Building on ruins

This is a piece I’ve deeply thought about writing, as I can’t tell myself that I’m a fan of cheesy writings. However, this is about me, about you, and everything in-between, a little longer Thank You note.

 I can recall starting this column in November 2019. It was a gloomy, cold day, and I was feeling low. I was trying to find something to do that would actually make sense, something that would help both me and others. So I thought that it would be a good time to actually put my Psychology knowledge and my personal background to good use. This is how Tuesday Conversations started: from the mix of the thought that I’m not able to write consistently, the need of finding meaning in my life, and the wish to tell my story.

This is how the blog column got to cover all kinds of topics, talking about feminism, suicide, eating disorders, anxiety, saying no, or creating boundaries for the interaction with other people. And I’ve been up for a pretty big surprise, have to say. Not only I have found that I actually can write about various topics consistently, but I have also discovered that there were people that needed these topics to be addressed.

It seemed like those were not just parts of my story, but parts of a whole bunch of other stories which have, by now, found their voice. It was like the tribe I didn’t know I was belonging to found me without me asking for it to happen.

And this brought me to one of the most surprising conclusions so far: something can be built from scratch, even if the foundation is a ruin. Ruins are not dead. Even if what you build is a narrative, a story having her focus on aspects that have been rather hidden than put on display your building has meaning and a purpose to serve.

I can’t help but remember a thing a friend told me when we were talking about writing, drawing, and letting our writings and drawings roam free on the internet: I have always wondered how it feels to write about things so intimate and to share them with the world. It was that moment when I understood that I don’t see the things I’ve faced or the things that hurt me in the past as a private area of my life. Not anymore. Once they stopped hurting, they turned into stories to be told about passing through dark places, as I believe that no one should ever pass through dark times alone.

For me, life means stories to be told, as they are the best way to actually put together a group. Because a problem that no one talks about is a problem that doesn’t actually exist. And mental health has been for too long an invisible problem to keep being ashamed of it, especially when that shame affects us all.

Obviously, it was and still is a process that leaves me speechless every now and then. I write, I post, and it happens to look at those materials and tell myself Did I really write that? Whoa. as my 16 years old self would rather have died than admit there’s something wrong with her. This column helped me not just bring some issues to light or help other people recover, but it has also given me a measure of my evolution. I’ve read the writings and seen how far I’ve come, sometimes without even noticing the evolution,  the direction of the process.

In the end, this is how we learn, by doing things and looking behind us every now and then. And this is how one gets to understand that healing is, indeed, a process. Something beautiful, something spectacular, something deep, unique, and extremely personal. At the end of the day, there is no actual recipe for fast healing and even the thought of a universal recipe to heal one’s wounds sounds like a fantasy plot.

Just like our traumas and our life history, our ways of healing are unique. There are no two individuals with the same way of healing their wounds or the same way of living through their suffering. Actually, the mere idea of it sounds absurd as one is reading this. But this doesn’t involve that there are no common points, as they certainly do. The beauty of it though is the fact that you can’t find those common points without being brave enough to step in the lights and tell your story. You don’t even have to tell the world all of it, or to use words. You can sing, dance, paint, act, sculpt, run, draw, photograph, even film your story, your way out of the hurting. You have total freedom when it comes to how much you’re feeling to express about your journey, and you have total freedom when it comes to the way you choose to do it.

Tuesday Conversations, my mental health column, will go on. I’m deeply thankful for all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way, for their support and critics that helped me make it better, and I hope that more and more people will become brave enough to start telling their stories. Your stories matter, your feelings are valid, and your healing process is worth it. You, as individuals, are worth love, appreciation, respect, support, and help. Go into the world and allow yourself to get them.

Why a simp is not a loving man

If you’re anything like me, the Internet slang will, every now and then, make you feel old. It happened recently, with the trending rise of the word simp. As the Urban Dictionary defines it, the simp is a guy that is overly desperate for women, especially if she is a bad person, or has expressed her disinterest in him. Basically a new cool term for an old reality. Not that long ago, these guys were known as “nice guys”, and no one wanted to have much to do with them, mainly because they were not that nice as they wanted to seem like.

