23

FALLING BACK TOGETHER

Early on in therapy, Veronica told me the word ‘should’ was banned in her room. It’s a word loaded with shame and impossible expectations. The happiness fairytale in all its inglorious fakery. When ‘should’ becomes the driving force, we forget what it is that truly brings us joy. Believing that I should be happy when I’d reached society’s preordained goals was the beginning of my unravelling.

In the first week of my solo trip through Italy, I had a timely reminder of the pitfalls of ‘should’. The morning after I’d enjoyed the best lasagne of my life in a little hilltop Tuscan village on a night that was as close to perfect as I can remember, I woke up feeling exhausted and struck with unexplained melancholy. I was perplexed. How is it possible to have such a truly unique life moment and rebound with utter inertia? I spiralled headfirst into a bottomless well of ‘what ifs’ and doomsday scenarios and concluded that this was just further proof of my brokenness. From my bed, I could see the majestic ninth-century Duomo di San Cristoforo perched on a hill above Barga’s historic old town. It was a divine and tranquil view, with the ivory curtain fluttering in the breeze as the birds sang me good morning. I just wanted to stay in bed and watch through the balcony doors.

But should got me up and propelled me into a day I wasn’t ready to face. I convinced myself that staying in bed past 9.00 am — even though I was on holiday with nowhere to be, and most of the people in this sleepy hamlet didn’t get going until around midday — was tantamount to giving up on life. I should be out there, amongst it, seizing the day, seeing the sights.

After some aimless wandering, I settled on a spectacular spot for lunch, looking out towards the lush green hills, a patchwork blanket of terracotta rooves dotted throughout the valley below. But this only made the panic worse: If I’m looking at a view this stupendous and I still feel anxious I must be really fucked up. I should be feeling on top of the world and instead I’m scared and sad.

And in that moment, I remembered why Veronica had banned ‘should’. That one word is the departing platform for every destructive train of thought. It can kill a lovely moment stone dead. Had I been less intent on trying to recapture the feelings of the previous night and more accepting of how I felt right in that moment — good or bad — the anxiety might have passed. Instead, I put my discomfort under a microscope, examining its every groove and crevice in search of my madness. But I was not broken. I knew how to pull myself back from this precipice. Being in the Tuscan countryside was not by itself going to soothe my soul. I needed to keep doing the things I knew kept me well. So I vowed that when I was tired I’d allow myself to rest. And I stopped having the kind of holiday others might enjoy and started experiencing the one that worked for me. And if that meant lying in bed reading books for a day, then that was okay.

Things improved almost immediately.

Many of life’s rituals can trip us up when viewed through the lens of ‘should’. If we’re to believe the hype, Christmas should be the happiest time of year for those who celebrate it, surrounded by loved ones as we delight in the festival of gifts, fine food, and general merriment. In reality, for many people it’s an unholy nightmare. The expectation of unbridled happiness only leads to more misery for those who either don’t have family to spend the holidays with or would rather be strapped to an operating table and slowly waterboarded than confined in an enclosed space with their relatives for a whole day.

I’ve never really enjoyed New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay, as we call it in Scotland. For a long time I tried to enjoy the enforced frivolity, but the occasion always left me disappointed. It felt as though every painful memory and regret came to visit as midnight neared. Tomorrow is just another day, I’d repeat to myself, but still I felt pressure. On the first day of the year somehow we’re meant to be reborn, like Christ rising from the dead. As the clock counts down to midnight, the expectation sits so heavily — looking forward and back at all that could have been, should have been, might still be but probably won’t. The passing of time, the fading of youth, another year with our dreams unrealised.

I remember that Mum would always cry on Hogmanay when the bells brought in the new year. We’d hug, and her face would be stained with tears for the family she’d lost — living and dead. Their ghosts would join hands with us as ‘Auld Lang Syne’ rang out, and I’d wonder, in the naivety of my youth, why all the adults were so sad at a party. Then I grew up and realised that dead relatives were only part of the New Year’s Eve shitshow. Packed bars, extortionately priced drinks, taxi-less streets, and a 5-kilometre walk home were all included in the package deal. In Edinburgh, where every year hundreds of thousands of revellers pack into the city centre for the biggest street party in the world, I just wanted to stay home, keep warm, and avoid the crowds. But my youthful need for acceptance always drove me to a party. Invariably I’d feel disappointed, crushed by the burden of ‘should’. The older I got, the more I realised that the greatest adventures can’t be pre-planned. On Hogmanay, like so much in life, the build-up to the event is bigger than the finale.

