So yesterday morning I think I had one of the worst starts to my day in a very long time. Ironically, I ended up laughing more that I had in a long time. Hear me out. See here’s the thing, one of my unhealthy traits my therapist had tried to get me to see was that sometimes what people with anxiety or depression do is catastrophize. Thankfully she also showed me there is a way to combat that, which is to practice gratitude. This is one of the simplest concepts to say, but for me, it still is one of THE most difficult to put into practice. Here’s why: Everything about my life has in someway reinforced that I don’t belong, that people don’t like me, that I am not wanted, and that I am nor will I ever be good enough. These are thoughts that are hardwired into my brain like paths in the tall grass that have been walked over and over. Nothing grows there and when walking through this particular field of my thoughts it’s easy to find because the tall grass covering the path has been repeatedly beat into submission.
The same principle applies to your thoughts. If we are told over and over that we don’t deserve happiness or love, then we won’t feel worthy enough to even look for it, let alone keep it should we stumble upon it. And on the off chance there might actually be someone that comes into our life, it’s pretty likely that the relationship will not be a healthy one. Most likely we will be so shocked that someone actually loves us, we build our entire lives around that person and will do, say, and give anything to keep them. That’s what makes us prime targets for people to take advantage of us. And this pattern is set on repeat. So it becomes normal for us to suffer. It becomes normal for us to think that every bad thing that happens in life is somehow proof that we don’t deserve good things. That we don’t deserve a chance at happiness. In our personal life, in our professional, or academic life. It doesn’t matter in what area of our life we’re talking about, none of those good things are what we should have and we honestly believe that. It’s automatic thinking for us because there is a pathway of pain and rejection already defined for us. And it’s our own minds that have been repeatedly beat into submission.
So for someone to tell us that we can get ourselves out of this pattern simply by trying to be grateful for what we do have, it’s like telling someone with a bad sunburn to be grateful that people keep hugging you. It doesn’t make sense. Especially when one of those events is trauma, physical or emotional. For example, I was in a really bad car accident in July. I am a full time college student so I drove for Uber in between classes for money. Well, I got injured and it was pretty painful to walk. I had to have a procedure that was excruciating and physical rehab with some seemingly sadistic physical trainer. And, I’m supposed to be grateful for this? This. The pain and the tears and the frustration is what I’m supposed to be thankful for?? What in the frosted flakes fuck do you mean??
Well, yes and no. My therapist was very empathetic to my plight and in no way did she ever diminish my pain or frustration. Yet, when I was done crying in one session she gently asked me, “James, your feelings are totally valid and you have every right to be mad but there is something I want you to know. That I am grateful you were not catastrophically injured.” She went on to explain that based on the description of what happened she had seen people who were severely injured in accidents similar to mine, so even though she could empathize with how frustrated I was, she was very grateful that physically speaking I could walk away from the accident. At first, I think I was silent. I didn’t know how to take this gratitude. I had never had someone validate my frustration or anger over my mental pain. My first memory of trying to express myself to my father came about by accident and it did not go well. In the 6th grade, I was passing notes to a classmate and in it I had expressed that I was depressed since everything felt like it was going wrong with my life. Well, it just so happened that Mr. Whiting intercepted that note and gave it to my father. My father in turn, sat me down and told me what “..a bunch of bologna” that was and that I had no right to feel that way. So that emotional validation was different than what I was used to. So when I had been silent for a minute my therapist asked if I was grateful for anything about the accident? At this point I admittedly became a bit frustrated because she was, albeit as gently as possible, trying to get me to think off the mental path I had nicely worn down for myself in the field that are my thoughts. No I’m not grateful because my path tells me this has been and will always be the norm.
My thinking was that I was frustrated because I was just going home from school when this accident happened, and even though I know there is no giant conspiracy in the universe to “take James out” it felt like shitty things always happened at the worst possible time and the fact that shitty things always happen to me was frustrating and upsetting. So my answer to her question of, “have you thought about anything I was grateful for?” was no, of course not. Yet, yesterday I think I finally made some progress in trying to practice this way of thinking. See I don’t have a car anymore so I take a Lyft to work. Now normally the ride is like ten or eleven bucks so it’s no biggie. But for some reason yesterday it was forty dollars. Keep in mind that I live about ten mins away from work so I was pretty irritated about that. I even waited almost an hour for the price to go down. It didn’t. So I decided that I could just be late to work about an hour and thirty min if I just took the bus which is free. Well, I take the bus and I’ll give you one guess what happened. It broke down. So I got out and walked twenty min to work and I’m almost to there when I realize something. The lawn area that I normally walk across to get to work has the sprinklers on, and these things are like industrial strength shoot-water-at-you-in-rapid-fire kind of sprinklers and that’s when I realize I can’t go around. I literally have to walk through them. By this time I’m just about two hours late for work so I try to wait but not too long for them to stop, but nope. They just keep going. After waiting for several minutes I grit my teeth, roll my eyes, pull my hoodie over my head, and walk through them. My jeans were soaked. My hair was wet. My clothes were damp. But here’s the funny part. The second, the absolute second, my foot touches the other side of the lawn…the sprinklers turn off. I slowly turn around and look at the swamp I just traversed to get to where I am and suddenly and very unexpectedly I started laughing. Not just like a little chuckle. I mean it started out that way but it ended up with me doubled over laughing in the middle of the street until I could barely breathe. And that’s how I walked into work. Two hours late, looking like a drowned rat, but for the first time in along time, I was smiling. Like really smiling.
I know that right about now some of you are reading this are thinking, “Yeah she probably lost her shit” but it wasn’t that. Although I do admit to thinking that for a split second, but then I realized what changed the whole thing. You see when I took the bus early that morning, there was a young gentleman who was in a wheelchair. It was one of those electric ones that uses a lever on the armrest to move forward. Now don’t get me wrong, I did not feel sorry for the guy, nor did I pity him. I admired him for getting up so early and starting his day. I admired the fact that he must have a lot of determination to do these things for himself since I didn’t see anyone traveling with him. And when the bus broke down, he didn’t groan like some of the other passengers did, he thanked the bus driver for trying to fix it, took the ramp off the bus and rolled away. It was this guy who in a split second popped into my head the moment the sprinklers turned off. And I was suddenly grateful. I was grateful I could get off the bus and walk the twenty minutes to work. I was grateful I could decide to walk across the lawn after a very serious car accident, even with the sprinklers on, and I was grateful for getting soaked because it meant I had a job I needed to get to. And I was so incredibly grateful that I had the privilege to come across that guy in the wheelchair. In my car accident my airbags had gone off and I was smashed into the car door yet here I was standing in front of my workplace soaking wet, two hours late for my job.
And I was so fucking grateful for all of it.