On Learning From Your Mistakes (And Why I Am Awful At This)

If there is some sort of omnipresent being that brought our universe into creation on a whim, she/he/it has a cruel and unusual sense of humour. As well as having to suffer through needless atrocities such as damp socks, microwaves that don't heat the centre of frozen pies and Australian politics, our most efficient way to learn is not by observing, but rather by doing... and then completely fucking everything up. These fuck-ups, or "mistakes" if one is in polite company (so, nowhere even close to my presence) are the foundation to our ability to grow and develop. You make the mistake of touching a stove, burn yourself, feel pain and never do it again. You decide it's a good idea to invest in male hoisery, go bankrupt and are laughed all the way to the centrelink queue and the dual sting of embarrassment and financial hardship ensure that you'll never dare foray into men's fashion ever again.

It's a very bitter and confusing place.

For those of you who like to maintain that they are perfect specimens of humanity who never complete flawed actions and perform excretions that smell like a rose garden, you can take your fragrant-smelling fecal products, bag 'em up and fuck right off to the nearest gastroenterologist. Here is a simple truth. Every human being that has ever walked this planet has made a mistake at least once in their short existence, no matter how shockingly insignificant. This is what truly unites humanity- not our comadre, our spirit of brotherhood, our ability to love, but our ability to approach any number of tasks and systematically fuck them up. This ranges from trying to put together furniture from IKEA and somehow instead ended up with one less limb to yet again finding yourself confused and alone because, whoops, you completely misread a situation and accidentally alienated someone important to you. In both cases, loudly yelling swearwords into your pillow can relieve some of your immense emotional distress, but there will still be a considerable amount of time where you'll be thinking "Oh GOD, why did I fuck up THIS badly?". Well, tough luck there champ. It's a life lesson. You'll learn.

Well, in theory, you'll learn. In reality, if you're as thick-skulled as I am, it'll take quite a few mental batterings to force the lesson into your squishy little brain. Let me tell you, while I like to think of myself as a pretty intelligent little human, I can be unbelievably dense when it comes to repeating my mistakes. At least there's comfort taken in acknowledging that I'm conscious of it. There are far too many people in this world who sleep walk their way through existence, unable to stop the trail of destruction left in their wake as their unwillingness to wake up to their own behaviour gradually tears away everything they hold dear. This, I believe, is why so many people end up dying alone and confused... something I am terrified of. When I exit this mortal coil, I would like to be able to say that I not only left at peace with myself, but also feeling like I spent a worthy amount of time connecting with those I hold dear. I truly believe that identifying these faults within myself is one of the steps to getting there.

One of my most frequently committed mistakes I've made in my nineteen years on this planet is never allowing myself the proper time and space needed to heal. If you've been following this blog since its humble, rambling beginnings late last year, you may have come to the realisation that the last six months or so have been a challenging time for me. Probably no more challenging than what the average person experiences in their existence, but because I am a terribly emotional and introspective little creature, the whole ordeal left me completely and utterly drained. By the time I exited my first semester at university, I was genuinely afraid of how exhausted I felt. Even the smallest of actions, such as filling out a form to apply for my academic withdrawal, left me teary, anxious and tired of being alive. This filled me with a deeply unsettling confusion. How on earth could my energy levels and coping resources be this low? I wasn't currently experiencing any trauma. I'd taken a week away from uni when my grandmother died. I'd dropped out of my courses and no longer had to deal with the rigours of exam season. Why did I still feel like I was only centimetres away from plunging over the edge?

Think this, but less cute.

Because, in all fact, I was. For all my sporadic days off, missed lectures and weekends home, I had done fuck all to address the fact that yes, I was emotionally damaged. Instead of taking time to regroup and know myself, instead of realising that because all the pain I was holding inside me, I no longer had any clear picture of who I was, I just kept putting myself in more and more situations that only damaged me further. The first step in overcoming any sort of personal trauma is to begin to know and love yourself again. Sadly, because of years of low self esteem, I had forgotten how to feel anything but utter contempt for myself. Most of the time, it wasn't even conscious. Faced with tasks that would be difficult to people not experiencing extreme distress, I called myself weak and commanded that I toughen up, keep it all inside and get through it. Of course, while some people advocate this approach, I do not. I believe that people need time to grieve, and we often underestimate how long that time will take. Anyway, this approach culminated in a very public mental breakdown and after being persuaded to get help, I realised that my inability to love and cherish myself was perpetuating my cycle of misery.

OR that is what I would have learnt, had I managed to keep this lesson in mind. But of course, I didn't. What I did instead was mistakenly assume that because I temporarily felt a little happier and lighter, all my issues had magically fixed themselves. Woo, look at me, I'm so good at therapy, two sessions later and I'm a brand new human being! This was not a good assumption. While I was definitely doing better than I had in the last four months, my emotional wellbeing was still a mess of scar tissue and scabbed-over wounds. I was healing, but only up to that crucial stage where if I wasn't careful and knocked about the half-healed mass, I would begin to bleed again. But of course, oblivious in my cocoon of new-found joy and interest in life, I paid no heed and went straight back out into the world, my battered heart out on display for everyone to see. Of course, this didn't really work out well for me.

Pretty much me, waiting for the realisation to hit.

Existing in a place of emotional vulnerability while simultaneously being blind to it is a strange experience. There is a definite sense of displacement. You feel like you should be living entirely in the present, without a care in the world... and yet, there's still a strange fluttering sensation in your chest. The nagging thought that all could suddenly go wrong in less time than it takes to blink. You think you're happy, but you still wake yourself up occasionally at 3AM with your own restless murmuring. You still feel lost at times. Everything feels like it should make sense, but it doesn't. It's a state of utter, half-manic confusion.

