Home Is Where the Misery Is

©Kris Van de Vijver

I recently had a conversation with a girlfriend about how easy it is for me to think negatively. It's ingrained in our culture to be self-deprecating, extremely critical, and severely hard on ourselves. Successes and achievements are rarely celebrated, and failures incite fainting spells, denunciation, and generally exaggerated scorn. When I spend time with someone with a genuinely positive and hopeful disposition, I'm often uncomfortable and relegate this attitude to "fakeness," but a recent encounter left me strangely refreshed and curious about why I find this type of person so unusual.

I'm the type of person who tends to dwell on worst case scenarios in a vain attempt to prepare myself for the worst. The logic behind this is that no matter what happens, I'll be prepared. If the worst doesn't happen, then I'll be pleasantly surprised. The reality is that after anxiously, agonizingly dwelling on all the horrifying things I can imagine might possibly happen, I'm still utterly destroyed by disappointment. So why is it, then, that my default pattern is to go into this pseudo-survival mode?

I've often heard that women in abusive relationships stay in those relationships out of a fear of leaving. It's not that they enjoy the abuse or even that they naively think the abuser might change, but they fear what might happen outside this relationship. While unpleasant and undesired, this relationship is what she knows best. She's got her survival plan down: she knows just how to do her makeup and just the right lies to tell to cover up the bruises and scars.

I'm in an abusive relationship with my own suffering. Misery has become by home. No matter how often I venture out and meet with joy, happiness, hope, I always return to the comfort of my dark, frayed home of depression, loneliness, and fear. I don't enjoy this torment, but I know it well. The shallow breathing, heart-wrenching pain, tear-stained sleeves, and swollen, blood-shot eyes are familiar. With any moment of peace comes the paralyzing fear of what might take it away again, so I let it go of my own accord.

What's often mistaken as over-sensitivity is actually a hypervigilance, an intense desire to avoid past pain. It's not skin so raw that it recoils at the smallest agitation. Rather, it's running away at the sight of the same blade that cut you so deeply once before. And it's not just an issue of not knowing how to be happy and how to hang on to that happiness. I also don't know how to just be sad. I get depressed. I'm not disappointed, I'm devastated. I'm not annoyed, I'm enraged. My home has no staircase. Either you're in the pit or you're not. So often, I don't even recognize that I'm happy or I let myself believe I'm miserable at the first sign of trouble.

How long does it take to break the chains of habit? Negativity can be as addicting as any drug out there, and I desperately want to get this monkey off my back. For me, the road to despair is well traveled, and I want out. Help me open my eyes that I might recognize my home is actually my prison.