Emotions-- The Unfashionable Edition
It's World Mental Health Day. Here's my question: Do we all suddenly have anxiety? Here's my answer: no we don't.
Before everyone goes up in arms about how I'm just one of those people who thinks I am just one of those people who thinks people are just faking their mental illnesses to get attention, give me a chance to explain my statement.
The last few weeks have been horrible mental heath wise. No, I don't have a particular reason for it. No I will not validate it by giving it a name like 'depression.' Despite being relatively lucky I've been very sad. I have needed to express myself but funnily there haven't really been many people to express to. Funny because it's not that I had nobody to talk to but because somehow I didn't feel heard. It made me wonder why the good-natured efforts of my friends were sometimes making me feel worse.
I don't have a precise answer but I have a guess--it was because there were times when I felt an emotion and expressing it simply was not fashionable.
So here goes.
I feel insecure sometimes. I know I'm supposed to trust all my relationships but I don't always do. In my bubble of urban, upper middle-class, woke neoliberalism, insecure people are considered pathetic. The worst thing a guy can say about a girl is "she's just so insecure!" For me feeling insecure is about these sudden fleeting moments where I feel the boat of everything I have built in my life is shaking, when I realize thaat reality there is nothing much I can do to stop it from toppling over. This leads to another unfashionable emotion I sometimes feel- I get scared of losing things. They tell me that if I love something enough I should be happy having it in the moment and not think about the time and energy that went into it or worry that I may not be able to take it into the future. I'm supposed to look at everything like a passionate artist who practices his art simply because he loves it and never expects any reward. But the reality is that I cannot feel that way 24x7 and if I tell people they just judge me, thinking I'm the kind of person who only pursues things with an end goal in mind.
There are also rare occasions when I get jealous (I'm just bringing out all the ugly emotions today, aren't I?). I will admit that most of the time I get jealous of other women. I sometimes get jealous of how those women look in the eyes of men. It's not the most beautiful women that trigger this feeling. It's mostly the 'cool girls'--the ones that are always up for a drink and a party and always kind of available and never question men on anything they do. I, on the other hand, don't drink and am too neurotic to party all the time and when I see something a guy does that seems hypocritical or pack-minded to me I find it very difficult to just keep my mouth shut. And I know that at this point you're probably thinking that I'm just trying to show how superior I am while pretending to be self-critical but I promise I'm not. Everywhere I look I see a mirror which tells me I'm not an easy person, and I wish I was, and there are rare occasions where I get jealous of women who are. I am a bad feminist in that way. I'm not allowed to say I sometimes get jealous, though. I have to cheer and support other women all the freaking time otherwise I am an enemy to an important social movement. Also, I have never heard anybody--and I mean anybody--tell me that they were jealous so I guess I also fear that maybe I am the only person in the universe who feels this emotion and everybody else is just to confident, self-assured and content for it.
Speaking of jealousy, a lot of my unfashionable feeling are related to modern-day feminism. Once again, in the urban, upper middle-class, woke neoliberal bubble I live in, I almost feel inferior because I like and want children, want to get married someday and want to have a good family life. I am surrounded by women who claim they don't think very seriously about these things. I am surrounded by women who call themselves career women and they say they respect my 'choices' but I don't really think I'm making any choices as much as I'm just being who I am. I am not a career woman in the sense that although a career is very important to me it is not the ultimate MOST important thing in my life. If I had to choose at gunpoint--and I really hope this never happens--I would choose having a family. Once again, I really, really hope I never have to choose because I do want both a lot but in the back of my mind I know that I love one a little bit more than the other. Maybe this is all in my head but sometimes I get this nagging feeling that the career women I'm surrounded by think they are superior to me because they don't want long-term commitments from men or families. But who I am I to say anything? Most of them are headed to Silicon Valley or getting PhDs in subjects like maths and genetics and whatnot so they are much higher on the modern feminist ladder than I am and yes I do think that ladder exists even though we're supposed to be respecting all women the same and yes that doubt is another unfashionable feeling I have.
Then there are the unfashionable emotions I feel we all have. For example, I get this sense that everybody wants to be special and wants some proof that they're special but nobody admits to it because it sound embarrassing. It seems that the last thing anybody wants to be is ordinary even though that's what most of us, including me, are. It's kind of how nobody really admits they want to be famous but a lot of people do.
I'm not saying that I am generally insecure, jealous, neurotic, hateful of modern-day feminism and desirous of being special. Most days I am not. But I admit today that there are days I falter. The issue is that when I falter with an emotion like, say, anger or vengefulness I might be met with some fair criticism but people would not look down upon me, whereas if I express the emotions above I would be met with cringe. I think what tipped me over to this was the fact that nobody else seems to every be feeling these things. It's always only me. It seems that most people wouldn't be caught dead saying any of the things I just said, which is fine, except that they can somehow at the same time be okay with admitting things like disloyalty, self-centredness, a lack of empathy or shallowness.
Being the overthinker that I am, I did further analysis on how society was making distinctions between which negative emotions are okay and which are not. My hypothesis that we generally look down upon emotions which are triggered by external factors and suggest a lack of control and agency. For example, if a person is jealous, they're essentially reacting to an external circumstance while not holding any real power. On the other hand, something like a lack of empathy, although very negative, suggests power and control. Strangely, emotions that can hurt people are looked at with less contempt that emotions that only hurt oneself, and most of my cringeworthy feelings are on the latter side of that spectrum.
When you can't admit to what you're feeling, it's easier to just say you have anxiety. But for me, anxiety can almost always be broken down to these bits and pieces that make me look bad, way worse than the word 'anxiety' does. This pressure to not admit to this side of myself makes something simmer inside me and there at times when the simmer comes to a boil.
