When I was attending a prestigious University in southern Illinois that will remain nameless, I was recommended a new therapist. I started going as, I believe, a sophomore, and it is in one of those early sessions that I learned that the way I ate, which is poorly at best, might have an actual effect on my mental health. I was somewhat incredulous at first, but like most of the time I am incredulous, I was wrong. However, of all my bad behaviors I have worked to curb in the last few decades, I cannot seem to figure out this whole healthy eating thing.
She was a kind therapist and when I told her about how my mind seemed to accelerate to speeds I could barely fathom, and how it was causing me to lay in terror in the dark and not be able to sleep, she offered me some breathing exercises to help calm me down. I believe it was breathe in for four seconds through the nose, hold for seven seconds, release through the mouth for 8 seconds. When she told me about this, it seemed easy enough and I was more excited than one should be when given a simple breathing exercise.
That night, I decided to try it.
There I was, on the top bunk in my dorm room, trying desparetly to breathe through my nose for four continuous seconds. I kept opening my mouth and then admonishing myself for opening my mouth. I don’t like it when I do things wrong, you see, even things that are supposed to calm me down. But if I’m anything, I am a mouth breather, and to take such deep, long breaths through my nose made me feel as if I might suffocate right there on the top bunk.
I thought to myself:
How can people breathe through their noses like this?
Or:
If I did this through my mouth, would I be less calm?
Or perhaps:
Kevin, why can’t you do anything right, you mouth breathing troglodyte.]
There I was, temporarily afraid of suffocation more than I was the stories I tell in my head. Now, over twenty years later, I still don’t love taking deep breathes through my nose, but I have been able to become more aware of my own internal story telling and the damage it can cause. I am lucky I do not have to use breathing exercises most nights to get to sleep — though that could very well do with the mood stabilizer I take before bed that makes me a little sleepy duck. Even so, I continue to tell myself stories drawn from my deepest fears.
The beautiful thing about my fears is that they are omnivorous and, like grief, will indescriminently destroy anything in their path. I am trying to think more positive and trust me when I say I am able to do that a hell of a lot better than I could back when I was trying, and failing, to take a long, deep breath through my proboscis.
I am still me, which means I am still afraid. More often than not, I can sit with that fear now, and that is a minor miracle to me. I have spent so much of my energy trying to beat back the fear that seems to make up a large part of me. Fear is an emotion, and anxiety is an emotion, and both are deeply uncomfortable. Neither of them, however, are required to stay if we are able to sit with them. Easier said than done, for sure, but I try every single day to sit with my discomfort. I try to make fun of it. I get dark and say dark shit.
I believe in absurdity and silliness almost as much as I believe in kindness. We must be silly and embrace the absurd. I guess I’ll rephrase that: I must be silly and embrace the absurd if I am going to continue to grow. What is better than something that is so absurd you can’t help but laugh out loud (or roll on the floor laughing, I suppose)? Not much. Laughter is a tonic for life. Like water it is a part of all of us.
So, I will continue to tell myself terrifying stories and sometimes seek out affirmation because I am not able to handle the unease my mind creates. I need to continue to give myself grace for these moments.
As Allen Ginsberg said in his brilliant poem “America”:
I can’t stand my own mind
So it is with me sometimes. I want to run and jump and scream and drink it all away. I want to write, like I am doing now, in order to figure out a way to make my mind be kind to me. All of that being said, my mind is mine alone, and I do think it has many a positive attribute. For instance, I remember the exact date I bought a T shirt with the Hamburgler on it. Pretty cool if you ask me.
I’ll continue to tell myself stories and I will continue to rely on the kindness and love of those in my life, people who make my life exponentially better, for whom I am eternally grateful. Just please don’t ask me to take a long, deep breaths through my nose.
