Sometimes it feels like I’m stuck in the slow lane with all the other cars overtaking me. As though there is a destination we should all be reaching, but my car won’t quite keep up momentum. I feel like I’m constantly comparing myself to others of my age and how much or how little I have achieved in comparison. But I feel this is something we can all be guilty of. This need for us to always be ‘busy’, or ‘bettering’ ourselves. I ask my mum how her day off has been and she responds with a list of jobs she has done. Guilty, as if she had spent the morning in bed, that would need to be justified with doing “work later on.” It’s as though us humans have an inability to allow ourselves to just slow down or be still for a moment without some kind of guilt arising from it.
Perhaps social media doesn’t help. The concept of having everyone’s achievements and best bits glaring in our faces- all the highlights without the struggles or stories behind them. Our capitalist society and ingrained work ethic makes us feel that we should all be ‘constantly growing’, or trying to ‘fix’ a part of ‘something’ which is always missing in us.
This is something I feel has become even more apparent in lockdown. We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, and yet it seems a lot of us still feel that pressure to constantly be doing something. It’s as if we fear the world will run on without us- even though it’s stuck in standstill. Don’t get me wrong; being productive or feeling the need to be, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think sometimes we all need to be told, it’s fine, to be doing nothing.
Some days I wake up and look in the mirror and feel great, the sun is glowing, my skin is radiant and everything will be okay. Other days I wake up and the feeling of being an empty shell doesn’t ever leave me. I walk around work with a smile on my face, answering “good, thanks” to everyone who asks me how I am. But inside my body feels heavy and hollow, like smiling or speaking is sucking the last bits of energy I have out of me. The tough thing with right now, is that no one wants to bring other people down while we’re all in this together. Speaking for myself, I sometimes find it hard to strike the balance of sharing my problems to my friends and keeping things within me. Often venting just leaves me feeling more guilty, like I’ve dumped a load of negative thoughts on to somebody. But perhaps needing to be more honest and realising that in doing that, we can all help each other is something we can all learn from.
One thing that I’ve noticed more in lockdown is how much my appearance seems to subconsciously influence my mood for the day. For instance, if I wake up and I’m spotty, bags under my eyes and hair greasy, my whole mood reflects it. It seems as though it's a kind of chicken and egg situation- which comes first I don’t know. At least I haven’t got to worry about root regrowth or stray grey hairs like my mum does! But perhaps in lockdown when there is little else going on around us, these small things become more noticeable or important to us.
Sometimes I get home and want to crawl into a ball and hide in bed. But then I scroll through my phone and read the stories of people struggling, and all I can do is inwardly shake myself for wallowing in my feelings. I wonder where do we draw the line, and when does allowing yourself to feel sad about your own situation, become self indulgent? It can be hard right now to realise that almost everyone is going through something. But also perhaps, it’s hard sometimes to let yourself feel sad for whatever is going on in your life, because of an awareness of this.
My mental health often feels like I’m walking on a tightrope, always stopping myself from falling into a hole when things get bad, where I know it’ll be hard to climb out of. Maybe this is something I’ve got better with as I’ve got older- the ability to talk myself out of my own head, or a bad situation. Sometimes I look back at my teenage self and want to tell her that happiness does exist- even if it at times it seems there isn’t much around you. I feel as though I’ve learnt that there will always be highs and lows in life, but all you can do is keep walking on your tightrope, and embracing those lows, until the rope becomes more stable. So keep driving that car at whatever speed feels right that day, never mind what the other vehicles around you are doing!
By Emily Latimer