Before everyone goes up in arms about how I'm just one of those people who thinks I am just one of those people who thinks people are just faking their mental illnesses to get attention, give me a chance to explain my statement.
The last few weeks have been horrible mental heath wise. No, I don't have a particular reason for it. No I will not validate it by giving it a name like 'depression.' Despite being relatively lucky I've been very sad. I have needed to express myself but funnily there haven't really been many people to express to. Funny because it's not that I had nobody to talk to but because somehow I didn't feel heard. It made me wonder why the good-natured efforts of my friends were sometimes making me feel worse.
I don't have a precise answer but I have a guess--it was because there were times when I felt an emotion and expressing it simply was not fashionable.
So here goes.
I feel insecure sometimes. I know I'm supposed to trust all my relationships but I don't always do. In my bubble of urban, upper middle-class, woke neoliberalism, insecure people are considered pathetic. The worst thing a guy can say about a girl is "she's just so insecure!" For me feeling insecure is about these sudden fleeting moments where I feel the boat of everything I have built in my life is shaking, when I realize thaat reality there is nothing much I can do to stop it from toppling over. This leads to another unfashionable emotion I sometimes feel- I get scared of losing things. They tell me that if I love something enough I should be happy having it in the moment and not think about the time and energy that went into it or worry that I may not be able to take it into the future. I'm supposed to look at everything like a passionate artist who practices his art simply because he loves it and never expects any reward. But the reality is that I cannot feel that way 24x7 and if I tell people they just judge me, thinking I'm the kind of person who only pursues things with an end goal in mind.
There are also rare occasions when I get jealous (I'm just bringing out all the ugly emotions today, aren't I?). I will admit that most of the time I get jealous of other women. I sometimes get jealous of how those women look in the eyes of men. It's not the most beautiful women that trigger this feeling. It's mostly the 'cool girls'--the ones that are always up for a drink and a party and always kind of available and never question men on anything they do. I, on the other hand, don't drink and am too neurotic to party all the time and when I see something a guy does that seems hypocritical or pack-minded to me I find it very difficult to just keep my mouth shut. And I know that at this point you're probably thinking that I'm just trying to show how superior I am while pretending to be self-critical but I promise I'm not. Everywhere I look I see a mirror which tells me I'm not an easy person, and I wish I was, and there are rare occasions where I get jealous of women who are. I am a bad feminist in that way. I'm not allowed to say I sometimes get jealous, though. I have to cheer and support other women all the freaking time otherwise I am an enemy to an important social movement. Also, I have never heard anybody--and I mean anybody--tell me that they were jealous so I guess I also fear that maybe I am the only person in the universe who feels this emotion and everybody else is just to confident, self-assured and content for it.
Speaking of jealousy, a lot of my unfashionable feeling are related to modern-day feminism. Once again, in the urban, upper middle-class, woke neoliberal bubble I live in, I almost feel inferior because I like and want children, want to get married someday and want to have a good family life. I am surrounded by women who claim they don't think very seriously about these things. I am surrounded by women who call themselves career women and they say they respect my 'choices' but I don't really think I'm making any choices as much as I'm just being who I am. I am not a career woman in the sense that although a career is very important to me it is not the ultimate MOST important thing in my life. If I had to choose at gunpoint--and I really hope this never happens--I would choose having a family. Once again, I really, really hope I never have to choose because I do want both a lot but in the back of my mind I know that I love one a little bit more than the other. Maybe this is all in my head but sometimes I get this nagging feeling that the career women I'm surrounded by think they are superior to me because they don't want long-term commitments from men or families. But who I am I to say anything? Most of them are headed to Silicon Valley or getting PhDs in subjects like maths and genetics and whatnot so they are much higher on the modern feminist ladder than I am and yes I do think that ladder exists even though we're supposed to be respecting all women the same and yes that doubt is another unfashionable feeling I have.
Then there are the unfashionable emotions I feel we all have. For example, I get this sense that everybody wants to be special and wants some proof that they're special but nobody admits to it because it sound embarrassing. It seems that the last thing anybody wants to be is ordinary even though that's what most of us, including me, are. It's kind of how nobody really admits they want to be famous but a lot of people do.
I'm not saying that I am generally insecure, jealous, neurotic, hateful of modern-day feminism and desirous of being special. Most days I am not. But I admit today that there are days I falter. The issue is that when I falter with an emotion like, say, anger or vengefulness I might be met with some fair criticism but people would not look down upon me, whereas if I express the emotions above I would be met with cringe. I think what tipped me over to this was the fact that nobody else seems to every be feeling these things. It's always only me. It seems that most people wouldn't be caught dead saying any of the things I just said, which is fine, except that they can somehow at the same time be okay with admitting things like disloyalty, self-centredness, a lack of empathy or shallowness.
Being the overthinker that I am, I did further analysis on how society was making distinctions between which negative emotions are okay and which are not. My hypothesis that we generally look down upon emotions which are triggered by external factors and suggest a lack of control and agency. For example, if a person is jealous, they're essentially reacting to an external circumstance while not holding any real power. On the other hand, something like a lack of empathy, although very negative, suggests power and control. Strangely, emotions that can hurt people are looked at with less contempt that emotions that only hurt oneself, and most of my cringeworthy feelings are on the latter side of that spectrum.
When you can't admit to what you're feeling, it's easier to just say you have anxiety. But for me, anxiety can almost always be broken down to these bits and pieces that make me look bad, way worse than the word 'anxiety' does. This pressure to not admit to this side of myself makes something simmer inside me and there at times when the simmer comes to a boil.
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