My Brain's Not Broken

How’s 2020 treating you so far? Maybe you’re thriving, crushing it in every way and absolutely loving life. Maybe it’s the opposite and you’re just hanging on for dear life. Or you might be like me – hopelessly stuck in the middle and uncertain of which direction to go. I usually wait until later in the year to tell myself what I’m about to tell you, but I didn’t feel like waiting. It’s time for a public service announcement:

Whatever is going on in your life right now – you’re just as human as everyone else.

I realize this is something that may seem painfully obvious to people. But there’s a reason I constantly remind myself of this PSA, and the ways that this message helps could also help you.

One of the reasons I spiral so easily is that I forget I’m a person. I’m in the thick of it all I feel afraid and alone because I believe that I’m the only one who’s suffering this way.

(Sidenote: As I have said time and time again, that is simply not true. You are not alone. All it takes is a quick Google search to see! But I digress because, of course, it’s hard for me to believe that too.)

When I follow this logic and I am the only one suffering this way, I convince myself that it means that I’m not as much of a person as everyone else. I convince myself of this because SURELY other people cannot feel what I’m feeling, which means that they’re probably just more of a human than me and that I’m not all there. Fool-proof logic, right?

At the heart of this flawed logic is the idea that I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to feel how I do because I’m not a person in the same way they are. I don’t know when I came to believe this but once I did, it’s very difficult not to fall into this line of thought.

One thing that has helped immensely is remembering that the threshold for being a human isn’t super high. Maybe it’s high to be a happy human or a successful human, but I’m not interested in that. Because while comparisons can be made from one person to another, you can’t be ‘more human’ than anyone else. In that respect, we’re all on the same level. No matter how you feel about yourself, how you feel about other people or how they feel about you, that’s a universal truth that makes me feel better.

So wherever you’re at this year, maybe this little PSA will help. Maybe it just confused you more. Maybe you can talk to yourself in the third person! Either way, you’re just as human as me and vice versa. Regardless of how else we may feel, that’s a start.