint a bright and distracting billboard of who I wasn’t! ‘Look at me, look at me,’ it would say in tall, colourful print, ‘look at this thing I’m not! Like me, love me, want me.’
Painting billboards may keep you busy, but you spend so much time advertising a false self that you have no time left for your real self. It’s a vicious cycle that eventually collapses in on itself. For me, that looked like addiction, depression, suicidal ideation, and an inflated ego that left no room for anyone to get beyond the surface of my happy-go-lucky veneer.
It took nearly a decade of bouncing from one clusterfuck to the next before I finally accepted that I might need therapy. Kids, don’t be like DB and wait until your life is in literal flames before you finally succumb to the notion that therapy might not be a bad shout. In my defence, he states weakly, I had tried therapy a couple of times when I was much younger. I learned pretty quickly that I could just tell them what they wanted to hear, and they would leave me alone. ‘David seems really well-adjusted,’ the therapist would say to my parents. And that would be the end of that.
I eventually found a therapist three years ago. I performed my usual tricks and told him what he wanted to hear. ‘I’m healed!’ I proclaimed, taking in my third Calvin Klein of the evening. Only, something different happened this time. Once life had achieved maximum catastrophe, I went back to the same therapist, vulnerable and sorry. This one is a funny story, but it isn’t for now. The short version is that he accepted my apology, and therapy was renewed. But it was different this time. The sessions became honest and raw. Week by week, I peeled away the many masks I had constructed in order to survive. Much like an ogre, I have layers—many, many layers.
Now I find myself asking, who am I? I’ve been so many things to fit the world around me. Imagine a beautiful pine table, painted again and again. Broken legs replaced with other table legs until no original legs remain. A drawer underneath is clumsily added, and then some shelves. Now the table looks more like a dresser, with coat after coat of paint. That barely recognisable table has been passed on, sold, given away, lost, and found. That table doesn’t know where it belongs or what its purpose is any more. I’m that table. And perhaps, to a lesser or greater degree, we are all that table.
My therapist has been helping strip off the years of paint and remove all the unnecessary, people-pleasing additions I’ve been holding onto. My grain is exposed, and I’m a table again. The only thing is, I’ve forgotten how to table.
I think the point I’m trying to communicate is that the better I have become at sitting with myself and being authentic and present, the more lacklustre I have felt. My drive has taken a dip, and my passion has plateaued. I don’t know what I’m doing with myself, and that’s because me and myself haven’t worked together since I was a child. It’s like trying to change from being a left-handed person to a right-handed person.
I totally understand why anyone would want to run back to their old life after reaching this stage of their personal development journey. Change is hard, and this feeling of not knowing who you are looking at in the mirror is pretty terrifying. To me, this is that moment in the superhero film just before the hero gets back up after being knocked on their arse. They’re all beat up, tears streaming down their face. The music swells, and all the action moves at half speed. Cue the rousing monologue.
Who am I? I’m someone who’s been through some tough storms and still believes the best is yet to come. I’m someone who lives to bring joy to others. I’m someone who believes in love above all things. I love films, I have a sweet tooth, and I hate discourteous drivers!
Whatever flavour of human I’m shaping up to be, there’s space for me in this world, and I have a lot to share with it.
Until next time,
DB