My epic breakdown gave birth to a renewed perspective. It became easier to see what made me happy: what I had to let go and what I had to cultivate. Friends who left me feeling like a lesser version of myself were not really friends. No matter how hard I tried, yoga was never going to be something I loved. Going to the movies alone was a treat. Wearing Ugg boots and trackies out to breakfast was totally fine because who gives a fuck what anyone thinks of my fashion choices? And New Year’s Eve was a circus I didn’t need to join. How many times had I gone out on the last night of the year simply because everyone else was? What if I just didn’t?

So I decided to stay home.

I booked a late-afternoon massage and then ordered in pizza, put on a pair of new pyjamas and my favourite tunes, and lit candles in celebration of the year I’d survived. I watched the last light of 2014 stream through the blinds, casting a dynamic rainbow over the black screen of my TV. I breathed in and out, long and slow. I ate a few pieces of chocolate. I patted Hamish and felt grateful for his gentle company. I took guilty pleasure in intermittently checking the Uber surcharge as the clock ticked closer to midnight. And then I journalled, not about the person who I wanted to be in the next year but the person I already was. I wrote:

I am compassionate and generous. I am turning my fear into wisdom. I am a work in progress and always will be. I am imperfect. I am the new normal. I am a loving and thoughtful friend. I am a much-loved daughter, aunty, and sister. I am a crazy cat lady. I am someone. I am learning to be okay with not being okay. I am love. I am opening up. I am courage. Endless courage. I am funny, vibrant, warm. I am passionate and principled. I am healing.

Spending New Year’s Eve alone is now my annual ritual. Four years in a row I’ve stayed home and gone to bed before midnight. I stay off the internet, make space for myself, and re-establish that inner connection with the little kid who just wants to be prioritised. It’s the ultimate date night, and it’s always nourishing.

These moments can’t be reserved for one night of the year. If I want to keep myself from falling down the well again, I’ll have to maintain that connection for life. I often go to dinner or the movies on my own, just to remind myself that I’m worth the effort. I try to have regular detoxes from social media and spend less time on my phone. When I was in Italy, taking that break gave me the headspace to read 20 books. I actively schedule in dates with myself and make sure nothing gets in the way.

In a ‘crazy busy’ world, the notion of taking time to unwind and ‘just be’ can seem indulgent or even impossible. But it doesn’t have to be a ten-day silent meditation retreat or an afternoon at an expensive day spa. It can be as simple as a five-minute walk in the park or an hour without looking at screens. We all wear so many hats — mother, daughter, father, brother, partner, sister, employee — that it’s easy to lose sight of who we are, what we really want, and what we need to sustain us as whole people. We’re more than just the roles we fulfil or the expectation heaped upon us. Actively practising time alone can be re-energising, allowing more presence for the important people. Making space to put down the devices and just stare at the wall, inviting boredom to visit, can also be the breeding ground for greater creativity and inspiration. It’s hard for ideas to flourish when your brain is constantly distracted.

Sometimes, when I have trouble making that inner connection, I have to remind myself that beneath the noise and the frenzy, there is a quiet clarity. When I was at a low point, my friend Dana gave me the gift of a small bronze figure to keep my spirits up. Wide bottomed, big bosomed, and flat footed, with a little pot belly, this tiny statue looks like a mini Buddha. When I try to stand her up on a flat surface, she often topples over. But sometimes she stands tall. I’ve come to think of her as my warrior child. When I doubt myself, I hold her in the palm of my hand and remember that this warrior spirit lives within me. When I’m face-down on the hallway carpet, it’s her strength that helps me get back up. And in many ways, it’s her vulnerability that makes her strong: the willingness to embrace imperfection, accept change, and lean into pain. It’s a strength that comes from the courage to let those emotions in. Just feeling her weight has become a trigger to tap into the sense of resilience I’ve cultivated. It allows me to reassure myself and counter the irrational thoughts that spring to the top of my mind. There are days when that’s still a struggle, but practising this ritual is helping carve a healthier track through the forest, a new pathway in my brain.