But time went by, and the “nice guys” that no one wanted to deal with back in the days found a way to market themselves as desirable partners. I’ve seen these days a post saying Stop calling any decent man a simp! and, even if it was, indeed, real, it was mischievous at the same time. What separates a decent, loving man from a simp? The girl’s kind of interest in what’s the guy having to offer.

If you, as a guy, have fallen for a girl and show it, there are two big scenarios: it’s a mutual thing, so she will flirt with you and show interest as well, or she is not interested and she is just being polite. A man showing appreciation and support, complimenting a girl that is into him is a decent man, regardless of what his pals say. A man acting the same with a girl that has told him already that she’s not interested in him is a simp trying to make his way into her bedroom. Regardless of her telling you “no”. The easiest way to know if you deal with a simp is by paying attention to your emotions.

Guilt is a really important indicator when it comes to human relationships. A man that makes you feel guilty for not liking him back is not a good man for you. I know that clearly, as I have been there myself. Asking a good friend of mine if it’s okay to feel guilty for not liking back a guy that was madly over me, he said No, you’re not, as love is no duty. It is what it is, if it is, and if there is such thing as guilt or the feeling that you should, you definitely should not. I am still thinking about that moment of my life, about how blinded I was by my low self-esteem. About how bad that attempt of giving a dude a chance because he knew to make me feel guilty about rejecting him, I’ve seen things clearer.

A guy can be a decent man, but be a simp to you, as this is a matter of perspective on both sides. On his side, it’s about knowing how to take a clear No for an answer. On her side, it’s about being crystal-clear from the beginning. If you can’t picture yourself in a relationship with that man, tell him. If you see him as a good friend, tell him. He has to know exactly where he stands and make a decision. Might be a tempting thought to fuel his attitude, if you have self-esteem problems or you simply need male validation- a simp will constantly make you compliments, give you more attention than you’re used with and, generally, make things more about you than about him. Will make cute little gestures for you, trying to get under your skin. And that is flattering, not gonna say it isn’t. Feeling wanted, as a young woman, is and always will be a flattering thing, something we want more of, at times. But keep in mind that, when the attraction is not mutual if you fuel this kind of behavior from the dude, you expose yourself to a form of emotional blackmail.

Because any simp is a potentially toxic man, trying to make you feel good, but capable to make you feel bad about yourself as well, at the moment when his patience goes thin and he gets sick of waiting for you to tell him yes, eventually. This is, in fact, the simp issue that girls fail to see and men won’t address: the lack of boundaries and self-respect. It is a matter of self-respect to stop trying once the girl told you no, and it’s a matter of mental healthcare to be able, as a girl, to have strong and clear boundaries. Even when what you receive is all pretty and dipped in glitter, tempting you to give in. Love is not making you guilty and is not sneaky. Self-validation need, instead…

When not all vampires fear the light

Scrolling down the Internet these days I’ve seen a question on a page saying If you could go back to your past and unmeet someone, who would it be? and it really got me thinking. If I could unmeet people from my life, those would be a friend and two of the men I’ve loved so far. Three different persons, but with a really important shared trait: they’re all takers.

My friend was a simple girl, wanting to have a successful life and turn into a better woman. And I tried to give her some help with it, as she asked me to. I started to share with her books, film recommendations, to try and have debates on topics that mattered to her, to help her gain clarity. And, still, she kept on doing the same mistakes and complaining about the same things year after year.

Everything till one day, when I got to understand that it was never about me not being a good enough friend to her, but about her unspoken need to be constantly in the spotlight. She wanted attention, wanted to make everything about her, and she discovered that the easiest way of getting it without having to give something in return is to be the victim of the story. But only the fact that she wasn’t willing to admit, once I got tired enough to try and fail to be helpful, that she wanted to vent and have my attention, not help, made me leave the friendship behind.

Talking about the men, there are much shorter stories to be told. One was a nice guy, you know the type, who wouldn’t take a no for an answer, no matter how often it was told. Because, obviously, he was such a nice guy that managed to always make feel guilty about saying no. The other one seemed to be the perfect man, but loving him proved to be one of the most toxic experiences I’ve got so far.

