Kevin Smith on one of his podcasts once said “The difference between a normal person and a movie star is that a normal person sees some apples in a room and they think ‘someone left some apples in this room’ while a movie star walks into the same room and sees the apples and thinks ‘someone left some apples for me'”. I’ve never been around any movie stars except for that period in the twenties when I was working as Buster Keaton’s stunt double.
The thing is though that I’ve encountered a lot of people who have this mindset. That they believe that everything in the world belongs to them. I don’t think being a movie star causes this, I think it’s just something you’re born with. The idea that you’re deserving of everything, no matter how hard you’ve worked for it.
When I justify things to myself, I constantly say “I eat what I earn”. I don’t want to hype myself up too much but I think that this mindset keeps me from falling into that actor mindset. Of course, I have to think about what I’m doing and be mindful so that I’m not just lying to myself. But I know that apples in a room aren’t mine. They’re just there. An object existing in space.
There really isn’t any advice that I normally give except for the near constant advice of being mindful and checking to make sure what you’re doing is right. I’m always reminded of what Woolie from Super Best Friends Play said “Always accept binge wrong. Challenge everything you believe until you’re the best version of yourself.”
I’m not a parent but I know that it’s a tough job. I remember seeing the movie Inside Out with a friend that had a kid and they started crying towards the end of the movie. I asked them what about the movie made them upset and they stated that they had realized that no matter what they did, their kid was destined to be unhappy. Not overall but there were going to be moments when their kid was going to be miserable and they had been responsible for that.
It was a tough conversation but the fact that they had had that thought made me think that they would be a good parent. Their child was fairly young at the time. But it got me thinking about the role that parents play in the mental health of their children.
While I know that’s a heavy and gigantic subject, I wanted to highlight two moments in media where I think that some parents could really learn. They particularly feature mothers and their daughters. The first involves Marge Simpson, the long suffering matriarch of the Simpsons family dealing with Lisa whose having a long running bout of depression that she can’t quite shake.
Marge trying her best to help, gives her the following advice:
It is horrific advice. Not acknowledging your own feelings and dealing with them in a responsible manner and also turning yourself into a smile and nothing more. The boys immediately start taking advantage of her and her trying to follow the advice is willing to go along with it. Finally, her teacher tells her he doesn’t want to another burst of “creativity” and Lisa replies with a respectful “no, sir”. Perhaps seeing her own trauma being enacted on her daughter and what it would mean for her spirit to be destroyed, Marge becomes enraged, throws her car in gear and grabs Lisa.
She then does two of the best things that a parent can do for their child. She at first, acknowledges that she was wrong. She’s willing to say I messed up and I’m not always perfect. That’s a big thing to admit to anyone but especially your child who might have put you on a pedestal of some kind. For you to come down to their level and to see that you make mistakes too is good. It makes them more able to make mistakes.
Secondly, she tells Lisa that not only that her feelings are valid and that she is allowed to have them but that she her family will be there the entire time. They’ll ride it out with her. This cheers Lisa immensely and she starts legitimately smiling.
It’s one of the best scenes of the early Simpsons. Right up there with “DO IT FOR HER”
So, we got some great parenting right there. Let’s talk about another mom and her daughter, Claire and Alex.
Alex much like Lisa is the most intelligent member of her family and that makes her feel like an outsider when she doesn’t feel able to get involved in their antics. She pushes herself to the breaking point academically and professionally, which results in all of this:
We see a child in crisis and her parents are concerned but she knows how to take care of herself and schedules a therapy appointment and how to get there on her own. Her mother goes to her school’s open house and sees the workload that she has on her shoulders including the six hours of homework that she has to do every night.
When Claire and her daughter meet up, Claire says that being her for two hours was exhausting and she didn’t know how she has a breakdown every day. Alex begins weeping and hugs her mother. What we see in this moment is the acknowledgement of a burden and her mother seeing her for who she is and what she has to go through. It’s a big thing. Everyone has their own burdens and much like with Marge and Lisa, saying that you’ll be there with someone and help to carry it, it means a world of difference.
With Lisa and Marge we saw the pain of generational trauma coming to bear on the next generation. Alex and Claire don’t have that as Claire never had the same expectations put on her as a child. But still, they’re both helping their children find the tools and support that they need to get through their troubles. They’re good episodes that I think are worth watching.
Over the course of this week, I realized I’m at my best when I have my tasks on a list. I started a daily checklist of things that I need to do that include such scintillating entries as “Scoop cat boxes”, “drink beet juice” and “continue my work into establishing a dimensional space tunnel that will bring me back to my true love on ixion-6. Wait for me *(&^(^(& I will come back to you. I know that we don’t speak the same language and that you communicate through a series of tonal harmonies but some things go beyond that. Truly yours is a butt that just won’t quit. I’m pretty sure that part of you is a butt”. You know, normal stuff like that.