In those early days, I found the notion that I could rescue myself preposterous. When Veronica urged me to believe in my own strength, it felt as though she was telling me I wasn’t getting better because I hadn’t been trying hard enough. I was cast adrift, floating through space with nothing to anchor me. At a time when I was desperately unhappy, I just wanted someone to take the pain away. But one day, I was hit with a realisation that terrified me: we are all alone. Every one of us. We come into this world as individual entities and leave it the same way. We can love and be loved but ultimately, nobody can live or die for us.

Over time, the terror gave way to comfort. I felt liberated by my aloneness. It’s one of the few things all humans share. Every time I found a way to push through an impossible day, my strength grew. My aloneness became my anchor.

One weekend, during those months off work, I’d gone to Kath’s beach house on the coast to seek some quiet and spend time in the summer sun. But a couple of days in, I was struck down with gastro, spending most of the night and the next morning in the bathroom. It only made the anxiety worse as my narrative about being ‘defective’ kicked in and I ruminated over why I couldn’t catch a break. I just wanted to go home. So I made the decision to drive back to Melbourne.

It was one of the worst journeys I can remember. Stomach cramps came in stabbing waves, doubling me over the steering wheel. It was a 42°C day with a roaring northerly buffeting the car, forcing me to grip the steering wheel tightly just to stay in my lane. Driving had been a challenge for some time, but under these conditions, the panic attacks were worse than ever. As I drove onto the West Gate Bridge — nearly 60 metres above the Yarra River, on a ten-lane freeway with no emergency stopping lane — my heart was thumping, my knuckles white, my t-shirt drenched in sweat as the wind howled its disdain. The panic was so violent I wanted to run, abandoning the car, my body, my brain, in the middle of that bridge. But there was nowhere to go but forward. Every time the terrified part of me said, ‘I can’t do this. I’m going to die out here,’ I had to reassure her she was strong. When I got to the other side of the bridge — 2.5 kilometres of concrete in the sky — I was still crying but I punched the air and yelled into the ether because goddamn it, we made it.

I accepted, then, that as enormously grateful as I was to my friends and family for seeing me through the toughest times, they couldn’t do the work for me. Even if they sat with me every minute of every day, holding my hand and telling me I was loved, they couldn’t make the panic or the doubt stop. They couldn’t make me believe that Stark was strong. It was up to me.

That’s not what Hollywood has taught us. Tom Cruise has a lot to answer for on this front. It’s that one line: ‘You complete me.’ Ever since he uttered those three words to win back his on-screen wife Renée Zellweger in Jerry McGuire, it has been repeated ad nauseam as the ultimate romantic gesture. Finding that special person is like slotting in the final piece of an otherwise imperfect jigsaw puzzle — it’s a sweet notion, but it’s not particularly healthy. The implication is that we’re not enough on our own. Until we meet someone, we remain incomplete, wandering around mournfully seeking the lost piece to make us whole. It’s a concept that has kept women’s magazines and dating sites in business for years and will continue to do so, but fundamentally it’s a con. One thing the last few years has taught me is that wholeness is an entirely internal affair. If we want to ease this yearning, this sense of existential bereavement, we have to stop chasing happiness externally and figure out what we’re really searching for. We all need deep connections to others to nourish us and help foster that critical sense of belonging. We need community and a sense of meaning and collective purpose. But without that connection to ourselves, no matter how much love and validation we get from partners, friends, children, parents, or internet likes, it will never be enough. If we don’t believe we’re worthy, it’s like pouring water into a leaky bucket.

I’m still thankful every day for the people I love, but learning to first turn inwards for reassurance has allowed me to find hope even when things feel hopeless. And in many ways, relying more on my own strength has deepened the relationships with the significant people in my life. No longer do I expect them to rescue me. The burden of my completeness — or my emotional health — is not resting on their shoulders.

It seems like sweet serendipity that the interview with the philosopher that sparked that newsroom meltdown, and was the precursor to my own enforced solitary confinement of five months off work, should have held the key all along. As Damon Young told me in that conversation: the art of solitude is the capacity to confront and accept your own existence without needing others around to entertain or distract you. He pointed out that so many of the problems we all wrestle with in this highly charged digital age stem from our inability to practise solitude and a reluctance to shift our view from the external to the internal.

