The Opinion of Others in the Context of Me

Hello and welcome to day 10 million of lockdown. I’m your host, Sarah Lorraine Robinson, and on tonight’s top stories we have murder hornets and rain. Let’s send it over to Tracy with the details.

Okay, so there is no Tracy and I will be damned if I am talking about anything with the word murder in it today. There is actually something much more important to discuss and frankly more vital to the world right now: Mental Health Awareness Month. This is absolutely one of my favorites months. Not only because we celebrate the ending of stigma for mental health and because people are especially honest and brave during this time; also because it is not too hot and it is not too cold… all you need is a light jacket. May has great weather.

In all seriousness though, this is something that is near and dear to my heart. Mental Health Awareness is all my blog is about. I celebrate everyday in the conversations I have and the own way I take care of myself. Mental Health, at least for me, is a constant, ongoing focus in my life and I feel so lucky to work in a profession that allows me to follow that passion. To all my fellow mental health professionals I just want to honor you and say thank you for working to end the stigma. This work is so very needed.

For this weeks post there is something specific I wanted to talk about when it comes to mental health. I was scrolling through instagram the other day, for several hours as one does during quarantine, and I came across a picture that said “who are you without the opinion of others?” I stared at the post that was just written in bold, black letters; no fancy image drawing my eye in, just plain text, and I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t look away because I didn’t know how to answer.

I am, in layman terms, a people pleaser. I want people to like me, constantly. I am always concerned about how I am making other people feel. I spend A LOT of time and energy wondering what other people are thinking of me. Honestly, it can be one of the most exhausting parts of my personality. Who am I without the opinion of others? My own brain didn’t even know how to comprehend this question. This led me into a downward spiral. I spent literal days pondering this question. Eventually, the only clear idea I could start to see was that my mental health apparently lies directly on top of the opinions of others.

Well, then I became even more disappointed and when I become disappointed in myself I become mentally abusive. ‘What is wrong with you, Sarah? Why aren’t you stronger? Why don’t you know who you are? Can’t you just stop being a people pleaser? Can’t you just think for yourself? It’s no wonder you are depressed. You only care about other people. Do you even really matter?’ See what I mean by a downward spiral?

I’ve gotten a lot better at those thoughts being momentary and drifting in my life. I hear them out and then they float on by. This time though those voices started to make a connection for me. What are the opinion of others in the context of me? In reality, I don’t know. I’ve never been told by a person they hate me. I’ve rarely received negative feedback. I’m sure they are out there- the haters that is- but I haven’t spoken to them directly. So, this tells me that the opinions of others, those opinions that I am so terrified to hear, are actually just the projection of my own fears. This, my friends, was a lightbulb moment. Of course I am going to think a bunch of random people, who I don’t even know, hate me for a variety of reasons, because apparently I hate me for a variety of reasons. Okay, I don’t hate me, but there all these fears I have about myself, just like any normal human person. I.e. I’m scared of being annoying, so what do I think people are saying behind my back- that I am annoying AF.

What if I were to then change that narrative? What if instead of being scared that I am annoying, I am excited to be brave today? And then maybe someone else gets inspired to be brave today. What if I focus on the things I am striving to be and not the things I am striving not to be? CAN YOU IMAGINE? I can. Over the last day or so I have been trying to do just that, focus on what I want, not what I don’t want. I have to admit.. it has done wonders for my mental health, even in just two days. I’ll provide you an example from my morning run:

I woke up thinking about how today was a running day. The last time I went for a run, I wasn’t able to complete my goal and I became frustrated. This was coincidentally a day I was really thinking about that damn quote. I remember that run being filled with thoughts of ‘how would I run without the opinion of others? would I run at all? why is the sun so damn bright today?’ yada yada yada. So, today I used my new approach. I thought about what I wanted. I didn’t say things like “I don’t want a repeat of last time.” Instead I said things like “I really want to make this goal. I bet it will feel good to meet it.” I even (and this is real hippy dippy, so get ready) imagined myself finishing the goal. That’s right, baby, manifestation at it’s finest. This all led to me being gentler during my run. I said things like “I know you can do this. It isn’t a race, so take your time. You can complete this at any pace you’d like.” And guess what? I did it. I finished my goal and felt so freaking fantastic.

