Here’s a thing I haven’t really discussed. How I got happy.
For a long long time my emotional range was extremely limited. I was sort of lost in between not feeling great or feeling fine, with no real ability to go beyond either boundary. I was half aware of this but decided it was “fine” and that there was nothing I could do.
Looking back at that time, there’s a few moments that demonstrated some of the feeling or lack thereof, one of which was on a trip to Budapest. I was walking along the Széchenyi Chain Bridge one evening with a good friend and he stopped to admire the view, taking in the air, the architecture, and remarking on how wonderful the trip is. I felt nothing. Not a hint of anything.
I was with my friend, we were on holiday, going to a music festival, the vibes should’ve been up. But right then it was just a bridge. An evening. I didn’t care and wanted to keep walking. He couldn’t quite understand that. It was weird, but I couldn’t convince myself of the value of the moment. I did find respite on the trip a few times though, as the festival we went to that week provided ample booze to kill the melancholy. Mejor que nada.
I didn’t think too much about that moment until I started to get happier, but it was quite a key reminder of what I was trying to defeat in myself. I wanted to enjoy the little things (Rule 32 in Zombieland parlance), and to do that you need to enjoy the moment.
But how do you get to the point you can enjoy the moment when you feel so emotionally empty?
In COVID times, I lived with a girlfriend who did a very good job espousing the benefits of therapy and, through continued effort and cajoling, managed to get me to go. I did 6 or so sessions. I walked into the guy’s office and explained the issue, and internally I was pretty keen on getting a quick turnaround. A solution that meant I could just walk back out all fixed.
Because I had that belief, I basically tried to press him each time to offer solutions (spoilers: not how CBT works, as I later found out with the next therapist), but he did half cave and pointed out that when I described stressful situations I referenced my outfits feeling more constrictive – shirts and shoes type shit – and he prescribed dressing more comfortably. I went to a mall, reupped, and whether it was placebo or not, I did feel a bit better. Probably because I wasn’t wearing a suit all the time to go and do my remote sales work, which was flat out absurd anyway.
With my new, half chavvy but particularly comfortable outfits on, I went for the next session, thanked the guy, told him “I feel better” and ended things. He was particularly taken aback by this. Always good to surprise people though, right?
Well, this feeling of serenity derived from tracksuits obviously didn’t last long, and with COVID at it’s end, and the relationship on the ropes, I started considering what I would do next. I threw myself more into work, which turned out to be a very fucking good move (and is the reason I am where I am now), and wondered if it was possible to travel while working.
I thought that if I got back into travelling I’d almost certainly find some satisfaction, it had worked before when I was a teenager so it’d work now surely… However, around this era, I had my teeth quite firmly stuck in the stoic philosopher Seneca’s letters and in one of them he writes (paraphrasing Socrates) “why do you wonder that your travelling does not cure your problems, when you always bring yourself with you?”.
A good point well made, but while I had read the words, I clearly hadn’t totally internalised them and began planning to head elsewhere with the fallacious idea that a change of scenery would resolve this emotional grey zone I was in.
My original plan was to head to Thailand for a little while, then to Mexico and then see where life took me. Here’s what happened:
I got a place in Bangkok and completely fell in love with the place. The previous few years weren’t very social for me, so when I arrived here, I went hard at socialising (positive) and rampant partying (less positive).
The partying brought about some initial satisfaction as it always does. Khao San Road most nights, dive bars, clubs, new fun strangers, and constant motorbikes. It was great. For a while.
As everyone knows, and sometimes purposefully forgets, cheap dopamine doesn’t work for long. Once some of the partying became routine and the interactions and conversations became tedious, the slide into melancholy began again.
In this case it wasn’t gradual, and I slipped mentally pretty hard, pretty fast. For some bizarre reason I couldn’t reconcile, this was about the lowest I’d ever been. Externally, the business was going well, I was travelling while working, I was in a cool as hell city, meeting loads of new people, and living it large. But whatever balance I’d long since cultivated which had created that grey emotional zone where I lived, just snapped.
I was fucked and needed out.
Once that depression hit, I knew it was time to fix this emotional bullshit or it would do some serious damage to me and compromise my future. Nearly everything else was on the right track, just my feelings were all haywire.
I flew back to England.
I got an apartment in the countryside. It was gorgeous and perfectly picked because it was quiet as hell around, I could easily get into the hills to go running alone, and it even overlooked this little brook that often had baby ducks and geese in it just to add to the picturesque vibe of the surroundings. And a friend lived near enough that we could hang out sometimes.
Going back didn’t feel particularly like a moment of triumph lol, but I was aware that I couldn’t fix this particular issue without devoting a lot of my time to it and I was too stimulated and unregulated while travelling to do that.
