My Healing, Finding Radical Joy, and Resisting Emotional Isolation.
Today, I woke up, brushed my teeth, changed my clothes, and left for the boxing training I signed up for, it was my first day and do I need to mention that my friend paid for me? Well, I just did that.
I trained, came back home, ate, and slept woke up in the evening to do my tasks for the day but I spent much of my time dancing to the Afro pops that I was playing on my phone and talking to my friends afterwards.
It's past 10 pm and I have to sit still to write this article that has been alive in my head all week.
I have written about my depression, anxiety, pains, and ADHD struggles, today I want to share with you how I am healing and how I'm finding radical joy in women, in friendships, and in the little things.
Following my struggle with depression and anxiety and struggling with abandonment issues, I made sure to keep people at a distance, to love but from afar, many times I told myself that is didn’t have friends because I only connected with people on a shallow level, at least I tried to keep it that way, I was afraid of vulnerability, not because I feared that they would hurt me, but because I feared that being vulnerable with a person means letting them into your heart and life, it means it means an invitation into depth and I didn’t want that.
I was scared, I believed that people always leave and the best way to stop them from leaving is to never have them stay with you in the first place.
Healing With My Boyfriend.
For over one year I dated the one of most amazing men there is, for the next year and more, we transitioned into friendship instead, and with him began my healing journey.
I saw a video that talked about corrective emotional experiences, she talked about how we shouldn't buy the idea of isolation and wanting to heal alone because it doesn't work and it puts too much on us to carry, she said we cannot heal alone, we need other people to heal.
"Our pains often come from relationships and so we need relationships to repair them".
And I will tell you, she was right, all the times I attempted therapy and stayed alone, I felt more burden than healing.
With him, I learned to name my emotions and how to express them while respecting the person I'm sharing them with, without being rude or saying hurtful words or raising my voice at them especially if they are the ones who made me feel angry or sad, and if those are my feelings at the moment.
He taught me to take deep breaths when anxiety was taking over my life, I became more confident in my emotions, but also more assertive and compassionate to myself.
In case you don't know, I am a highly sensitive person and I am very passionate, which means that I don't know how to feel average feelings. My feelings are either too big or nothing, I also struggle with regulating my emotions, but I've made significant progress since being on this journey.
My mental health got a little better, but I was emotionally isolated, I had people around me but I always felt alone in the world because everything was superficial for me, I rejected depth, I didn't want to get hurt, and tried to be by myself, I tried to be happy alone, to thrive in my isolation, but nobody thrives in isolation, we always need people and need vulnerability.
I am grateful that my boyfriend at the time who is now my friend was very much patient with me as I learned to abandon my fear and to be confident in my love. I remember that I called off our relationship very many times, especially after arguments and disagreements.
My abandonment issues made me believe that if I left people first, then they wouldn't leave me and I wouldn't be hurt, so I always left and somehow we always came back together.
It took so much reaffirmation and consistent show of love for me to begin to learn that arguments, misunderstandings, fights, and space do not mean they are leaving or withdrawing love.
I would avoid conflicts, I would shut down and avoid confrontations, I would "keep the peace" until I couldn't, and then I'd blurt out in anger. I had to unlearn piling up and ignoring things that don't sit well with me, because they accumulate and cause big problems.
I had to start learning that I was safe. That I am safe. Safe enough to speak my mind, safe enough to address conflicts, safe enough to voice my feelings because my feelings matter, safe enough to be my own person and speak up for myself.
I also started learning that arguments and conflicts are a very normal part of human interaction, it is normal for our needs, beliefs, and interests to clash, it is normal for fights to happen, it is normal for difficult conversations to be had, it doesn't mean they hate me or that they want to leave. In fact, these things strengthen our relationships with the other parties.
In all of these, I was healing, I was getting better, I was experiencing corrective emotional experiences, and my broken life was being fixed just by being with someone who was willing to offer me help, and I am grateful that I was willing to accept that help.
2. Learning about community.
My life got better when I started listening to Ismatu Gwendolyn and Ayandastood on TikTok and IG, two powerful women who taught me the power of community.
I watched videos of them that talked about community, healing, love, isolation and, how individualism is a capitalist invention to keep people separated because when we are separated and hyper-independent, we tend to buy more things, feel more alone, have more problems even.
These women shared how we cannot heal in isolation just as we didn't get hurt in isolation, they always talked about connecting with the collective and being less individualistic.
I have learned that individualism is the goal of capitalism, it's why we have become more and more distant from each other, it wasn't like this 100 years ago. We have become more and more hyper-independent, we are mostly alone, have no close relationships with family or people, and you know what's happening also? The rate at which people suffer from mental illness keeps increasing.
Everybody just looks out for their own, individualism keeps us at a kind of war with each other, like we are at a race and we want to be the one to win, so often, we don't mind stepping on other people to get to the top, we only look out for ourselves but are we only as good as the collective, we are only as happy and as healthy as the collective. We belong together, we are all connected and we need each other.
This doesn't mean that we have to be friends with everyone or invite everyone into our lives, it just means that we should consider looking out for people we can build a tribe with, even if that tribe is just one or two people, people who care and love and respect us, people who want us just as we want them.
And one thing I have learned in my 25 years of existence is that there are always people for you. You may not find them immediately, but there will always be people who want you in the room with them, we are never alone.
I have also learned that we cannot always love ourselves, in a world that preaches self-love and individuality so much, we fail to see that sometimes what we need is community love. Our love will not always be enough, we cannot always love ourselves, and on days like that when we can't love ourselves, we need other people's love, we need community love to sustain us and keep us going.
This also doesn't mean that physical isolation or any form of isolation is bad. Of course, we can isolate ourselves, and of course, we can stay away from people to recharge and feel better. However, isolation should never be our permanent state, we need a healthy dose of isolation and community to be sane and human because, to be honest, we cannot do this life alone.
3. Finding Radical Joy.
I got into another stage of my healing journey when I met my friend, we hung out frequently and were expressive of how much we wanted to be by each other's side, every moment with her healed me, and every time we talked, laughed and hugged, cooked, slept and saw movies together, it healed the part of me that was scared of loving people, the part of me that wanted emotional isolation, it healed the part of me that didn't want vulnerability and depth with people.
With her, I experienced freedom and depth, it was love that healed me and took my fears away and as a result, my friendships got better. I now pour into my friends without any fear that they are going to leave me. I now know that even though they might leave, the most important thing is that we loved each other and made memories when we were together.
Now, instead of withholding love and vulnerability out of fear, I give all my love knowing that we do not have forever together, they may die, I may die, or we might fall apart, but at this point that we are together, I have enough love to give and I will give it to them and if they leave, I will find new people and continue giving them my love.
One more thing I am experiencing is how I find my happiness, and how I am becoming radical about finding joy, I do the little things, I do the big things when I can, I drink more water, and I recently repainted my space to the cooler colour I’ve always wanted, I talk more often with my friends, I check on them, I rest and I listen to music very much often, I dance and I laugh so freely, so loudly, because now I’m choosing to live, I’m opening up my heart for new experiences and taking in joy every day, chasing joy even, because I’m being wholesome, I am healing.
This doesn’t mean that I no longer have anxiety and depression, and it doesn’t mean that I no longer have bad days that leave me in tears, it means however that my life has become better, that I am being better and choosing joy every time I can. It means that I am experiencing freedom and learning to trust myself and my love. That is the goal of healing, trusting in ourselves.
