Self-Love, Connection, and Comfort with Others

I keep questioning if it’s possible to feel a true sense of belonging with others when we don’t feel right with ourselves, especially with others who seem to have their shit together. I honestly don’t know sometimes. I do know that when I was near my worst state of mental health, when I could only bear each day by doing anything I could to distract myself from the fact that I had to go on living without my daughter, I was most comfortable with others whose lives, minds, and emotions were a mess too.

I am thinking back to this boy - a young man, really, but he seemed like a boy to me because he was 13 years younger than me. He was sweet and funny and incredibly talented in his work. These are qualities to which I am still attracted now that I am much healthier and feel much stronger all around. At the time though, I leaned heavily on these qualities to justify being with him when talking to my friends and family - hell, even to myself, especially since I had just walked away from a woman who was (and is) amazing and whom I had come to love.

The young man’s detractors (for my taste) were much more obvious to me, so much so that I even pushed him away from me when a friend drove by while I was walking down the street with him. He wore sagging pants, which I found ridiculous and embarrassing. He played up his toughness and was heavily into MMA fighting, which seemed to me to be compensating for something lacking in himself. He lived with his mom at first, until he moved in with me, and I avoided sharing that information with others as much as possible. We liked different music and activities generally, and our friends didn’t mesh well with either of us, though I came to be quite fond of a couple of his closest friends.

We met in a bar in the middle of the day, which meant that neither of us needed to feel ashamed of drinking in the middle of the day when we were together. I have realized since then that I tolerated the incompatible differences, and eventually, the fact that he got fired from jobs over and over for being drunk at work, the destructive fights and 911 calls, and the times he would hook up with other women in my home and car when I was away on business trips, because his alcoholism and disaster of a life made me feel less ashamed of mine. When I was with him, I could let down my guard and be the mess that I was (and was not yet ready to change). I felt less alone and slightly more able to look in the mirror. I was surviving what felt unsurvivable.

Conversely, it took a great deal of effort to interact with people who seemed “normal” to me, like the woman that I left behind. I cared about her too much to put her through my life at that time, and I couldn’t stand how I felt about myself in comparison. I also had to put on a shiny face around her, or so I thought. It seemed to me that I had to pretend around virtually everyone in order to make them feel comfortable being around me, and that may have been true in some ways. On the one hand, I loved my work, and it felt easy and natural to be all the things that are great about me when I was engaged with that work - smart, passionate, kind, empathetic, thoughtful, even charming sometimes. Move into a social situation though, and all my personal stuff threatened to float to the surface. I felt I had to consciously think of “light” things to talk about and how to navigate seemingly harmless questions from new acquaintances, like, “Do you have kids?” This inclination came from trying to make others feel comfortable with me when I wasn’t comfortable with myself, and lightness seemed to be what people wanted. I was pretending, and it was exhausting and unbearable for more than short periods of time.

Truthfully, perhaps because of such early abuse and abandonment but likely also because of how my brain works, I’ve never been a particularly light person. Even talking about music comes out different for me, I don’t remember most band or song names, and I am not into any one kind of music to fuel banter. Instead, I love moments, the quality of combinations of sounds, how one chord moving to the next makes me feel, especially when combined with a sudden change in rhythm or tempo. This is all very much internal, and it seems clear that others wouldn’t want to talk about these things even if I knew how to talk about it, so I am uncomfortable when music or pop culture conversations start. I nearly always feel like an outsider. This is true in many variations of social situations, other than one-on-one, intimate, honest, open conversations.

I continue to work on being comfortable with myself, frankly, and I have had an uphill battle with this ever since my mother dumped me on my father’s doorstep. Each rejection I face after I have shown up in a way that is authentically me cuts deep. I experienced this recently with two budding friendships. I was well into my healing process and longing for more social connection, so I put myself out there. With one, after lots of great connection through work events, we went to a yoga class together then out to a bar. I ordered a mocktail, which led to conversation about my sobriety, which led to talking about the fact that my daughter died and all that came with that. This was apparently too much for her because she pulled away from all engagement with me after that. My other friend was a weekly writing partner, and we had started to walk and kayak together too. Then one day, I was having a tough emotional day but chose to keep my plans to walk with her. I was unable to hold back tears during the walk, which clearly made her uncomfortable. I never heard from her again after parting ways that day.

I think the struggle to find self-acceptance as well as human connection and comfort with others is a natural part of the human condition. I think it is a mental health challenge we all share. Then, when we layer various other mental health challenges on top of that (whether certain wiring in our brains or DNA that makes us prone to depression, anxiety, or other mental health conditions or our experience with major traumatic events makes living seem untenable at times), this struggle is even harder. We all still need the same things though: to love ourselves for who we are and to have regular, meaningful connection with others who appreciate us for who we are.

It is unrealistic to think that we can all be friends, but is there a way we can make a little more effort with each other? If someone is clearly struggling, could we lean in, learn more, and offer a little warmth and support even if there isn’t a long-term friendship in the making? When someone we already love needs space for a bit, can we make sure they know that we support them and will be here when they are ready? When we feel discomfort with how another person is showing up in our social or other spaces, could we challenge ourselves to think about how we can adapt and show up for them rather than walking away because they aren’t behaving exactly how we would prefer? Perhaps that person is having an off day. Shit happens, sometimes really awful shit, and if it’s not happening to us now, it could in the future. Sometimes we are wrecked by traumatic events in our lives for a wholelotta days in a row, but eventually, especially with good support, we find our way back to lighter, smoother, healthier days when life is wonderful. It seems to me that we all can live with better mental health, and strengthen our sense of self, if we could be more supportive and inclusive with each other through the tough times rather than just the times when folks are feeling strong, confident, healthy, and light.