We Are Allowed

I’ve just finished watching two videos made by two friends of mine from Galway, each discussing mental health, posted on their facebook pages. Both of them spoke with such passion and understanding about their own experiences with depression, anxiety and mental health services that are (and aren’t) available in my hometown. I think I speak the truth when I say that everyone has internal struggles the rest of the world doesn’t know about. Everyone has fears, problems, stress, worries. The issue is that some people try and stuff these issues down deep inside them, refuse to adknowledge them or hide their realities from people who can help. I am guilty of this myself.

We live in a world now where we are constantly bombarded by information and media that tells us how to feel, what to do, what we should look like, eat, wear, do…it’s brainwashing at it’s finest and even though we’re aware of it, know it’s not healthy we, I mean I, will easily wile away my first hour of the day in bed, scrolling through Instagram absorbing negative subliminal messages that make me feel inadequate and unworthy. Which perpetrates the vicious circle of aiming to portray perfection in public and the whole spiral keeps spinning. The side effect of all this for me, is the true story, the harsh reality, stays hidden, unless I can make a funny, self depreciating, cynical post about it at my own expense of course. Because if you hate on yourself, other people won’t, that’s how it works right?!?

I say that 2018 was a great year for me, and it was, I did some cool jobs, got to travel loads, met amazing people and spent lots of time with my family. But 2018, and every year since I left school, was plagued by constant self doubt and criticism, feelings of insecurity and not being good enough, crippling loneliness and guilt, with a hefty dose of stress thrown in for good measure. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I did a bang up job of not showing any of that outside the four walls of my bedroom. When its 4 in the morning and I’m craving sleep but my brain has other ideas, here are some of the thoughts that won’t stop bombarding me.

Will I ever fall in love? Why would anyone want me? Are my parents proud of me? Have I done enough to deserve their pride? Do they resent me becoming a performer? Did I waste my life chasing an impossible dream? Will I ever be a strong enough dancer? What would have happened if I had gone to Urdang? Am I too fat? Not pretty enough? I should get botox. Where are my cheekbones? I need filler. I need to drop two dress sizes. Is this adult adolescence going to last forever? Will I turn thirty and have nothing to show for it? Am I ever going to be able to REALLY support myself and stop living hand to mouth? How do I become an adult? Why do I care? Are my friends mad at me? Did I ruin our relationship? Are they pissed at me for leaving? Do they think I’m crazy to keep dancing? Why do I care? Why have I been single for so long? How come I push people away? What is it about me that they don’t like? When will I be enough? When will I be enough? When will I be enough?

I saw a counsellor for a few months back in 2015 when I was dealing with a lot of these “good enough” issues and although it was terrifying initially, I started to look forward to my sessions because they provided me with a safe space where I could say anything judgement free. The only person who was judging me was myself, one of the hardest things to get past. Some days, I couldn’t believe the stuff coming out of my mouth, had no idea I felt so strongly or had been holding on to so much pain and fear. The past year, I really needed something similar but London makes you tough. It has forced me to work unholy hours of the night, makes me fight to do the simplest things like getting my groceries because nothing is easy when you live a bus ride away from Tesco on top of the steepest hill in Greenwich. London makes me think I don’t need human companionship because I’m constantly surrounded by strangers. I isolate myself and sometimes weeks go by without me touching another person with affection. So London has made me struggle and overcome so much, just to still be here, it has also convinced me that my anxiety, my stress and my mental health are not as important as paying your rent, avoiding rush hour and scrolling Instagram in bed. I’ve cried myself to sleep because the devil on my shoulder has made me believe I would burden my friends and family if  I reached out to them. “You cause enough stress to your parents, they don’t need to know how much of an emotional wreck you are, you’ll only worry them. Your friends have just as much going on, don’t be selfish and distract them from their own lives.” I’ve called the Samaritans, desperate to feel better, only to hang up when I get a volunteer because I don’t want to hear the ugly truth in my voice.  Yet, I know if any friend called me up in this situation I would be over there with both my ears open, ready to listen and ready to help.

In 2019, I’m so stressed and freaked out about money, work, job, career that I’ve given myself a psoriasis flare up and if you were around me the time I did my Leaving Cert, you’ll know this is not a good look. My eyes are also giving me problems, completely dried out and bloodshot and sore, also down to stress according to Dr. Google. I’m really trying not to let my habit of self sabotage and procrastination to drag me down but I’m turning 28 in March and the future is terrifying this close to 30. Most of the time I live in the now and don’t really care for the conventional life plan (the words “settle down” make me nauseous). But then there’s the time when my mind is screaming at me, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE? WHATS THE PLAN? WHY DON’T YOU HAVE IT WORKED OUT?

I also know that I’m not alone in these feelings, that my generation are attempting to “adult” in a super weird time in history and it all just feels like we’re flailing in the ice cold Atlantic ocean as we watch the Titanic sink. I mean, my mom owned her own gaff in Dublin at 27 and was renting it out while she shacked up with my dad in Australia. Talk about unachievable! Especially, my fellow performers, who have invested all of our time, money, heart and soul into an industry that can give so very little in return sometimes and does not encourage healthy behaviours. One of my closest friends had a teacher who encouraged her students to make themselves sick if they ate too much over Christmas. I can’t even go into how angry I was when I heard that. Being an artist means you have no separation between life and work because what we do is WHO WE ARE. We are at the mercy of the audition panel, the casting director, the grant holders and the expectations and demands placed on us grow every year. But something inspires us to keep going. I don’t know what it is for me anymore, maybe the fear that I’m not good at anything else, that I’m too old and poor to start from scratch and what would I even do when I’ve spent my whole life focused on dance. But I like to think it’s still the joy, the pleasure, the buzz, the magic of performing, story telling, entertaining. That I’m still that five year old girl who waddled into the middle of my Grannys kitchen at Christmas, unannounced and serenaded the assembled adults with Away In A Manger, in full angel costume.

Anyway, the reason I’m sharing this is because I’ve been telling the truth, my truth to more people I trust recently and it feels good. To be authentic and show all parts of yourself, light and dark, is powerful. It makes everyone human. Also because I have benefitted from mental health services in the past and I know many people who have as well. The stigma attached to mental diseases is literally killing people. Life is not an Instagram highlight, its messy and complicated and shitty. And that’s ok. We’re allowed to feel this way. And we’re allowed to seek help, allowed to talk, allowed to save ourselves. We all know people who have taken their own lives and maybe if they had the help and resources they needed, things would have worked out differently.

This post has been inspired by Ava Henessey, a pole dance friend of mine, who has always been open about her mental health and how it affects her. See her video discussing her experiences here.https://www.facebook.com/ava.hennessy.12/videos/545703559260415/

Also by Dave Sullivan, who I went to stage school with as a teenager, who has been so vocal about the lack of services and safety measures around the river Corrib in Galway, where so many people have ended their lives, link here. https://www.facebook.com/dave.sullivan.33/videos/2290133220997778/UzpfSTEwMDAxMjM5MDg3NzE4Mjo1OTg3MTUxMjA1NTE1MTI/?notif_id=1548454481000270&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic

If you’d like to learn more about this, please join the group on Facebook, Galway’s Future. https://www.facebook.com/groups/691789017909591/

Keep talking.

Dee