If we add this all up, I guess what I am trying to say is that in reality my mental health did not lay on top of the opinion of others. My mental health was and is about the opinion of myself. It’s those voices, the inner child wounds, the narrative we tell ourselves- those are the opinions we are hearing. The strongest people I know, the ones that could be told to their face that they smell bad and look ugly and they just shrug it off and say ‘eh, guess I wasn’t their type’, they are the ones that have those strong inner narratives.

I am working on that inner narrative. I am working to understand that the most important relationship I have is the one I have with myself and that the opinion of others are irrelevant in this context. If you find yourself in a similar position, always wondering how others see you, try taking some time to sit in those fears and then flip them on their head. What do you want to be? Not, what do you not want to be. And as always if that sounds like too much right now, just try for a moment altering one small word or opinion.

You may be surprised on the impact even the smallest changes can make.

A[wo]men

boom. boom. boom. boom. boom.

it helps to know your heart beats,

only for yourself.

-where to start when changing the narrative

Gut Reactions

Hi friends, it has been a wild ride these last 7 days and I can’t wait to tell you about it. Well, if I am being honest I can’t wait to just let it all out and maybe it will make me feel better and more at ease. Before I dive into the events of the week though, I would like to say that I got a lot of feedback about my winter appreciation post and there are definitely great things about winter that I forgot to include. Most importantly, the solitude found during a winter hike because everyone else is at home afraid of the cold. That is a solid addition to that list.

C/W sexual assault and violence

Now that I’ve updated that, let’s just dive right in shall we. On Friday morning I was in a fantastic mood. I had a delicious breakfast and a great nights rest and it was Friday. Even though I work on Saturdays, Fridays are inherently great because everyone has good energy about the weekend. It rubs off on ya. Here I am boppin’ along, when I get to the train station and realize the D train is crowded AF. I was already cutting it a bit close with getting to work, so I took a deep breath and said ‘Sarah, ya just gotta get on this one. You don’t have time to wait for the next one.’ Some context to this fear of crowded trains might be needed.

My first year in New York I had an internship that required me to take two trains and a bus. It was a nightmare, especially for a new time New Yorker. One day I entered this extremely crowded train. About 2 minutes into the ride, I could feel a man groping my ass. The train was so crowded, I could barely move. I froze. I just remember making eye contact with the woman across from me who could see what was happening and we both had a tear in our eye. In our fight, flight, or freeze response we both seemed to freeze. I couldn’t breathe and immediately got off at the next spot trying to catch my breath. It felt like I was being suffocated. In that moment, I made a vow to never get on a crowded train again if it didn’t feel safe to do so.

Fast forward to Friday, where I felt uncomfortable entering that train, but did it anyway. I even thought to myself ‘Sarah, we don’t like crowded trains.. can’t we just wait for the next one’ but then I was like ‘no, we’ll be late to work then’. There I am, denying my gut response. DAMN YOU CAPITALISM. Then, I get on this train and I was doing everything I could to focus on being calm. This train was so packed I couldn’t even manage to move my arms to take my backpack off, so I left it on not thinking anything of it. I had meditation playing in my head phones, I was rubbing my fingers together, and I was doing some heavy deep breathing just to keep my cool. Then it happened. I felt movement on my back and my brain immediately had me freeze. ‘It’s happening again’ I thought ‘this man behind me is trying to touch me.’ I focused even more on my breathing as the train conductor announced “folks, we are stopped due to some train traffic ahead of us. Should be moving shortly.”

When I get in situations where I start to feel panicked I repeat to myself ‘you are safe. you are safe. you are safe.’ I also knew I had to do something to get this man to stop what he was doing. I made eye contact with him and began to shift my body so he wouldn’t have access to my backside. The movement from behind ceased after the eye contact and the train began to move again. As we pulled up to the next stop this man said ‘oh, is this grand street?’ in a very booming voice. All I could think in my head was please leave, please leave. He bolted off the train and I felt like I could breathe again.