During this time, I went on a two and half week to Adelaide, which did wonders to address my burnt-out feelings. For that glorious time, I was almost completely free of worry. I had isolated myself from all of my troubles, and boy, did that escapism feel good. I was also lucky enough to be surrounded by a group of patient and kind individuals, who were content to let me work at sorting out my issues and finding myself (although I'm fairly certain they were all sick of my tears by the end of it). However, that these issues were still popping up at the back of my mind should have been a warning sign. I was better, but there was still so much more healing to go. Truthfully, there still is, and all of this became painfully apparent when I returned home.

My first night back in my apartment in Brisbane felt oddly surreal. Here I was, just off a plane, oddly alert despite being awake for almost 32 hours straight and everything just felt wrong. Everything felt too busy and rushed. The very air felt like static biting against my skin. I couldn't shake the sense that everything I had been avoiding was going to crash down upon me like a tidal wave. This feeling continued for a couple of days, until I had a massive anxiety attack in my bedroom about a week later. Fortunately, this was less an indicator of things to come, and more a wake-up-call to my need to properly address my wounded self.

To my credit, I think I handled this latest bout of extreme anxiety well. In the past, I would cry and hiccup my way into a state of exhaustion and then collapse on my bed, forming what a friend of mine likes to call "an anxiety burrito" in my blankets. This time, the crying lasted less than an hour, and instead of dealing with it on my own, I called someone. This is a pretty big deal for me. You see, because I find it incredibly difficult to relate to most people (probably due to my own bitterness), I rarely feel okay with talking to someone about how I feel. There's a few reasons for this. Probably the number one reason is because when I do share my problems with people, I rarely feel like they're understood. This is absolutely no ones fault. I accept that I have some shit in my life that is hard to relate to. I also accept that many people in my life, while they love me to pieces, don't really have a good grasp of what's going on in my head. Again, all of this is fine. I pass no judgement and it does not make me love anyone any less.

So I called someone, and that was a step forward. I may as well mention that it wasn't a close friend. No, on this occasion, I decided to call a crisis helpline. It's not the first time I've done this. And you know what? I'm pretty happy they exist. Having one kind-hearted person willing to listen to you cry and snuffle over the phone when you don't feel like there's anyone else you can turn to is very important, even if they are a stranger. I have had a few heartwarming experiences with helplines and also a few that I don't care to remember (note to anyone looking to comfort someone highly emotional- do not fucking suggest that they check themselves into a psych ward. I have enough to deal with without someone assuming that I'm so crazy that I'm a danger to myself and others, thank you very much. I was just having a bad day and that was hardly an appropriate thing to say to a heartbroken 16 year old girl). Luckily for me, on this occasion, I definitely had an experience that really changed my perception of my life.

Because I come from what people might describe as a "broken home" and also because I was taught to be independent from a very young age, I have never really felt like I've had a nurturing presence in my life. Most of the time this doesn't bother me. Sure, I had my moments in my youth where I burned with envy over people whose mothers still made them packed lunches, or people who could go home after a weekend away and have their uniform washed and dried for them. But that's all in the past now.

That being said, sometimes in my sadder moments, I long for someone to take care of me. This doesn't mean in a romantic sense- no one should ever be that reliant on someone they are in a partnership with- but more a motherly figure. Someone who will sit me down, let me cry, give me sympathy and comfort but also provide advice and force me to see around my own emotions. I was lucky enough to find this mythical matronly figure on the other end of the line.

The counsellor handling my call was called Shelly, and although we were only speaking on the phone, she immediately enveloped me in an abundance of warmth and care. This woman was definitely a mother- you could hear it in her voice- and she knew exactly what to say to calm me down and make me see clearly. She let me know that it was okay to feel upset. Although I wasn't aware of it, I had been trivialising my own problems, unwilling to acknowledge that with all the hurt I experienced, I had a right to feel sad. As Shelly explained, trauma does not suddenly go away because these hurtful events in your life have passed. It lingers, and follows you around like a malevolent shadow. If you aren't incredibly careful, it can poison other aspects of your life, which only increases your suffering.

We talked for about an hour, and she imparted wisdom on me that I will never forget. I would prefer that most of what was said stays between her and I, but there is one thing I would like to share from our conversation. It is a simple piece of advice and has been repeated numerous times, but I know I had overlooked its truth until now.

You cannot love others without first loving yourself.

On the surface, the meaning of this phrase seems pretty obvious. Okay, so, you don't like yourself, right? Well then, how the fuck can you expect to have healthy personal relationships? Obviously your self-loathing will impact on your loved ones, because there's nothing worse than seeing someone you're close to that doesn't love or respect themselves. However, I have taken deeper meaning from it. As well as impacting on your ability to have healthy relationships, putting yourself out there for others is so much more draining when you haven't taken care of yourself first. Before you can nurture the people you love, you need to be in your own place of strength and tranquillity. Only then are you able to give them what they need without damaging yourself further.

Not loving myself is a mistake that I have been repeating for almost a decade now. Its impact has been felt in many aspects of my life- my friendships, my passions, my ability to handle the hurdles of everyday existence, the health of my relationships. Although I wish I could have learnt all this sooner, and saved myself a lot of pain, I am still thankful for the learning experience. Truthfully, I am reaching a new level of security in my self and it's a wonderful feeling. From first working on myself, I am now gaining the capacity to interact with my outside world, one gentle smile at a time.