No one has their sh*t together.
Happiness is the wrong goal. The more I read and think about it, the more I am aware that it is just a fleeting emotion.
For some reason, I had framed it as a destination.
Every day, I have to work on understanding where I am emotionally in that moment because my goal is stability on average. I work on appreciating my highs and lows so I know where the middle is and that is where I am aiming for.
Usually, my lows are holes that I can either dig or scramble out of but a few times in my life, the holes were deeper.
No matter how hard I tried, I kept slipping back down. The top was just out of reach. By the time I called out for help, I was exhausted from trying to climb out myself.
I was really lucky that most of the time, someone heard my cries. However, during my most recent experience, there was no one. It took months before I could get an appointment with a counsellor because of Covid restrictions and the amount of demand for counselling services. I am sure there were crisis counselling services but when you are in a crisis, that is the last place you will look. I also have a habit of trivialising how I feel because I feel like an imposter so I couldn’t possibly take a place of someone who was in real trouble.
I needed to build a safety net. Everyone needs a safety net. Someone they can talk to urgently, ideally someone independent of their home, work or family life.
Thankfully, I now feel like I have a safety net that will hopefully keep me out of those deep holes in the future.
The best time to start building your safety net is when you don’t need it.
Talk to someone.