What’s the common point? They wanted to have it all. Attention, resources, affection, everything I got, and was good. But when it came to giving back? Less is more seemed to be the golden rule. They were not able to fully understand that not everything has to be around them. That one could have joys, sorrows, worries, anxieties…that has nothing to do with them. Nope, those were quickly dismissed, as the main subject was put on hold. And the main subject was also something about them.

It hurt at first, admitting to myself that I cared so much about people who’ve got such a bad influence on me. It still leaves a bitter smile on my face, but I still have a reason to smile: because of them, I’ve gained a better understanding of this kind of person.

I know it is not something they’re fully aware of. It is a painful subject to be addressed, the source of this type of behavior. I also know it is not about me, either. I did what I was able to do, with the knowledge I had at those points in my life. Truth is it wasn’t more than a sad encounter in any of the cases.

And this is how it usually happens: the giver meets the taker. It is the toxic half of the duo that one’s looking for without even knowing. And, as draining and as painful as it could be for the giver, they will meet until they learn their lesson. About how to establish and respect boundaries. There’s nothing more important when it comes to human interactions than this one aspect.

I know the narrative where saying no is making you a selfish, evil person, but it’s wrong. It is wrong and harmful. A taker wants to fill up an inner void, but they never think about how constantly taking without putting something else in place affects the giver. That they are recreating the same void they try so hard to avoid but in someone else’s life.

They don’t think about it and will make a whole tragedy if you tell them. Because, in this story, there has to be only one receiver, and it has to be them, always them. They are, always, the helpless ones, the ones that require to be taken care of. It doesn’t matter how they do it. It can be by never listening to you when you’ve got something to tell them that means a lot to you, but doesn’t affect them. It can show up like never really feeling happy for your accomplishments. It can be an attempt to convince you that your feelings are not valid. It can take a lot of forms, much more than you could possibly imagine, but in the end, it is about the same thing: about being out of the spotlight.

I remember reading some of Eric Berne’s books, and seeing something that stuck with me to this day: for children, receiving negative attention is preferable instead of being ignored. At first, I looked at the sentence a bit surprised, then read again. Now I am just as surprised as I was when I first met the idea, but because it amazes me how many adults act just the same. The father of transactional analysis was jus saying that children associate being ignored with being abandoned, which could, in older times, bring them in dangerous situations. Therefore, they did what they could to receive attention from the grown-ups. Whatever paying attention to them meant to the adults. It could’ve been as reproaches, blame, didn’t matter that much as long as it was attention, it was about them. For some people, doing something bad and being punished was, sadly, the only form of parental attention they’ve ever received, because why bother when everything works well?

This means that the people that received more attention when they misbehaved, even if it was negative, taking the shape of slurs or quarrels, become grown-ups acting the same due to their wounds. They prefer to start an argument with you, rather than not talking at all. Why? Because that’s how they were taught it works. And any lesson about emotions that we’ve learned as children will be painfully difficult to be unlearned as adults.

But, and this is a huge one. It is not your job to heal them, it’s theirs. You can only support them and be there for them. Of course, they will not do it, because it is painful, uncomfortable, and a losing move for them. If they heal, they will have to reciprocate, to give in return exactly what they pretend to receive. And that means a whole other journey of learning how to open up and give. To actually give to other people meaningful parts of who you are.

Your job, however, is to take good care of yourself. To understand that being picky with who you’re giving access to your resources won’t make you a bad person. Will only help you preserve those resources and your sanity for people that deserve having access to them, to people that will give you other things in return. Your job is to look in the mirror, see what you’re truly being made of, and not letting anyone else suck the spirit out of you, no matter how helpless they seem to be.

Because being selfish, being self-absorbed, is not the same as being a person that is going through dark times. There is a difference, and that difference, the moment when you can accurately spot it, is the game-changing point. And the sooner you’ll find it, the better your life will be. Vampires will always be around, ready to take every good thing you could give, while they’re ready to put your dark side in the spotlight and demonize you, but they don’t fear sunlight anymore. They fear boundaries, so state yours clearly, and make sure everyone, including yourself, is respecting them. What you have to offer is good, important, and necessary to many, so choose those that really deserve it.