Glamping up the Depression Hole
When you fall into the dark hole - furnish that hole.
Your metaphors - your furnishings
In the not too distant past, I fell into a hole.
A hole of I suppose you could call it, depression…
There were many many many reasons for this and one day I may list them all up for your delight and delectations.
But for now, I’ll just tell you this.
As I was sitting on my beloved sofa. The pillowy, comfy friend of soft furnishings.
With my mind in terror at what a hideous person I was and how I fell short in so many areas and I got all the privilege and all the opportunities and why couldn’t I just get it together and why am I supposed to worship billionaires and what’s going on with my subpar abundance mindset and do I have a scarcity mindset and I’m homesick but I haven’t got the energy to even check Google Flights and the thought of booking the goddam thing fills me with dread - God how can I be so thoroughly useless and hopeless. I don’t even have fucking kids. I’m 47 for god’s sake, why can’t I get my shit together. ***friend’s name*** jets to all the places all the time - and not only that she has multiple children that she fed WITH HER OWN BODY. And I can’t even face Google Tokyo to Heathrow. Hole hole hole. Shame shame shame.
Valentin Lacoste
Soil slips under my feet with each and every internal neurological terrorist attack on my lovely lovely self.
I even quite like myself - rationally I know that. I know my heart, my intentions and my work in the world.
I know my work and vocation and my worth.
So why is they evil terrorist neurone just firing firing firing with all her goddam might.
Keeping me up at night.
Beating my heart right out of its little chest cavity
I’m disgusting, I look terrible in clothes and out of clothes, I’m ashamed - how can I even be in the world - who the hell too I think I am to even coach anyone when I’m like this. I have awful table manners, and probably spend my whole life with food in my teeth, My disgusting yellow teeth. I shouldn’t even be out in public. All my clothes are disgusting - I used to enjoy them. I’m gross.
Oh - I’ve picked up an actual shovel now - I’m actually shovelling dirt from beneath my own feet in the hole, throwing it to the top of the hole, then allowing it to gently fall back onto me. Mocking. When did body image become an issue for me? Fookin hell. This wasn’t on my PofA. This was NEVER part of the equation. What prompted this body shame? Oh yes - that. Shovel. Dig.
Even my past goddam lives mock me from afar - and on the retreat I said too much, cried too much, and on the photos I look LITERALLY DISGUSTING. Like Jabba the Hutt with all the lithe, tan women - how the hell did I even think I was allowed to be in the room on the retreat with all the lovely nice vulnerable lovelies when I am such a fat bag of shite. There’s something wrong with me. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH why can’t I just be like <friend B> What IS WRONG WITH ME. I probably ruined the retreat for everyone (I didn’t but I’ve convinced myself I did. Rather the bitch-faced neurone terrorist has convinced me of that).
And in my soil-haired shovel-wielding, hole digging madness. A good to honest depressive meltdown, mini-break. Down. I take a breath.
And DECLARE.
HOW DO I GET OUT OF THIS HOLE?
Then a bit quieter I look up and I think how to I get out of this hole?
Well, stop shovelling is one thing.
So I stop shovelling.
Quiet.
How do I get out of this hole?
Do I scramble up, Sadoko style, clawing, leaving finger-nails in the walls, feeling the soil collapse beneath my feet as I scramble scramble scramble.
I’m a bit tired to be honest.
And by tired I mean exhausted - all this neurone-hijack, shovelling and self-flagellation takes mental and physical toll.
All that shovelling got me bone tired.
So I sit on my sofa and think…
hmmmmmmmmm…
…
My metaphor.
My rules.
…
My metaphor. My rules.
My hole. My choice. (Apply this across the board)
And so I think.
I quite like it in here.
All dark.
And earthy.
Dark and velvety.
I can actually lie down.
The earth is soft and cool.
It’s like a comforting cocoon.
And I do feel like cocoon soup.
I ain’t going anywhere.
Nowhere.
I am not going anywhere.
For now.
So I decide to do some interior design on my hole.
Now is not the time for strategising, physically climbing or even shouting my way out of this hole.
No, now is the time for keeping it real, bedding down and using this lovely hole as a lovely little protection for my fragile wee self until the neuro-terror has subsided or at least reduced in intensity and frequency.
Or even - given that this hole is entirely in my own mind, that I educe the height of the sides of the wall.
I am exactly where I want to be.
I dreamed this hole up - so how can I dream it better?
Jimmy Conover
Cushions.
Blankets.
Coziness.
I’m staying right here in my hole.
Come on neuro-terror - I’m here for you. Do your worst. I’ll be under this very luxurious blanket, in this carpet-lined hole. I’m carpeting the walls as we speak.
Glamping if you will.
Depression glamping. #depressionglamping
And rather than fight this feeling.
Rather that add one more to-do onto my to-do list so the neuro-terrorist can take it and turn it into a frisbee of steel and razor edges and throw it back at me.
I change my tack.
To do:
Me: Get better - get out of this depression hole - fight way out of hole
Wolfgang Hasselmann
Neuro-terror (NT): BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Alternative to-do:
Me: Hi there NT - take a seat, pull up a cushion, get under my blanket. We’re here for the long hall. I love you - you have much to tell me. Probably starting with - you did WAY TOO MUCH in the last 10 months and I think you just need a rest. A down time. A get-off social media. A glamp. In our soil cavern. With the carpets and the cushions and the blankets and let’s put a few books in and some videos and a shower of podcasts, but hey, let’s hand the social media passwords over - no time for that chatter, or Twitter. EVEN INSTAGRAM - the scroll of delicious. Yes even that. I could die of boredom looking at Linkedin; There’s only so many reposts of the HBR and Business Insider I can manage in one sitting. (And my community were practising this stuff HBR labels ‘revolutionary’ stuff ten years ago. Sometimes 20). So I think I’ll be safe there, but hey - why not hand it over to Archangel Laura while we’re at it shall we?
NT - excellent - here, have a glass of wine or are you abstaining from that too?
SF - NOPE - hand it over.
NT - how long will we be here?
SF - No idea - as long as it takes. Let’s get comfortable.
NT - love you
SF - love you
My metaphor my rules.
I feel better already.