There’s something satisfying about going down a list and seeing things being done. I do it for my shopping, my cleaning and just about everything else. Maybe I have some undiagnosed issue that no therapist has been able to nail down in me yet. Or maybe I just have a mind that’s more structured for organization. Either way, this revelation helped me realize what’s at the heart of my love for the long running Bethesda RPG, Skyrim. Given its full flowers, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Skyrim breaks up every quest into a to-do list. It’s go here, do this thing and go home. It’s nice and simple. Sometimes I like to figure out where I’m going next. Most of the time, I just want to be told. In between quests, wander around and fuck up some dragons. It’s a perfect game.
It also has me using mods so that my character can hang out with Sonic and Jesus. Living my best life.
Because it’s life, things change. My best friend has moved away from me and we don’t get to see each other that often anymore. I was thinking about friendship today while I was running some errands. At first, I thought it was going to be the best way to be a friend but that would be stupid. There’s no best way to be a friend. Every friendship is unique in what it requires to sustain and continue. However, I think there’s a healthy way to go about friendship no matter what the requirements for your personal friendships.
I think it comes down to want vs. need. I’ll illustrate this with my own life. My friend is down south and I will probably only see him once a month from now on. Do I miss him? Of course. He’s my best bro. I love him.
But beyond that, my life hasn’t changed that much. Mostly because of the way I feel towards him. I want him in my life, I don’t need him in my life. Okay, that sentence worked better in my head. It makes him seem less important when he’s exceptionally important to me. What I’m getting at is not being needy.
If I was a different person I would be angry that he was leaving our treehouse. Instead, I’m happy that he’s moving on. And that works for everyone.
Being needy on the other hand is a surefire way to make sure that people kind of don’t want to be around you. But of course, you don’t want to play it too far the other way and be the cool person that doesn’t need anyone. Everyone thinks that guy’s a dick. It comes down to balance such as with all things. You have to have enough things in your life that you don’t need to rely on people all the time for your entertainment. You just need to also want to have them in your life. It makes when you hang out with people all the better because it’s just a cherry on top of the sundae of your life.
Once you life a fulfilling life on your own, you can enrich the lives of people around you. It’s like putting on your oxygen mask before taking care of the person next to you. Plus once you have hobbies you can find people with the same hobbies. I love it when a plan comes together.
It’s been a while since I did a post about mental health so let’s talk about something that’s going on in my life. I started with a new therapist last week and I think that were going to be able to work together really well. I had several really great individual and group therapists in the past. They did amazing work and I have nothing but gratitude for them.
I started in therapy when I was 21, so that’s 19 years in therapy. When I hit 42 I’ll have spent more than half my life in therapy. I say that fact not because I think it’s depressing or that I’ve failed in some way, it’s because it’s just that a fact. I’ve made an effort to maintain some sense of self care. I do it because it makes my life so much easier. To have a release valve for all the things that make me angry or scared. To have someone tell me that I’m fucking wrong when I’m wrong and celebrate me when I have a success.
My first therapist, David, when I saw him at 21, I came in and told him that I felt broken. That I was born without the pieces that make other people happy. That I didn’t know how to do this and I didn’t think that I could ever be truly happy or okay.
He wasn’t that much older than me, being a grad student himself. But he listened to all of that and he didn’t judge me for it. He told me that he didn’t think he could fix me, which I told him made me question why I was there but instead it was because I wasn’t broken. Just that I needed some help and that the two of us would work together to help me with my pain. He couldn’t make it disappear forever but we could get it to such a point that I barely felt it. I hope that wherever he is, he’s doing well. I hope all of them are doing well.
I know a lot of people are scared of therapy or have misconceptions about it. But as someone whose been in the trenches for two decades and is showing no signs of stopping, I have to say that it’s made my life markedly better.
I had a conversation with my therapist about why I continually consume the same media, which is stuff I’ve seen before and police bodycam videos like those put out by Boze vs. the World. I don’t watch normal TV shows or movies all that often except when I see something that really interests me. Admittedly, I know this seems a little strange because I watch new things every week for Teen Girl Talk but those feel more like a job than something I do for pleasure. Despite the fact that I love doing Teen Girl Talk? It’s the obligation that pushes me to do it.
Now, as my career in attending therapy has reached the American voting age, I’ve learned to constantly think about things and the reason I think the things I think. So, I had been chewing on why I didn’t encounter the new that often. And it came down I’m afraid of failing. At watching TV. That makes sense.
Of course it doesn’t, that’s the problem with depression and anxiety. They hardly make sense. So, we have to figure out the stupid logic behind it.
For this particular thing I was able to think back to when I was a young concert attending kid. I would discover a new band, fall in love and do whatever I could to discover everything about them. I had to hear every song. Every demo. Everything. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t get into the band. Thus, for bands with big discographies, I’ve kept myself away knowing that I could never quite “finish” with the band.
It follows the same thing about movies and TV shows. Movies less so because so many of them are solo projects unless it’s the Jason movies. But with TV shows, I keep thinking that I have to watch everything. If I start something, I have to finish it. For some Netflix shows that’s easy because Netflix just gave up. But for others like Star Trek, those feel like behemoths. I’ll never be able to finish all of it.
