In Support of the Mess
We are in a cultural era of mental health and “wellness.” And all of your favorite social media creators are talking about how to create boundaries, communicate, “heal.”
Sometimes when we are in the process of change, we over correct and have to adjust to find the comfortable center. I’m really excited for when we culturally find the comfortable center of embracing mental health.
In the age of de-stigmatizing mental health, we’ve unintentionally started to sterilize the humanness of ourselves and loved ones. But mental health is…well…messy. Expecting neat packages of expression from ourselves and others tends to exasperate our mental health, not help it.
We see this in the ways we expect friends and loved ones to respond to us when we interact with them and the ways in which we expect them to ask for help. Content creators will share therapeutic tools and encourage folks to use them in their social lives. But none of us are therapists in our personal lives—not even therapists.
The therapeutic relationship is so specific. In the way that an operating room is sterile from the outside world, therapy sessions are emotionally sterile environments. That sterility allows for a client to engage with their thoughts and emotions in ways that interacting with other people who also have thoughts and needs in the same space does not allow.
Beyond the unrealistic expectation of it all, emotional sterility doesn’t allow for the same kind of interpersonal connection that engaging with others’ thoughts and feelings creates.
I’ve often explained my role as a therapist as three objects: A bowl, a wall, and a mirror. Bowls hold whatever is brought to them; walls offer both containment and a surface off which to bounce; and mirrors reflect ourselves back to us. Therapists are tools that help others explore themselves.
No one is born into the role of a therapist (sorry, fellow therapists). It is a trained and skilled profession. It takes a long time to hone those skills. We shouldn’t be asking anyone to do that in our personal lives. It’s really hard work! And for my fellow mental health professionals: it’s really hard work to be in this field; self care means not playing that role in your personal life.
When we ask our loved ones to respond to us in therapeutic ways or ask our loved ones to express their struggles in pretty packages, we ask them to depersonalize themselves. We ask them to shrink themselves. Asking others to shrink themselves in this way is often a result of not trusting ourselves enough to be face-to-face with others’ emotions.
When we we believe others’ emotions are ours to fix, change, or take away, we’re less likely to feel comfortable when they’re being expressed. “Healing” often means getting to a place where we understand that others’ feelings are not about us as individuals—they are not personal attacks or even ours to fix. Even when other people believe their emotions are ours to fix, it is ultimately up to us to hold the boundaries we know are healthy for us. We are allowed to say no or suggest other sources of support.
For clarity, I am not suggesting we throw away standards for how to be treated or accept abusive behaviors. I am suggesting that in moments of struggling, we give the people in our lives to the space to not be ok—which sometimes means not being on their best behavior. I am suggesting that we give the people in our lives the space to not communicate succinctly or even at their best. Even the best communicators fall victim to clumsy communication from time to time.
I’m suggesting we try to be consider that when ourselves and others are struggling with mental health that our brains are telling us “emotional truths” that we know are not true even in the midst of it all. I’m suggesting that we listen for the message in the mess, rather than personalize the sometimes chaotic and intense ways we communicate when we’re struggling.
