Step Outside (Yourself)
I wanted my power back. I wanted my assurance back; I wanted myself in my fullness back. These wants left me with a mission: creating the circumstances to focus on my mental health and to step outside of myself, that grey, hazed, cloudy clump that overtook my actual person.
Illustration: Harvey Doniego
I’ve recently found myself on the other side.
The other side of the most complex and exhausting struggle with myself. I found myself existing above myself in a grey, hazy cloud of intense anxiety, depression, and a fluctuating sense of self. To put one of the most complex times in my life into the simplest of terms, I didn’t feel like a person; I felt like a clump of hazy, ever-changing emotions. I was not a person leading the way; I was a shell of myself trapped and plagued by my own thoughts, ever-changing and undermining one another. These thoughts and emotions became bigger than me, any logic or assurance in my judgement, and I was too small to escape them. I didn’t know how to cope, neutralize, or stop these thoughts and emotions. This period, at its worst, lasted about a month and a half, and I eventually became too small, too sick, and too weak to fight with my thoughts anymore. I was existing in an entirely unfamiliar headspace that I didn’t know how to stop or predict. All I knew was that I hated it; I was being consumed by my all-consuming, rather powerful mind. I didn’t want to be eaten; I wanted my power back. I wanted my assurance back; I wanted myself in my fullness back. These wants left me with a mission: creating the circumstances to focus on my mental health and to step outside of myself, that grey, hazed, cloudy clump that overtook my actual person.
Multiple components came together to help me better my overall wellbeing: going to therapy, developing hobbies, spending time with others, and going for walks. When I first began working towards a better state of mind, going for walks was the first habit I incorporated. As someone who deeply struggles to verbally share the issues I experience with those around me, especially as I’m dealing with those issues, going for walks around my neighbourhood felt feasible and safe for the mental space I was in at that time. Going for walks brought me temporary relief—an escape from my thoughts that shifted my focus onto my surroundings, which I hadn’t previously given much attention to.
As I walked around my neighbourhood, I looked at the houses. I’d stew over whether I preferred red brick homes over a stucco exterior or which roof colour looked best with which garage door colour. I’d look at the homes with wraparound porches and ivy that sprawled up every wall, thinking about what kind of house I might have in a time far beyond the moment I was in. What these walks really did was help me step outside my current place in life and consider a tangible future. Even though buying a house isn’t a pressing matter right now, it’s part of my future. One day, I will be looking for a house and imagining my life in it—a life that will be incredibly different from my life now. The temporality of my life as I know it now (and my life as I don’t know it yet) made going for walks and looking at houses a source of relief for me.
As I look ahead to the future, I recognize that the things, people, and events that hurt me, held me back, and brought grey clouds to my skies and mind are temporary. I’d look to the past and recognize that the things I turned over at night and in writing are so far removed from my life and battles now. They feel distant and small because their time came and went—because I overcame them. Time and I worked together, even when he seemingly dragged his feet and made me feel every second as if it was its own hour. What matters now won’t always matter later.
Even as I write out these reflections, I squint to watch the grey haze. It’s not blinding me anymore—I’m past it. That grey haze doesn’t hurt and consume me anymore, and during that time, I couldn’t imagine being able to genuinely say that in my foreseeable future. Yet, as I walked past, analyzed, and admired houses, I could imagine myself later in life making those decisions. I felt relieved that I’d have many other triumphs, tribulations, and grey hazy days and eras to experience throughout my life. Similarly to this time in my life, these will also feel like everything at that moment and eventually move into the distance.
Even though I consider myself past that grey haze, I cannot contribute the improvements to my wellbeing by just going on walks and imagining a tangible, far-off future where those intrusive thoughts and emotions never crossed nor plagued my mind. I also began seeing a therapist, creating routines, and not giving energy and assigning value to those intrusive, unwanted thoughts and feelings. Having the consistency of a therapist every week to talk through my feelings and provide coping mechanisms really helped me to feel like a person again. A person who could endure, regroup, and move forward. These things together have helped me feel better and a lot more like myself, better yet, a new version of myself. A new version of myself that wouldn’t exist if I didn’t step outside of myself to recognize that the haze was temporary and push myself to get and create the help I needed. Even though I will likely experience intrusive thoughts for the rest of my life, I can step outside of myself—step outside for a walk in my neighbourhood—and shift the value from my intrusive thoughts onto the temporality of them and the bigger picture of my life that awaits me.