My therapist challenged me on this, why do I have to? If I like something, I can watch it as I want. If I don’t like it, I can just stop. She wants me to start watching something and stop after ten minutes. That doesn’t feel quite the solution but it does lead me to do something else. To get out and try. Even if I don’t hear every scary story in a horror podcast that’s been running for years, I can at least try something new.
That was kind of the whole point of doing the one hundred albums in a year was to break me out of this mindset. To push me to keep doing something new and discovering other things. The fact of the matter is when I find something new, I feel good. I can’t let the fear keep me from that feeling because it, like the anxiety and depression that spawn it, only survive when I feed them. Time to make them starve.
I had this discussion with my therapist last night. It’s something that constantly pops into my mind. Mostly because there are some nights where I don’t really do much of anything beyond doomscrolling on my phone. I’m not one of those people that thinks you need to be on that 24/7 365 grindset or you’re a waste to society. I know that the body and especially the mind needs rest.
The question I wonder is am I getting too much rest to the point of being lazy or am I getting the right amount?
Now, the thing is that I think part of this is the race conundrum. There are people further along in the race of life than I am. They’re married, they’re making more money than me or they’re just doing something that they want to do. I’ve achieved some things but it doesn’t feel like enough when I compare myself to them. So, that’s something that I have to deal with.
Then there’s the goal oriented anxiety. There are things that I want to do like start a Youtube channel, there are novels that I want to write, I want to learn to make amigurumi, I want to travel, I want to read more, listen to more new albums or podcasts and then there are so many other things that I want to do. When I stare up at that mountain, I get intimidated and once more, I do nothing.
Well, last night, I think I finally came along the way to solve this. It’s called the footpath. Don’t stare at the sheer cliff face and wonder how you’re going to climb it. You have to find the little way up the mountain. I’m going to take that list of things and introduce each footpath.
I want to write more- start with a single sentence a day.
I want to learn to make amigurumi- start watching the instructional videos so you have an inkling of what you’re getting into.
I want to travel- There are interesting places in this state and other states surrounding mine that I can travel to that doesn’t require much effort to go to
I want to read more- Novel too much? Start with a fanfiction, poem or short story.
I want to listen to more podcasts and albums?- Find a short podcast or start with one song from an album that you didn’t know.
Wait for one of those things to hook you and bring you along. I know that part of this is dealing with depression but this can help with that. I’ve found that when I’m depressed, I do something even if I don’t want to do it, eventually the joy of doing it starts to come along. You have to remind your heart of the things you love. Like calling a friend that you haven’t talked to in a long while.
So, a little under two weeks ago, the Talking Heads released a video for Psycho Killer, a fifty year old song. You can find it here:
It’s a simple video, a woman played by Saoirse Ronan, wakes up, she talks to her boyfriend, she brushes her teeth, she goes to work, sometimes she goes to a field, sometimes she goes to therapy, she goes to bed and the cycle repeats. In that simple premise though we see a perfect representation of anxiety and depression. The way that she seems cut off from everyone. How her emotions go wild while no one pays attention to her.
The biggest part of this is of course Ronan’s performance. Her facial expressions and body language tell the entire story. Sometimes she’s gently rocking back and forth while reaching out to take a coworker’s hands, she’s annoyed with boyfriend, she’s scared, desperate, she’s crying, she’s ecstatic, she’s being weird and every scene you somehow can imagine how she got into that scenario. Of course, it’s unsurprising given her remarkable talents.
Having had anxiety and depression throughout my life, everything she does is accurate. Despite what movies and tv shows illustrate, you’re not able to just lay in your feelings. You have to get up and do the thing. No matter what it is, no matter how you feel, you have to live.
There are moments when you feel like you’re weeping or begging for help in front of people and they can’t hear you. Then there is the endless repeating of the days. Where you feel you’re just moving through copies of the same day. The only thing that changes is your clothing or roughly how you feel.
This is why art is so important and to be made by as many different kinds of people as possible. I would have loved to have this when I was younger so that I could point to it and say, “this is how I feel almost all the time”.
The other great thing about this and the description of the video points it out, that you could make something so on the nose. Some murderous man harming people, blood and violence. Instead, we have this showcase of a great song by a phenomenal actress.
What you see before you is a good portion of my knitting supplies. Twisted into knots and generally a big mess. There is a simple solution to this, which would be to cut it off at the ends and just absorb the loss. There’s an obvious reason not to do that, which would be waste.
But the real reason is because I just enjoy unraveling it. It’s just another puzzle like jigsaws or Rubik’s cube. The reason I think I’ve always liked these kinds of things is because it gives me the act of putting something right. Returning something to its original form. The way it’s supposed to be.
The same satisfying feeling as when you finish cleaning your house or something else like that. Everything in its Right Place as Radiohead would say. I’m going to work on it until it’s done and I have a big basket of yarn balls. There are still ten more seasons of X-files I need to watch.
My mind has become a lot clearer since I moved out on my own, so I think I’m going to try and make amigurumi dolls again. I’ve never had the clarity to do so before. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.
