Category: Mental health

Ali ali solitary

I’m trying to settle an internal debate right now. Is it freeing and thrilling to travel solo? Or lonely?  I’d ask someone else but there’s no one else around at the moment that speaks my language.

And, does having constant access with my phone (now even turned ON most of the time now that I can “roam like home” and not just when I’m reliant on decent wifi) make the potential loneliness less, or more?

Frankly none of this makes any sense at all, as by all accounts I am living a charmed life that would be the envy of many.  But I still find myself sitting in my room in a country eight time zones away from my own and I realize this is a question that’s been niggling at me for a while.

Again to be frank, I don’t really know what I’m even trying to get at, or get out, with this particular post, so maybe what I’ll do is just list a few methods I use to keep the blues at bay until I figure out the core of this feeling.  And for those of you out there, please feel free to comment – let me know if you’ve done any of these things or if you have other better ways to stay grounded and connected while still flying away.

Anti-reclusiveness tactics, told as they come to mind and no other particular order:

  1. Do not obsessively scroll through your regular social media feeds.  This comes with a caveat, as I think that un-obsessively socializing this way is very much a helpful tool. But what I mean here is that fine line difference; like when I’ve stopped being curious about what’s going on with everyone else, and when I don’t have anything new to add or say or check on specifically, but am instead clicking open my feed for the hundredth time to see if there was something for me and then feeling dumb because of course there’s not anything of interest since the last moment I checked.  Like opening the refrigerator door a hundred times wanting something but not wanting anything in there.
  2. Create content. Seems obvious, right – if there’s nothing catching my eye then maybe I should upload something that I like, something that would make me smile myself the next time I see it. Again, though, this is a delicate balance because I absolutely try to be genuine with everything I put out there, but I don’t want to be overly negative too often nor falsely effusive.
  3. Go for a walk.  Explore even a little just around the next corner.   More often than not its the simple one-foot-in-front-of-the-other that take me to a literal place where I figuratively notice something to feel better about.
  4. And on the flip side again (Because I always seem to be about balance and contrasts); know when it’s time to just lean in and curl up with a book.  There are times when I know I’d like to see more, but the Travel FOMO* sometimes is overpowered by the need to just be still and rest, and to let my mind switch off with an escapist novel along the way.  Even an extrovert needs some time to decompress without others around, but be careful not to let this continue past what feels healthy and helpful.
  5. Find someone else to be nice to.  This could be as simple as a moment of eye contact and small smile to someone passing by, giving up a seat on a crowded bus, or offering to share your meal with another traveller at the hostel. Obviously chose something that suits your situation and personality, but the point is to push yourself just a little to stop thinking of your own feelings and focus on others’ instead.
  6. Be a little silly.  It’s hard to be mopey if you’re giggling.  The other day I posted this to my Instagram story, knowing full well I was being a giant dweeb but really quite having fun laughing at myself.IMG_0488
  7. Or, if you prefer not to draw faces in your ice cream, you could just simply savour it and enjoy the treat of eating something delicious.  That works too!
  8. Remind yourself out loud that life like this is a privilege and travelling alone can be one of the most marvellous things to experience. There’s no one else to wait for or to appease, no other person’s travel style to adapt to.
  9. Reach out to someone at home and call/text/meme/message for a little while. Intentionally connect and recharge with someone that knows you.
  10. Remember that more than likely, there’s another solo traveller who’s felt this same feeling at one time or another who will be happy to connect.  Say hi and see what happens!

*Travel FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out on that one great experience that’s been all over instagram and everyone else’s blogs.  We travellers can get really overly caught up in trying to see everything and do everything that everyone else is talking about, while still also trying to be the one person to find something new in these same places.  It can be EXHAUSTING.

Well.  I guess I have one more item I should add to the list:  Making a list of how not to wallow in loneliness has been a good tactic for me.  I feel better already and ready to tackle another tour!   I’d love to hear about what you would do when these feelings set in

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Signing off with a simple shot – (It’s one I like but didn’t make the cut for the other posts)

 

The man I was married to

The man I was married to was a good man.  IS a good man, but for me he’s past tense.  He was kind, so handsome, talented, and full of a charisma that drew in everyone who met him.  Descriptions of him list like a thesaurus of “good”; admirable, attractive, commendable, estimable, laudable, rare.  He was good to me.

But not good for me.

It’s difficult to draw that distinction properly, in a way that captures all the subtle nuances of an eight-year marriage without minimizing or ‘monsterising’ either one of us.   And I want to be careful, as despite it all, his feelings and pride still matter to me.  I know how much he would hate to be a public topic, but this is my story and I’ve decided it’s important for me to tell even if it makes him uncomfortable.  There could be other people hurting in the same way and may need to see that life can be better even after the broken hearts.

I am a sunny optimist by nature; a bright-eyed, blue skies, glass-almost-full kind of person; and generally it’s been easy for me to dismiss negatives in my life.  Overall I’m thankful for this, but there are some drawbacks with this aptitude.  The man I was married to thought that I was disingenuous and somehow putting on a show with my smiles instead of being honest about how I really felt.  I think early on he may have admired the way I saw the best in any situation, but the years eroded that to a sharp resentment.  He viewed me as falsely sugary and insipid, and every time he snapped at me when I said something silly it stung.  So I would try to be less somehow – I learned he hated it when I would add some comment about the ‘bright side’ of whatever he was talking about as it made him feel like I wasn’t on his side.  In all our years together I was never, ever, able to cheer him up out of a bad mood.  We just had to wait until he’d had enough alone time to work through whatever he was feeling.   Then the next hour /or day/ or week/ or whenever he was ready, he’d give me a kiss and be all smiles and the tension I’d tiptoed around with would melt away.   I believed everything was ok after each time and he believed he was doing what he had to by acting like it was ok.  We were both wrong.

