Week 7 - Beauty in concentrated simplicity

I had a realization this week. “The person I am, is far less attractive, than the person I am working on becoming.”

I had been cutting my client’s hair, and he was telling me about the fantasy novels he was currently going through when he asked me what I had been reading myself. I told him about Atomic Habits, and how I had listened to the section on the second law twice this week. He looked at me, quizzically, and said, “So you’re really into self he-” before he corrected himself, “self-improvement books.” I laughed and said that self-improvement is a much more attractive choice of words. Now after thinking more on the term, I like the term “personal development” more than the other two options.

I have always faced difficulty in communicating with others on a level that allows for meaningful connection. Valuing transparency and blunt conversation, it has either been too much for some to handle my direct nature, or it has provided an opportunity for others to hold something over me. The ability to further develop communication skills and understand others to an extent where benefit can be found has been a constant pursuit in my adult life.

I’ll give you an example. I went to the doctor this week for the first time in almost a decade. For context to why it has been so long, I have had a PTSD response any time I find myself in a medical environment due to a traumatic experience I had at a young age. Simply being in a space that smells like a hospital makes me hyperventilate and drives my anxiety to unsustainable levels. Additionally, the last doctor I had only wanted to address my symptoms, so he kept prescribing me stronger and stronger SSRI’s without focusing on any of my underlying issues. When pushed too far, my PTSD response manifests as seizures (vasovagal episodes, not epileptic), and nearly every time I go in for a regular check up, I end up having a pretty bad day.

All of this to say, I went to my initial patient exam with my new primary care provider at 7:30 in the morning, and due to the anxiety I felt the day prior, I had received little sleep the night prior. Upon arrival, I was given an anxiety questionnaire, as well as a depression questionnaire, that rated my levels from a 0-3. Zero was never, one was sometimes, two was frequently, and three was daily. I circled 3 on all but one of the answers, and a zero on the question, “Do you have a constant feeling that something bad is about to happen?” before giving the questionnaires back to the Nurse Practitioner.

“Oh, wow. So you have a lot of anxiety on a regular basis. Do you have any healthy coping mechanisms you use for that?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it healthy, but I have a coping mechanism. I wake up at 5:30 every morning and I work out for an hour because I call myself lazy if I don’t.”

“Well, physical activity is good. Would you say you have a loving support structure, like friends, family, people who care about you and support you?”

“I have a coping mechanism, I have my wife, and I have my dog.”

She looked at me in a way that I wasn’t accustomed to. I could tell she wasn’t used to someone being so direct with their answers.

“Well, it looks like you indicated that you’ve had bouts of depression in the past. Have you ever engaged in self harm?”

“Yes,” I said in a matter of fact tone

“…Have you ever had thoughts of ideation?”

“Yes,” said in the same manner.

“Okay… Have you ever made an attempt or planned it out.”

“Yes.”

“What did that look like?”

“I was going to park my car in my garage and leave it running with the garage door shut.”

At this point in the exam, it was clear to me that she was not used to someone speaking so openly and calmly about depression and suicidal ideation in such a matter of fact manner. This came into further clarity as she stumbled over her next few questions.

“Is that still the case?”

“No.”

“But you wrote down that you still have thoughts of ideation.”

“Right. I believe that the spectrum of happiness is essentially a rubber band. Most people don’t stretch their rubber band past the point of sad, but emotions are things that can stretch your limitations. If you get sad, you can quickly bounce back to happy. The issue is if you stretch it out to depression, your capacity of emotions now allows you to find yourself back in depression relatively easily, your rubber band is less stretchy. This compounds itself once you get to a point of ideation, but once you have stretched the capacity all the way to planning and attempts, there is a fundamental difference in how your rubber band works. Now you’ve stretched it to a point where you have rationalized with yourself something you consider to be a good, and rational idea, and you have to convince yourself that you are no longer a reasonable person. Knowing that I am a reasonable person, I have to come to terms that my mind wants to convince me that some of my unreasonable ideas are more reasonable than reality dictates. I will say that I am no longer in a rush to take a deep sleep, but I also know that at one point in my life, that seemed like a reasonable decision. Those thoughts still exist, and because my rubber band has stretched to its capacity, they always exist. I now just have a different relationship with the conversation in my head about the reasonability of that decision with contrast to the progress I have made since I first was forced to navigate through that thought process.”

She didn’t have an immediate response. This is a conversation I have had with my therapist, but never a traditional medical provider. She finally asked a follow-up question.

“What do you do to help with that?”

“I occasionally take a healthy dose of psilocybin to help me refocus my perspective on living.”

“Well, we aren’t really on that side of medicine, so I can’t recommend doing that.”

“That’s fine, you don’t need to recommend it, you just need to know I do it. I thought the whole part of building a relationship with a doctor is to be transparent so you can give the best possible care.”

“Which we appreciate, but we would definitely be on the side of established medical science. Are you looking at trying to move into a more traditional route of maintenance with SSRI’s?”

“Absolutely not.”

This story has less to do with being argumentative with my medical team, and more of a reflection of how I recognized an aspect of my personality. I enjoy my ability to communicate directly, regardless of how it makes others feel in the moment. However, if I want to be able to expand my reach, which I do, I should develop a method of communication that is more attractive to others without losing the authenticity of my message that I feel is core to who I am.

So, circling back to the original concept, the question must be asked, “Why is self development important to me?” The answer comes down to a core value I hold. To me, life is about building relationships, and the ones I value the most are authentic in nature. Masking and mirroring your personality will never develop authenticity in yourself, and being stand-offish will ineffectively attract others to the place you stand. In stripping off layers that were previously built up to protect myself, or to fulfill the perceived expectations that others had of me, I found the authentic version of myself. Personal development is a concept I wish I would have recognized the value of twenty years sooner, as I feel like I would have prevented significant headache and heartbreak, but now I can move forward, emboldened by the fact that the person I am working on, is a much more attractive than the man I am today, and that is what motivates me to keep pressing forward.