‘When you don’t have the time or energy to cultivate that sense of a separate self, you’re far more likely to seek it in the crowd,’ he said. The anger and division we’re seeing in the world and the need to point the finger often comes from a feeling of disconnection from ourselves. ‘It’s a lot easier to define yourself against some nasty “other” than it is to figure out what you think and feel. It’s a way of keeping you preoccupied and stops you asking those awkward questions about your own cruelty or pettiness.’

When I think about all the things that add to my stress — drinking too much, fighting with conservatives on the internet, getting lost in a deluge of bad news, impulse-buying things I don’t need, or obsessively checking social media — they can almost all be ameliorated by pausing and connecting to that inner landscape. What is driving the behaviour? What part of me have I neglected in that moment? In what way am I fearful or trying to fill a gap? As Young told me, we are social animals, and while we need intimacy and camaraderie to be healthy, we are also creatures of imagination. Solitude restores that connection to our complicated, whimsical inner world: ‘Much of what we do and think is opaque to us. The self is a puzzle. Solitude is absolutely vital for trying to become more intimate with this weird self that we are.’

I can confidently say that I’m more comfortable with my weird self than I’ve ever been. Last year, as a Christmas gift to myself, I bought a canvas tote bag from The School of Life. Printed in large capital letters on the side are the words EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE. The tag inside reads, Everyone has it; the trick is to carry it elegantly. It’s a reminder to me that the broken can be beautiful. I wear my scars on the outside because I am no longer ashamed. Regina is still with me, but she’s mellowed. Her barbs aren’t so sharp. And now, she’s joined by a warrior child, whose grit reminds me I’m strong even when I feel weak. I suspect she was always there. I just had to turn Regina’s noise down long enough for her to be heard.

I’m not ‘cured’ of my anxiety, and I don’t imagine I will ever be. I struggle. A lot. There are still days, sometimes weeks, when the darkness overwhelms me and I have to fight hard not to be dragged back into familiar patterns. I may well fall down again in spectacular fashion. That is part of being human. No amount of therapy or mindfulness can help you dodge the curve balls that knock you flat on your back. But I know that I can get back up. And there are days now when I’m just so content with the life I have. Days when I feel whole. I am learning to live in the small. At my fortieth birthday party, as I looked across a room filled with people who loved me — my village of helpers — I was no longer worried about the advent of middle age. It was a privilege just to be alive.

Without the tough days I’d have nothing to measure those beautiful moments against. I’m no longer searching for the fairytale ending. Underneath it all, I trust that whatever’s thrown my way, I’ll survive it. Life can swing from happy-ever-after to happy-never-after and back again more times than we can count, and that’s okay. What I know now is it’s possible to struggle and still be strong.

Veronica, who I continue to see, often reminds me that nothing of value comes without sacrifice: ‘A good life does not just happen; nor is it inherited, earned, or bestowed upon us. Rather, it is forged with our own will. It requires concerted effort.’ Whatever lies ahead, I’ve come to see the last few years not as a breakdown but as a breakthrough. Everything has changed. From my new perspective, things are different, rearranged. As Jason said to me when I was trying to rise from the embers of my immolation, ‘You’re not falling apart, Jill Stark. You’re falling back together.’ The cracks remain, but those gold seams have enriched my life in so many ways.

Not long after I’d recovered from the episode where I couldn’t imagine staying among the living, I was having breakfast on my own at a café near my apartment. At the next table I saw a woman in gym clothes, hand to her face, wiping away tears. She looked scared and confused, and I could sense her hopelessness from where I sat. I recognised her pain — that feeling of falling, that feeling that nothing will ever be okay again. I wanted so much to walk over and give her a hug. But she had a friend who was holding her gently by the arm, staring into her eyes, with a tenderness that brought a lump to my throat. It was the purest love. My friend Fiona was right: suffering is not a solitary experience. While nobody can walk the road for us, that doesn’t mean others don’t feel our pain, or our joy.

We are all profoundly connected. The trap is in feeling we’re somehow different: broken, defective, more unfixable than the countless people around us fighting their own battles. It’s in believing there’s something wrong with us if we’re not perpetually happy. Acceptance is not surrender; it’s empowerment. It’s the act of trusting ourselves but also looking for the shared humanity in the people we meet. It’s in recognising that there is no such thing as normal and that we are all, in our own way, a little bit mad.