The man I was married to seemed like the most social person in any room.  His big laugh would echo and his stories would draw in a crowd.  I loved being by his side when we were out.  For me, being in a group is energizing and I would want to be with friends or meet new people every possible chance, so at first his magnetism worked in my favour.  But it was exhausting for him.  He wasn’t gregarious in a crowd because he loved it; he acted that way as a coping skill to handle his anxiety.  He felt if he were the one always in control of the conversation, then there was less chance for him to be embarrassed or for an awkward situation to catch him off guard.  But I was the wild card for him and my interpretations and way of interacting with others never made sense to him, so I would be quietly shushed.  I know now that he wasn’t trying to be cruel to me, it was more a symptom of his own internal struggle, but despite his intentions this was incredibly damaging to me.  Each time he would shoot me that look to stop talking, each fight in the car home after an outing where he felt I had done some unforgivable social blunder, every time he spoke over me so I couldn’t have my own voice in the crowd, I took to heart.  I would stay quieter and second-guess every comment I would make and be too nervous to add to the conversation.   So you can see how this could be a vicious cycle.  I think that in our later years together this man who was supposed to know me better than anyone genuinely believed that I wasn’t interested in conversation.  He told me I was a snob and that I embarrassed him by being so unfriendly to everyone.

The man I was married to did his best to treat me well.  He always opened every door for me, started my car in the winter, and would often hold my hand or touch my back while we were out together.  I was so encouraged by the tiny little gestures he would do for me and believed they were to show me I was loved.  Maybe they were.  Maybe they were actions born from an intense fear of what people thought of him, so in case anyone was watching he better treat ‘his wife’ in a manner they would approve of.  And that’s the crux of it as I’ve learned after the marriage fell apart.  It was so important to him to “Be A Good Husband” as a personal checklist that it didn’t even matter to him he no longer knew me or loved me.  I was a placeholder rather than a person.  We married young and very fast, before we really had a chance to get to know each other, and for years we then thought that we just needed to make the best of it because it was too late.  I remember saying to friends years ago about how if we had only been dating still in that first year we would have broken up for sure.  Said in a flippant and smiley ‘good thing we’re married so we’re still together and working it out’ kind of way.  Ugh.

Steve and Alison Larsen Wedding
2007

The man I was married to used to tell me that he didn’t want to hear my insecurities.  He would say that he was attracted to me so I shouldn’t tell him when I hated my hair or felt like I didn’t fit into my clothes because then those comments might get in his head and possibly change the way he saw me.  And these were said in our good days, so I believed him and would do my best to hide my self-doubt from my husband.  It takes years to catch and change those patterns but I really worked hard at it.   Over the years he gradually he stopped complimenting me.  I couldn’t post photos that I looked good in because he didn’t like that I might not seem modest.  And then he said to me:  “You are so vain you make me sick.”  He may have regretted the comment because I was so hurt by it, but I know those were words he meant and not just said in anger.   It’s too bad he was so wrong.  Or, along the same lines:  He would tell me at various times how it bugged him that I was not content; why couldn’t I just be happy with life as it was and not always want to be somewhere else?  Or then he’d say he didn’t like my lack of ambition and why couldn’t I just try harder to find something to excel at?   There were a few times in our eight years (3 to be exact) that I was offered an incredible ‘dream job’ and he would start off happy for me and supportive, but then abruptly pull his support and say that my choice would end our marriage if I accepted the job.  I asked him after the fact about those times, and he admitted that he never believed I would actually be hired so he wanted to try to seem supportive, until he couldn’t.

I know that last paragraph seems negative, but I look at it as a symptom of his own struggles.  He wanted so badly to genuinely be good to me and to everyone else but there was more going on in his head than he was able to handle.  And this has all been from my side of the story – I know he has his side.  I didn’t understand him, and likely brought out the worst in him.  I hope that the man I was married to has found the help he needed, in whatever form that may be, and that now he may stop torturing himself with an unnecessary and unobtainable goal of being perfection to everyone else.  I hope he has good people around him who bring out the best in him.

I allowed a hurting man to erase my own self confidence, but I’m lucky that I have people around me now who are helping me to believe that I’m worth talking to.  With each tiny affirmation from family, friends, and even fellow travellers I’ve met, I feel my own personality returning and the confidence to own who I am, flaws and all.   I thank God for healing broken hearts.   I learned a lot from the man I was married to and am starting to be able to see the good I can keep from the memories of him: hopefully it’s made me a more empathetic person.

Editing note:  In no way am I attempting to say that this is all on him.  I also don’t mean to boil down our entire relationship to the thick negatives, nor to make it seem like it was a continuous string of torture. We had a lot of good times in there, and I think in a different set of scenarios we could have had a very happy life despite my lack of understanding and his anxiety.  I hate that having this public has caused additional hurt, and I am genuinely sad that my writing has caused further division than the divorce had on its own.    —-   There are so many other stories of people who overcome deeper issues than we ever had and are thriving, so please don’t let my one story of setback deter you.   Him and I don’t have any direct contact at all anymore, but I believe he is happy and doing very well. As am I.  And so in a sad and backwards way this has turned out to be our happily ever after.  

If you recognize yourself in any part of this story, please seek out help.  Don’t wait.  Talk to a therapist or find counselling.  If medication is needed for anxiety or any other mental health struggle please know there is no shame in accepting a prescription.  If you are hurting, or being hurt, there are people who can help.  Mental and emotional health are an important part of the equation along with physical…. don’t forget that.

– Ali