Today I woke up at 8 a.m. to take the bus to meet a new friend, one of the best people I've met in Houston, at a park to ride bikes to volunteer in the community garden. The day worked out really well, even with a 5-hour busy Target shift in the middle. I love those days, when I have enough positive energy to not get down about working this job.
Of course, before I met up with my friend, there were dark clouds hovering in the sky and they were making my already irritable mood spiral into that unreasonable place of despair. Yesterday, I was at an anti-police brutality rally and before we started marching, I suddenly found myself in a very real and very serious conversation with this new friend's girlfriend. She revealed to me her longterm struggle with anxiety and depression and she said many things to me that hit so incredibly close to home, things that I almost could have repeated verbatim. I was caught off my guard and continued on with the march, feeling newly invigorated and vowing to talk with this person again and really pick her brain about radical mental health and other solutions to these problems.
Last Sunday, I went to the Zen Center for the first time, for an informal meditation and discussion section. It was a beautiful bike ride from downtown, after spending the night in the park at Occupy Houston. Many ideas surfaced that also hit me hard, like people who will call you out on your flaws in a helpful, loving way and how those are true friends. But how do we tell the difference between kind honesty and brutal honesty? Is it pure intuition? Or does it require a substantial amount of awareness and humility? Does it require mental health?
So I'm not going to rationalize or pretend, I know why my mood took a turn for the worse yesterday. I had crashed on some awesome peoples' couch the night before and woke up with lots of positivity for my day off, but then I had lunch with Dad and his new wife (maybe if I don't even call her my "stepmother" I won't have to acknowledge her as a family member at all) and it went how it frequently does, with a hugely unpleasant argument, except this time in public. And I can't cope with this, I can't defend myself while also casting myself in the best light. I can't be accused of selfishness and blatantly judged and personally attacked for my lifestyle, past & present choices and remain neutral, accept it as "honesty" and keep my composure with calm responses. For, in my mind, this person's honesty is of the worst kind of brutality, the kind that stems from projection of personal problems on a fellow and undeserving human being. Have I also been guilty of this behavior? It's quite awful when thrown in your face.
Then I think about the other person who has unintentionally set me on an emotional rollercoaster since I arrived in Houston. Who has also pointed out my shortcomings to me, forced me to look in the mirror. I think about these two people and I think about identity.
So then on my walk home last night, the truth struck me clearly and at full force: I have no identity. Deep inside, I don't exist as a person. What can normal people, including even therapists, answer to this except "get to know yourself," "we're all finding ourselves," "you're not alone," the whole gammut. I can't relate to any of this on a deep level because I know that my lack of selfhood is a chronic condition, not a "phase" and not just related to my youth. To me, finding myself may be the big difference between getting mentally healthy and continuing down the winding road of crazytown.
I am a cis-gendered female. I am heterosexual. I am a Russian-American. I am a 20-something. I am a college graduate. I am white. I am a daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, niece. I am a "writer." I am a reader. I am a cyclist. I am a polyglot. I am a traveller. I am a semi-strict vegetarian. I am a nature lover. I am a radical. I am a worker. I am a non-believer....what else?
Except none of these things are my identity for they are all subsumed in what I do and how I relate to others. And taken together, they are just a blurry amalgam that I become lost in. As a traveller and as a person in general, I know what I gravitate towards and of course, it has helped me figure out where my true interests lie and how I might want to build the remainder of my life, at least for a good part of the foreseeable future. But in fact, I have come to the startling conclusion that this has very little - if anything - to do with who I am.
Of course, before I met up with my friend, there were dark clouds hovering in the sky and they were making my already irritable mood spiral into that unreasonable place of despair. Yesterday, I was at an anti-police brutality rally and before we started marching, I suddenly found myself in a very real and very serious conversation with this new friend's girlfriend. She revealed to me her longterm struggle with anxiety and depression and she said many things to me that hit so incredibly close to home, things that I almost could have repeated verbatim. I was caught off my guard and continued on with the march, feeling newly invigorated and vowing to talk with this person again and really pick her brain about radical mental health and other solutions to these problems.
Last Sunday, I went to the Zen Center for the first time, for an informal meditation and discussion section. It was a beautiful bike ride from downtown, after spending the night in the park at Occupy Houston. Many ideas surfaced that also hit me hard, like people who will call you out on your flaws in a helpful, loving way and how those are true friends. But how do we tell the difference between kind honesty and brutal honesty? Is it pure intuition? Or does it require a substantial amount of awareness and humility? Does it require mental health?
So I'm not going to rationalize or pretend, I know why my mood took a turn for the worse yesterday. I had crashed on some awesome peoples' couch the night before and woke up with lots of positivity for my day off, but then I had lunch with Dad and his new wife (maybe if I don't even call her my "stepmother" I won't have to acknowledge her as a family member at all) and it went how it frequently does, with a hugely unpleasant argument, except this time in public. And I can't cope with this, I can't defend myself while also casting myself in the best light. I can't be accused of selfishness and blatantly judged and personally attacked for my lifestyle, past & present choices and remain neutral, accept it as "honesty" and keep my composure with calm responses. For, in my mind, this person's honesty is of the worst kind of brutality, the kind that stems from projection of personal problems on a fellow and undeserving human being. Have I also been guilty of this behavior? It's quite awful when thrown in your face.
Then I think about the other person who has unintentionally set me on an emotional rollercoaster since I arrived in Houston. Who has also pointed out my shortcomings to me, forced me to look in the mirror. I think about these two people and I think about identity.
So then on my walk home last night, the truth struck me clearly and at full force: I have no identity. Deep inside, I don't exist as a person. What can normal people, including even therapists, answer to this except "get to know yourself," "we're all finding ourselves," "you're not alone," the whole gammut. I can't relate to any of this on a deep level because I know that my lack of selfhood is a chronic condition, not a "phase" and not just related to my youth. To me, finding myself may be the big difference between getting mentally healthy and continuing down the winding road of crazytown.
I am a cis-gendered female. I am heterosexual. I am a Russian-American. I am a 20-something. I am a college graduate. I am white. I am a daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, niece. I am a "writer." I am a reader. I am a cyclist. I am a polyglot. I am a traveller. I am a semi-strict vegetarian. I am a nature lover. I am a radical. I am a worker. I am a non-believer....what else?
Except none of these things are my identity for they are all subsumed in what I do and how I relate to others. And taken together, they are just a blurry amalgam that I become lost in. As a traveller and as a person in general, I know what I gravitate towards and of course, it has helped me figure out where my true interests lie and how I might want to build the remainder of my life, at least for a good part of the foreseeable future. But in fact, I have come to the startling conclusion that this has very little - if anything - to do with who I am.
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