The following stop was my own. I took another deep breathe said ‘you are safe’ and started walking to work. As I was nearer too my job, I went to pull out my ID to get into work. Moving my backpack forward I noticed my zippers were open and I realized what had actually happened. That person behind me was not trying to touch me, he was stealing from me. I dug into my backpack to find my wallet was missing. I was upset, but also very aware that the things in that wallet are replaceable. Except for the business card I kept in there from my first job as a real life social worker, but what are ya gonna do? I cancelled my cards. I took a deep breath, I tried to move on with the day. I even saw a patient. It was helpful to talk to someone else. After my first patient I went to grab my chap stick from my front pocket… That’s when I realized, he also stole my keys.

I couldn’t breathe. Again, I didn’t care about the keys themselves, those are replaceable as well. However, all I could think was that this man now has my address and my keys. He can get into my building. He can steal more of my things. He can hurt me. I made eye contact with this person and knew exactly what he looked like. My imagination is incredible, both a blessing and a curse. I went into full blown panic attack mode as images of this person entering my home and hurting me kept sweeping across my brain. It was like a scary movie that I couldn’t turn off. Anxiety looks different for many people. For me, it is often in the form of images that play in my head over and over and over. I try to use mindfulness and deep breathing to “let the images pass like a cloud” but sometimes that bullsh*t doesn’t work; sometimes all I can do is let the anxiety take over. And I think it’s okay to let it take over. It was telling me that something wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t okay.

I left work and started to break down the things I had to do. Call landlord, cry, get locks changed, cry, go to police station, cry. FYI, my landlord, who was extremely unhelpful, shared that she would not be changing the front door lock because “it’s too many keys to replace”. Welcome to New York, where money is more important that the safety of humans.  So, this man does not have access to my apartment but can still get into my building. Also, the cops were just okay. I am scared of police stations and that made me cry more. They also couldn’t decide who has jurisdiction for like a full hour because I was on a moving train. COOL. I am not exhausted or anything. Thanks for your speedy assistance.

So what is the point of all of this? Well, many people have told me it’s a lesson. A lesson to not keep all your credit cards in one place and to not keep your backpack on your back and you know, all the blaming done to people that have a crime done to them. I, of course, think I learned all of these things, but that wasn’t the real lesson for me. The real lesson for me, and that I want to share with all of you, is about listening to the gut.

9 times out of 10 when my gut is telling me something, I tend to ignore it. Perhaps it’s from years of being told I was “crazy” “overreacting” and “stupid” when my gut would start to tell me something. Now, I often chalk it up to anxiety or being dramatic or the moon. I would like to call bullsh*t on it right now. I have suffered from anxiety and depression for about as long as I can remember. Both are significantly better, but are also used as an excuse to not listen to how we’re feeling. It’s a fine line understanding when it’s your anxiety and when it’s a man actually stealing from you and invading your personal space. Where do we draw the line and is it even a line? Does it oscillate between the two, combining reality and fears? How do I know when to listen to myself and how do I know when to not?

I think that is it really. We should always be listening to ourselves. There shouldn’t be a time that I think my thoughts are irrelevant or not important; whether it is my anxiety or not, my brains only goal is to protect myself. My anxiety is a part of me and all my parts of me care if I survive. Why shouldn’t I listen to that?

I want to clarify- I think we should do things that scare us. I want to jump out of a plane one day and I know my anxiety is going to be like ‘girllll, you cray,’ but there is a difference between feeling comfortable with the fear versus feeling frozen with fear. If I am to the point where I feel like I can’t breathe, I need to be able to listen to that. I need to be able to say something is not right here and I don’t have to brush it off or take a deep breathe to change the way my brain is working. I want to be able to say that I don’t think I should get on this train and then no get on the train.

Society today seems to be so insistent on quick changes, on deep breathes, and slowing down. Sometimes, it doesn’t help to slow down; sometimes we need to be alert and respond. This is all to say, that you, my lovely reader, are the expert of your own being. You should listen to your body and trust that no matter how you are feeling, there is a message behind the feeling, a message saying ‘I want to keep you safe’.

Stay safe my friends and maybe don’t go on crowded trains. I am re-entering that vow with myself.

A[wo]men

Go f*** yourself.

-A poem for my robber