It is powerful to see yourself from another person's perspective. A healthy unbiased perspective that points you to all wrongs and helps you to see how to fix whatever is wrong. Sounds too good to be true but it is not. That's what I discovered recently.
During the past 12 years I was depressed, high functioning depression that made it so hard for others to spot it, and even sometimes it was so hard for me to spot it. I knew there was something wrong but my vision was too blurred to know I am chronically depressed and I should get some help. I only acknowledged my depression finally when it reached what I describe as the final stage where I was living in continuous survival mode trying to decide if this life is even worth living. The question of life worthiness made me realize that I need help like NOW and act accordingly. There were many issues to seek treatment for, chaos everywhere which made it even harder to find the proper therapy but I would say I was lucky to find the Psychotherapist I found and proceed with my therapy immediately.
I am a relatively crazy person, I love thrill, adventure, and can be dangerously fearless but my first session with the therapist was by far the hardest and most scary thing I have ever done in my whole life. It wasn't because I didn't want to open up or seek treatment but it was because just heading to the unknown of my own self and I am not really sure what I will find, which is very scary especially for a person like me who thought they are so much self-aware of their psyche but obviously I knew NOTHING.
At that point, I was very bad, socially withdrawn, lost lots of weight, and was barely functional. But I was very excited about the therapy and thought I will be done in no time. The first stage was quite easy, though many practices we tried to reactivate the feeling good part of my life through some activities and basic shifts in behaviors. All was great and I enjoyed that part very much. Until the period where I started to feel better and thought the therapy wasn't doing much good for me. I started to have flashbacks, horrible nightmares, and grinding my teeth all night without having an obvious reason. I decided to quit, and I was so arrogantly sure that I am already fine, so I talked with my therapist and after a heated discussion, we agreed to continue.
To be completely honest I only agreed to continue out of stubbornness, to see what he will reveal more and I was quite confident he won't find much but... I was completely wrong and only then the real therapy started.
The second part was the hardest after we agreed to continue and discussed the issues I had to ask myself an honest question: what Am I scared of? and I had to discover that I was afraid to lose myself as I know it now. I was afraid to acknowledge that my favorites parts of my character "protectors" are also the villains who caused my depression. I wasn't ready to give up that because I felt vulnerable, exposed, and weak. I had a crisis; if I am not the strong, wise, emotionless, and logical Manal then who Am I? how I will respect myself? and how I will be confident and be proud of myself? I was confused about how what made me the person I like also made me the person I dislike at this period.
All of this didn't make much sense especially I always thought I was very conscious even about my unconscious but I couldn't be more wrong. I had to rediscover my "protectors" and how they function together to make me unbalanced by trying to overprotect me from any harm, it was my hunter instinct that was unable to survive or adapt in modern life and needed a little bit of coaching and therapy to realize life is not always a hunt, war or struggle of survival. And I had to question my sacred logic and see that what is logical can be not so logical under a different light. All this was so scary, so threatening that in so many times I acted so not myself and felt many times that I was fighting with my ego that wanted to keep all the parts of me even if that meant to stay as I was depressed and unhappy.
While I was at this stage I tried LSD, it was also one of the things I was scared to take, I tried few things and always didn't hesitate to try but when it came to LSD I was so damn scared. I didn't know if I was healthy mentally enough to trip inside my head but I was as well so eager to know how that will affect my thinking. I tried it and to be honest it was the best decision I made in my whole life, the timing with my therapy made a perfect combination of self-discovery and I was able to put many feelings and thoughts into perspective. It wasn't that out-of-space experience, I just had better consciousness of my thought patterns and behavioral locks that kept me in the same place for years. I was capable to shut down my ego when I need it and more important to realize when my ego is talking. That was both enjoyable and extremely hard, I loved this because for me rediscovering yourself is one of the most important things in life and to have a clear unbiased inner perspective is the ultimate thing that can happen but unfortunately it is not that easy. It requires a lot of things that I am not even going to bother and describe here because I know for a certainty that most the people reading now thinks they already have it and continue practicing it.
All the struggle, problematic traits, and chaos step by step started to merge into one harmonious entity within me; quite self-aware not only of my thoughts but with physical and emotional interaction with the world and instead of behaving all the time in fight/survival mode I started swiftly to follow my own physical sensations and emotional urges. All fell into place and suddenly instead of creating scenarios in my head and living in my own thoughts I just started to live in the moment and act accordingly. At the beginning of this stage, my therapist was quite shocked and had his own doubts, I wouldn't blame him since he only knew half of the truth and probably my progress was rapid that he wasn't sure I really got the point or I am trying to convince him of something (or at least that was my impression of his reactions toward me during sessions). But the truth is I was changing rapidly and I was surprised how my behavioral and mental habits shifted so quickly, I wouldn't say I was superhuman although I would like to believe so I genuinely believe that LSD helped me a lot during this journey. I feel the way my mental capabilities shifted and enhanced and every day I live with this feeling of extreme awareness of my surroundings, people, and myself in a very harmonious way (sometimes overwhelming even) but I would rather live in this awakening than to be dead from the inside as I was before.
