This story below didn’t just speak to me. It screamed.
I have been in the place of the protagonist in the story. Utterly spent with the seat out of the pants of my life and metaphorically mismatched shoes. No prospects. No hope. Ready to cash it all in.
I had two young kids. That was motivation to keep going. I wasn’t functioning well and had no support nearby. Caring friends or family or even professionals can provide a shoulder to lean on. It is often the most important job anyone can do for us.
Still I continued to place expectations of normalcy on myself. I needed to keep up the guise of “functioning.” I needed to tell myself I wasn’t beaten and could still perform my usual daily tasks. I was so kidding myself. It was like asking someone with two broken legs to run an obstacle course.
Just like the protagonist in this story, I sought validation from a counsellor or two seeking some reason for me to hang on. When the seat of the pants is out of your life, trust me, nobody wants to hear about it. Except maybe a paid professional.
It can take some time for us to figure out that we are the only ones who can come up with the answers we need to change and take charge of our life. It is a necessary emotional transition from dreamy adolescent to in-your-face-reality adult to do that.
Because figuring out whether, or if, to do the things required to save our lives is strictly up to us.
“When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.
I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.
“What are you struggling with?” he asked.
I gestured around me and said: “I dunno man. Life.”
Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”
I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to have something more substantial. Something more profound. But I didn’t. So I told him,
“Honestly? The dishes. It’s stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”
I felt like an idiot even saying it. What kind of grown woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with actual problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes? But my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:
“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”
I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.
“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares? Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”
It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.
That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times. I felt like I had conquered a dragon. The next day, I took a shower lying down. A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever they fit. There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.
Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry. But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:
THERE ARE NO RULES. RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!
Expressive Compulsive 