This evening I deleted the Instagram app from my phone with the intention of a forced break. I wanted to be able to sit at the beach without documenting my sitting at the beach and interestingly did not entrust myself with any degree of self control to just not post.
I found myself wanting to Story my walk down to the shore. I found myself wanting to Boomerang the blueness of the waves. I found myself wanting to declare to an audience who truly couldn’t give fewer fucks about my reading habits, that I had just completed the beautiful book, Untamed.
What do I truly mean when I post these things? Am I saying “look how desirable my life is?”… “look how desirable my home is?” Am I seeking to make myself look like a desirable human by thrusting into your face “LOOK I AM A HUMAN THAT READS BOOKS”.
I feel that with Instagram, it is as “real” as you allow it to be. I take pride in how brave and vulnerable and honest I have been in the past. This time around, I just don’t want to be.
I don’t want to talk about how my sadness feels right now because truly, I’m not sure I comprehend it and I’m not sure I have enough detachment from the experience to be able to caption it up neatly for an audience who will most likely scroll past without reading anyway.
A few years ago, under the hold of depression, I read an amazing book called “Lost Connections” (Johann Hari) and it is the only book, cover to cover, that has allowed me to “see myself”. The emphasis on depression being disconnection feels so right. Lack of connection is what I feel in my body.
I don’t know how to describe this aptly enough but when I am in the midst of sadness I sometimes physically claw at my skin… a strange attempt to remove myself from the body that holds me. I just don’t feel at home in it, it all feels so alien.
I feel disconnected from myself, from my being.
My sadness spirals hit me in waves. Sometimes they last 5 minutes, sometimes they last an hour. Never more than this. I’m not going to self diagnose with depression because that would be a-foolish, b-unnecessary, c-inaccurate. But the sadness spirals have hit me consistently every day since my birthday (mid-July) and I want to do something about that… reconnecting.
I am grateful to have an acute awareness of how I feel in my body to know that my binges are a result of disconnection, and to know that my sadness is a result of disconnection. This is a narrative that feels right to me, because it feels like something I can take action on. I am also grateful that despite my fleeting moments of despair I am also a very high-functioning sad person and that feeling connection through my work is often the thread that keeps the rope from untangling altogether.
I think perhaps the point of this blog was to connect with my words in a way that I’ve not known how to on Instagram recently. In fact, I wrote this out on paper before typing it up and already I feel more connected to myself as a result. I think I’ll stay away from the ‘gram until the sadness spirals aren’t a daily occurrence.
I am still reachable. jessica@runtalkrun.com. Run Talk Run is still running in Eastbourne every Monday evening from Anytime Fitness @ 6.30pm.