With a shit tonne of deliberation, I found a new therapist. A lady this time and a decent 40 minute walk down the river from mine, plenty of time to consider what I wanted to talk about and an uncomfortable amount of time to walk back home analysing what she had told me.
The first session was a little slow. It’s not easy trying to explain something that you don’t understand, but with CBT, the idea is that you process events that happened to you through conversation and questions, and then you eventually notice patterns, loops, and other connections that had otherwise eluded you. Noticing the pattern then allows you to break it, and talking about things genuinely does help.
Some people are particularly averse to therapy and are pretty certain that they just “are how they are are” or that there’s no reason to fix things and that it’s “all just fine”, but “fine” is a shitty life sentence. I wouldn’t want to live as “fine”, I spent years as “fine”, and felt very fucking little as “fine”.
I wanted to feel things. I wanted real emotions.
Shit that would make me stop at the bridge and admire how fucking lovely it is to be alive and be here and be with friends, and “fine”, I knew, would not get me there and it won’t get you there either.
With that declaration in mind, I went to the next session.
Some of the early ones were particularly tough. I hated opening up and having to actual discuss things that only existed in fragments in my mind. It was tough. It was so tough that after one session I went straight to the airport with my laptop and decided I would fuck it all off and stay in Amsterdam.
While at lunch with a friend there, I was asked “how are you?” and nearly broke down. Not my best look.
I came back for the next session.
A few weeks later I had a similar reaction and this time found myself (and my problems) in Lyon, where I was also apparently going to escape to, but once the dopamine rush of the escape wore off and the sadness kicked in again I chanced upon a Paolo Nutini song where he sang “I hope I’m happy before I’m old”. The lyrics hit and I flew back.
From then I spent over 6 months specifically grounded in England and focused hard at therapy and exercise and time outdoors walking or running. I’d run for hours in a pretty directionless manner, just noticing what’s around me and trying to see the beauty in it. I specifically didn’t date anyone, rarely partied, and instead spent all of my energy on me.
It was worth it.
There was a lot of emotional turbulence in this period, naturally, but you can’t go around it – if you want to solve deep seated emotional issues then you must go through them.
It’s awful. But it’s worth it.
Towards the end of that time, I noticed that sometimes while on a run I’d be quite lost in how nice everything felt. I’d stop and the sun would hit, the light would feel just right, I’d seem a lamb or something and be smiling.
It was working.
I was focusing on my emotions, processing things through talking and writing, and it was working.
Therapy is weird. You’re not really talking about how to get happy. Instead, you’re processing experiences that you haven’t analysed that had an impact on you, and with probing questions you’re able to understand more about what happened and then your feelings change or they don’t but your understanding does. Equally helpful.
Anyway, as these happy days started to become more consistent, I realised that I’d mostly broken through the previous emotional barrier. Result!
Something good would happen and I would feel great about it, not fine, fucking great.
It’s worth noting however that once you get past “fine”, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and you can actually now also feel particularly bad sometimes when bad things happen, but christ it is worth it.
I’d much rather have this emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs than a tragic train ride of fine fine fine.
This is the way.
Feel the good, feel the bad, but feel something!
The therapy ended once we realised I’d all but ran out of things to talk about for a few sessions in a row. I thanked her (and myself for going) and then decided it was time to get the fuck out of dodge and head back to Bangkok🙂
That was a few years ago now and I’ll be honest reader, life is fucking good.
Every now and then people will notice this positive outlook that I’ve adopted and wonder how it came about. The therapy was a big part for sure, but a lot of the work was the time I spent in nature trying to notice things around me.
The little walks and runs I’d do without a phone, just me and the outside, were incredibly cathartic and in that time I learnt to actually value the moment. I learnt to stop and look around and think “damn, this really is nice”.
So if you’re in this position where everything is just “fine” or “meh” or whatever, my prescription is to spend a lot of time in nature, to write about the things that happen to you (good or bad, though bad will likely take priority if you’re just starting), and to talk to someone – a friend or a therapist or partner, whoever, but someone you trust who will listen and ask questions without judgement.
To conclude, I didn’t write this as some sob story or some big ad for therapy, but to highlight that this limited emotional range or feeling “fine” or empty isn’t something you’re stuck with.
You are both allowed and able to leave it behind and tell yourself a different story about your emotions, and I think with some of the stuff I wrote above, you can get through it.
Only if you want to, and that is on you.
But holy shit, it is worth it.
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
Did I play my part well? Then applaud me as I exit – Augustus
In vino veritas [in wine, there’s truth] – Latin proverb
So, you’ve taken a few blows? Good! That’s the price of being in the arena – Roosevelt
Favourite song for now:
Sumb Luck 