Joyrides

One of my most vivid memories is as a 17 year old, turning to writing as therapy. Of course I didn’t know that at the time, ours was a culture where intense self analysis was the exception, not the norm.

I was in school. School is incredibly beautiful, with big stunning trees and green spaces intermingling with old open colonial style buildings. The previous night had been spent having sex with my ex-boyfriend, who had just arrived in the country. It was pretty bad, as all early sex tends to be and he was in a terrible emotional place and I wanted to connect with him and tell him that people still cared about him. I was no longer in love with him, but I did love him a lot and him me, except something wasn’t quite right.

Emotions are murky. I was not surprised to hear that one of the key issues that psychology as a discipline prefers not to discuss is that it is uncertain whether the measurement tools are measuring the variable they wish to measure. No wonder. How do you measure sadness? What is it? How is it different from loneliness or feeling rejected or feeling unsafe?

I didn’t know. And to this day I am not entirely sure. Walking in to school that morning for some reason there was a line from a Norah Jones song in my head on repeat (the kind of repeat that says I will not stop until you attend to me):

‘Tell me darling true, what am I to you?’

So I sat down with pencil and paper and wrote 3 pages of poetry. Non stop. The same sort of unrelenting energy, very specifically targeting towards creating using language that I feel right now. I couldn’t stop. I had no real idea what I was writing about, these feelings bypassed the conscious part of my brain and went straight onto paper. 

Once I had finished, I read it and realised that I was feeling very much unacknowledged. Cannot remember the details. That feeling of emotional resolution and awareness is vivid, though. 

I want to go camping, alone, by the beach after exams are over. Just me, no laptop, no phone, no books even. Pencil and paper only. Maybe I will write some stuff, maybe I wont. Either way I will have a solitary adventure :) 

The last 3 years or so of high school for me involved a lot of sleeping and minimal classtime. I had a spinal injury, that was one big reason… but looking back now I suspect that merely provided the justification for processing time, I took that resource and ran with it. What was it that was getting resolved subconsciously? Or perhaps it was merely contained rather than properly addressed.

Anyway, now (thanks to my psychology degree and G) I am more acutely aware of some of the inner/outer turmoil occuring. I am incredibly grateful for this, it has added an element of sanity where there was haze and murky, unattended feelings. 

I thought psychological triggers would appear in some form of rainbow flavoured burst of understanding: X event occurs, M emotion is felt, Y association is made and it is all beautiful. A walks away with insight into her psychological makeup and reactions and is strengthened by this experience.

Fuck.

Want to know what really happens?

X event occurs, there is emotional withdrawal, the conversation/event continues as per normal, there is some superficial resolution in that situation enabled by said emotional withdrawal.

A walks away feeling good, then, a few minutes later realises there is murky something happening: is it M? is it L? is it OULJDF? A talks to G, uncovers some stuff, feels much better. A says ‘oh, I am too busy to resolve this with said person just yet but I am ready’. A wanders off and occasionally thinks about X, feels more emotions too unrecognisable to assign an initial to, let alone a name.

One month later, while A is taking books out of her car, she realises that X actually triggered λ a significant event/emotion from a long time ago.

A feels empowered but now is physically exhausted and wishes all this could happen after her exams instead of just before.