On coping mechanisms

An upfront apology: what follows is a bit of a meandering mess. But it's the weekend, and I don't quite have the patience to self-edit today.

People are ridiculously complicated creatures. Try to untangle what makes us tick, and you could drive yourself crazy. And never are we more complicated, or more messy, than when we are trying to process something - when all sorts of unexpected or unusual emotions move in and squat in our subconscious, making us behave like strangers.

For example, when we lose someone (and, full disclosure, I have recently had to part company with someone I loved very much), our brains do very odd things to help us process what has happened. With the benefit of reflection or hindsight, I find those reactions - often erratic and irrational - utterly fascinating. They seem to be different from person to person, and follow no logical pattern that I can fathom.

Some people shut down completely, withdrawing into themselves and taking the burden of their grief onto their shoulders alone. Others lash out, interpreting sadness as anger - perhaps finding that emotion easier to express. Still more will put on a brave face, and throw themselves into distraction to push the feelings down and ignore them. I imagine a lot of people would pick d) all of the above.

Because feelings of loss, in whatever form it comes and they come, are big and scary and overwhelming, we all understandably develop coping mechanisms to get through. And I am left wondering what an individual's coping mechanisms say about that person.

In the past week, I have: sought comfort from close friends and people who love me; distracted myself with trips to the theatre, a country fair, and my favourite coffee shop; thrown myself into work as much as possible; written and discarded several overly personal blog posts before sitting down to write this one; and, today (because it felt necessary), consumed almost an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream before crawling inside my duvet cover with my laptop and listening to Amy Winehouse songs. That I have crammed all of that into less than a week is unusual behaviour for me, to say the least.

I guess my brain can't quite understand what I've done to it, and seems to be directing me to try anything I can think of to return it to normal. I genuinely have no idea whether my coping mechanisms are any stranger than anyone else's. It does, however, strike me that this messiness is the perfect evidence for the human condition. And by that, I mean the thing that sits somewhere above biology and how we're physically put together to make us all unique - all a bit crazy - and all a sodding mess.

As an atheist who doesn't really buy into an afterlife or a spirit, as such, I can't unscramble in my head what I think this human condition is - how it happens, and why we're all so different. But although it makes us complicated, and difficult, and perplexing...I also think it makes us kind of wonderful. Thank God we're more than just our biology, even if it does make me question my sanity when I'm hiding in a duvet-sheet-nest and experiencing one hell of a sugar crash.

On building walls

It is a very human thing, I think, to build walls. And it is a very difficult thing to acknowledge that we are building them, and make a decision to bring them down.

For many years now, I have walled up my creativity. It sounds odd, I know - but nevertheless I have come to realise that it's the truth. It's why I stopped writing this bloody thing. It's why my laptop is full of beginnings, middles, and ends of stories - but nothing complete, nothing whole. It's why I've picked up and put down art and illustration throughout my life, never quite making a go of it.

Why have I done this? It seems counter-intuitive to deny myself something that does, on balance, make me happy. Something that I think - with enough practice and flexing of the right muscles - I could be good at. It's not like I don't have ideas, either. I am positively brimming with ideas. Seriously, you should see how many beginnings of blog posts I have on here as drafts. How many notebooks filled with doodles, and sketches, and first steps that were never followed by a second. But here's the thing: it's far easier to create a barricade around that part of myself (with excuses like "I don't have time", or "I feel too drained after work", or "I don't have the willpower to keep up with it") than it would be to try, and to fail. God forbid I throw myself into something and not have it work out.

It sounds so self-defeating when I put it into words that I get angry at myself.

I suspect we're all guilty of this in one way or another. Other people build walls to save face, or to seem stronger, or to keep messy emotions inside. I've always been better at letting emotions roam free, but I can understand the impulse. Whether it's because you think people won't understand the more complicated parts of you, or that they'll think you're a bit crazy, or think less of you for showing "weakness"...I understand that fear.

It's hard, I think, to recognise that you are your own worst enemy. That the barrier you're fighting against in order to get where you want to be - to be happy - is a barrier of your own creation. And it would be too simplistic to say that recognising that fact is the answer. That tearing the walls down will bring you happiness, or even that you'll feel strong enough to tear them down in the first place. But it does feel like a first step (for me, at least). It feels like this might be the stick I need to whip myself into shape with. To not be self-defeating. To pour myself into things, even when it would be easier - less messy - to just sit down and watch Netflix instead.

I am making this promise to myself, and I am doing it out loud so that I can't put my head in the sand and pretend that I haven't: I am going to try. If I try and I fail, then so be it. I think I'll be less sad about that than I would about letting that wall get the better of me.