The most awesome part about this stage was how I saw people change based on my new behaviors toward them and I was extremely shocked to see them open like beautiful flowers when they are touched by vulnerabilities, love, and genuine emotions. I discovered that no matter how badass, cold-hearted people pretend to be; the moment they are touched by the warmth of genuine fearless emotions all the ice melts and reveals the most beautiful relationships and people. And that was so overwhelming to see before my own eyes and feel with my own heart.
Meanwhile, the most asked question I got during the therapy from my friends was; did you discover anything new? Or what change you had to make? To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how to answer that, I needed some time to reflect on the whole thing and understand how this fucking happened!!!
After a while I just realized I didn't really change or discover anything completely new, I actually very much went back to practice my habits when I was a kid which was very ironic at the beginning. But then once it settled it made so much sense; I remembered how much happy and level-minded I was although I was quite young. So, the answer to that question is, I only had to practice self-awareness and go to my uncorrupted self! as easy as that might seem, trust me when I say IT IS NOT. To be able to be truly self-aware you need to discover what is usually holding you back (during the therapy we called them my protectors like perfectionism - avoidance - judgment) you have to define when is good to use them and when is bad; and how they affect your life positively and negatively. This part is the hardest ever; no matter how good you think you are it is going to be a struggle. Later you have to listen to yourself, and by yourself I mean everything. Not only your thoughts but as well emotions and physical sensation and always question what you really feel. Most of the people I know think they are self-aware because they are self-aware of their thoughts but that's not completely true and I can dare to say it is quite deceiving; at least from where I stand now. Thinking and analyzing is a great tool to make rational decisions but believe it or not when it is not synced with emotional needs and feelings it turns to be very irrational sometimes, which if you ask me was weird to discover and quite shocking. But you will not fully understand it until you try it.
Lastly to react and interact with the world from these three parts of you in sync. To make it more coherent; for example, before, I was thinking while interacting with someone too much and analyze how I should reply or interact back. which was making me instead of listening carefully get into self-discussion and maybe miss important parts of the conversation. But as well I was stopping myself from showing any emotions because I thought I don't want to make the person in front of me feel judged or uncomfortable; which honestly now I think was very ridiculous.
All the time I was living in my head, in my own fear of my own vulnerabilities and that reflected on all my interactions with other people and it was inconsistent because my body was showing different signals while I am behaving. It was as well the furthest from rational; if someone is talking to you they fucking need human interaction and warmth otherwise they will talk to a chair or call some consulting service!!!
Now after my long journey I try to not think so much, I just allow my body to follow my heart and mind and guess what they all in sync. So most of the time there is no inconsistency and no internal fight; if I want to hug someone I do that, if I feel tears in my eyes I don't stop them, and if I get angry, sad, or even happy I completely show it and don't judge myself for my human behavior.
After all, do I think I am done with all of this? Hell not! I think that was just the beginning of a very long journey of self-discovery and I am quite sure with the type of character I have there will be major setbacks to come, but the good thing I can say I have the tools to deal with them one by one before they gather and form a solid mountain that burden my shoulders with unnecessary weight. I know that I love some destructive parts of my existence but I will try always to be aware of how they can be destructive to my own soul which is something I highly regard. Despite all I do to myself I always try to never allow myself "consciously" to corrupt my soul but guess what? I was doing that by being overly overprotective of it. Sometimes it is wiser to let go of our guard and try something completely new despite our own fear.
Although depression wasn't something easy to deal with I am grateful it led me to all these conclusions and allow me to rediscover my own psyche. I think I am sometimes too arrogant to admit many things and if I didn't have the depression to set me back and let me seek help I wouldn't really see the need to see a psychotherapist, but now I discovered that I will need to do that every once in a while. Even when I think I am completely healthy; not only because we are as a human so delusional most of the time but as well it is really great to be able to meet someone who is able to see your bare soul and guide you to a better you. It is certainly so fucking scary but I honestly believe is completely worth the sweat and tears along the way.
We as humans ONLY see what we want to see, and most of the time we refuse to ask the question or seek help because we are deep down are afraid that someone will tell us the bare truth that will require our action and effort to make things different which is extremely hard and goes against our own functioning. Remember that, as Voltaire said once “The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.” so if we want to grow beyond our current selves we always need to challenge our own beliefs and discover something completely new.
Let's see how that will continue working for me :)
Let's see how that will continue working for me :)
