15: on wanting to disappear 🌀
emotionally & physically not wanting to be looked at (june 2021)
Iteration #15 of this monthly letter full of feelings.
This issue's theme is: ✶ stuck in the sinking sand ✶
A Time Traveling Feelings Letter (or something like it)
〰️〰️〰️ originally sent on Sep 9, 2021 〰️〰️〰️
Hey, it's been a minute. I've been trying to write this for a while. I wanted to talk about something else in June and then the month went by, and more months went by, and I sort of felt consumed by this feeling the whole time; it's been coming in and out, and it's been hard to say out loud. I'm writing about it because I don't want it to stay in my head and get louder, louder, bouncing off the corners of my brain and echoing and becoming the only thing I can hear. I'm writing because maybe you've felt something similar. If you have, will you tell me? Explain it to me in a way that only makes sense to you; give it new words and let it seep out of your brain and make space for other feelings. That's what I'm going to try to do.
When I'm depressed I don't want anyone to look at me. I want to press pause, hibernate, hide away and not be perceived by anyone. It feels like if someone looks at me just a little too closely, I'll crack open and spill out and then we'll both be stuck all my ugly insides pouring out between us.
I have had a hard time feeling like I deserve to be anywhere right now. Not ~physically~ here in the places I've been inhabiting lately or *gestures wildly* here on this planet in general. It's not so much that I want to stop living (I am terrified of not living – having a dead dad has led me to put a lot of pressure on myself to lead a ~meaningful life~ because if his life was cut short, who am I to not take advantage of the time I have?) so no, it's not quite *that* (and I know the whole "meaningful life" things is not a fair pressure to put on myself) but... what if I could just press pause, maybe? Just breathe for a minute and let myself catch up to everyone around me, sew up my seams that are all fraying at the edges. Just a way for me to hide and not feel the heavy urgency of life going on around me when I can't find the desire to get out of bed. I can be both incredible grateful for life and and wildly overwhelmed by all of it. As my friend Connie says, "life is so both/and." There's room for both/and, here and everywhere and always.
꩜ SHAME SPIRAL CYCLES ꩜
This is not an unfamiliar feeling to me – I just feel it more acutely and more encompassing lately. I felt it quietly here and there for years. I felt it in a huge way after my abusive relationship ended: like if I made eye contact with anyone I'd burst into tears and they could taste the shame I felt in the air. I felt it when I was younger & someone would find out about my dad: I wanted to cry but I didn't want anyone to have to hold me. I wanted to hide it all inside of me so nobody could see it. Simultaneously, I was desperate for someone to help me, to come sit with me in the shame and tell me I was okay. To remind me that I was worth protecting, worth sitting in the discomfort with. I felt it when I would read this poem by Marty McConnell, where she says "girls are always trying to disappear as revenge." Maybe it's that – like a bitter taunting: what you even miss me if I wasn't here? Would you suffer?
After that relationship, I had to claw my way out of that shame and teach myself how to be myself again, how to find my own self worth, stop believing that I needed someone else to translate my own mind for me. Teach myself how to ask for help. Remind myself that it's okay to be human and to feel broken. Remind myself that it's okay to not feel complete. I feel shame for wanting someone to protect me; like, really? I can't protect myself? What's wrong with me? Why can't I just fix it myself? The shame spiral just keeps going, finding new ways to get me be mean to myself. That's like... the whole thing about relationships and communication though, right?. Nobody can swoop in and save you/read your mind; you have to save yourself, and that often means being vulnerable and speaking loudly about what you need and who you are. That's where my spiral always ends: tangled up and stuffed through the messy outlet of letting myself be seen. Sharing myself with others.
While I was unpacking all of this with my therapist, he said something like "what does it mean that you now live in a place where you could disappear? Sometimes he's really cryptic and I don't know what he means, but that has allowed me to get really good at asking "what do you mean by that?" Anyway, it seemed like he was asking if I could hide here, in this place I've self-described as "the middle of nowhere." Hide away from my life in NYC. Hide away from the life I tried to build. In a way, have more power now to disappear than I have in years. So, do I really want to disappear? Why don't I just fall into it, if I have the chance to? Why do I keep putting myself out there only to feel like a shrimp without a shell?
I think what I'm getting to is that being present (even in my pain) and sharing it, whatever form it takes, is the cure. Continuing to fall deeper into the disappearing hole isn't going to save me. Or maybe there is something to learn in the hole – I don't know. But I'm leaning toward showing myself and sharing being like some kind of needle pin into the overwhelming sadness balloon that allows all that tightness to escape. Maybe?
WANTING TO BE SEEN / WANTING TO HIDE
I am constantly oscillating between these two poles: wanting to be seen & wanting to hide. Maybe that's the tension of being human or whatever. I was recently in the pit of "why am I here?" feeling during a trip to NYC. I had a really hard time expressing that pain to anyone. Coincidentally, I also lost my voice. Maybe it was just that – a coincidence, but damn... it really did feel like some sort of psychosomatic response or metaphor for not speaking about what I was feeling, not representing my insides to the people I should trust with them. That's where the tension lies: representing your pain / or disappearing into it.
So if I constantly want to hide from the people in my life because I don't think I'm good enough right now, when does that end? Is allowing yourself to be with people part of feeling good enough? If I don't want the people I love to see me as "unloveable," am I really even allowing them to love me? Don't I *have* to show up in imperfect forms in order for it to be love? Are those the moments when we are really, truly, seen? When people see the parts of us we've deemed unlovable and still want to hold us?
WHAT I'M WORKING ON!
✷ PUTTING MYSELF OUT THERE ✷
I finally launched some workshops through zoom! It took me a while but I GOT THERE. I meant to send this out the week before they launched BUT they already launched. It's an experiment in putting myself out there! You can learn more here:
bridgetbadore.com/shop
All three are meant to serve as soft landing spaces to foster community and creativity. ♥
If you're interested in participating in the next round of workshops or in something similar down the road, please fill out this short form here & I'll keep you updated when the next series drops! :)
Yes, I am always writing these two months behind, and yes, I know I could just drop the facade of it being "monthly" but I am still working under the delusion that I will catch up (and maybe I will)!
Things are hard right now and that's okay! (including writing newsletters where I literally just babble and talk about feelings and share some of my artwork – all things that *seem* "easy" but are actually very hard and being vulnerable in our society is a freakin' lot of work). Anyway, thank you for being here!
⋰ If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.
This newsletter was written from the Onundagaonoga (Onondaga) & Haudenosaunee territory.. To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.ca ⋰
