A civil war has been happening in my head.
Over the past month I have been stressed out searching for a new place to live. I have been living in my apartment now for five years, but given that my new job comes with a decrease in pay as compared to what I was making as a developer the cost of the monthly rent has become too much for my budget. Adding to this is the fact that the neighborhood I live in has gone downhill over the past few years in terms of overall safety, and so since my lease end date is coming soon it is an ideal time for me to find a new place to rent.
It is a bit hard for me to leave my current apartment, even though I know that this is the right time to go. When I got this place five years ago it felt like it was such a gem. To live in a reasonably priced top-floor apartment right in the heart of Capitol Hill was such an amazing find. The neighborhood at that time was also so nice and serene that I never felt unsafe. Now that all of that has changed it feels like a loss. I know I’m making a strategic decision to move based on both my budget and my desire to live in a safer neighborhood, but it is still difficult for me to leave.
But the beat goes on, and though it was tough sorting through all of the apartment reviews and debating on locations my search parameters finally started to narrow down for me, and now after much deliberating I have finally found a place to live. It’s a bit smaller than my current place but the building is very nice and has gotten very high reviews from tenants, and the neighborhood is considerably safer for me. All in all I am pleased with my decision and am relieved that the search for the new apartment is now over.
One of the motivations for choosing this apartment is that it is more convenient for me to attend my weekend running and walking group, as my new place is within walking distance to where the group meets every Saturday morning. During the warmer months when the group starts doing their weekly track workouts I will be easily able to attend the events, especially since my window quite literally looks out right at the track. Removing these logistical obstacles in at least two of my weekly social activities is a major reason why I chose this particular place to live.
So just about all of me is happy with this choice in apartments, but there is another part of me that shares an entirely different opinion.
One of the things that I have had to battle in my mental health journey is the tendency to avoid social events and interactions with people in general. It’s not that I don’t want to see my friends or that I don’t like socializing. It’s that my avoidant me, who I sometimes jokingly call “AM”, doesn’t want me to see people because AM is trying to protect me from getting triggered. And since I am so easily triggered, AM is very determined to do everything he can to make sure that I avoid any situations that could possibly trigger me and thus cause me to get hurt and fall into another emotional tailspin.
I know that AM would have loved for me to move elsewhere, like a cabin in the woods, miles away from anybody. Or perhaps an island, or a cave, or another planet…anywhere that would keep me nice and safe from encountering other people. The fact that I have chosen a place that has removed the logistical obstacle of distance for me to attend my regular running group has left AM very upset with this choice of apartments.
But AM has had another trick up his sleeve to get me to avoid people, and it’s a trick that has been working on me, at least to some degree.
Given that AM wasn’t able to convince me to move to the middle of nowhere he has decided to go to his contingency scenario: to make me want to overeat so that I will become so insecure about my excess weight that I will hide myself away no matter how close by my friends or social events may be. I know I’ve been eating poorly, especially over the past couple of months because of stress, but I also know that it’s because AM is trying to do whatever it takes to keep me from socializing. Being overweight while socializing in a running group is certainly enough to do the trick, and the fact that I’ve let myself go so badly over the past year doesn’t help matters either as once upon a time I was lean and fit.
When I first lost weight about eight years ago my therapist noted that the excess weight wasn’t just causing me to feel self-conscious, but that I was hiding behind my weight. I didn’t want people to see the real me, so I used my weight as every excuse not to socialize or date. What’s funny is that while I certainly had to change my nutrition and lifestyle to start losing weight, a lot of the weight loss was somewhat organic in that once I started feeling better about myself I started eating more healthily and exercising with more regularity.
I know that my tendency to overeat is directly tied with my desire to isolate, but since I don’t want to continue to gain even more weight I am determined to stop this behavior. One of the things that I’ve been reminding myself of is the mindset I had when I started getting into shape a few years ago. Prior to the weight loss I always went to the gym with a singular mindset: to make myself look more attractive. The problem with this mindset is that there is a part of me that is not at all convinced that I am attractive, and even believes that I am highly unattractive. It’s this part of my psyche that would sabotage my weight loss efforts, because if I have a baseline belief that I will never be an attractive man, then what is the point of dieting and exercising?
The mindset that changed my nutritional habits and my gym workouts was one of defining these activities as self-care. If I am doing these things to take care of myself then it doesn’t matter what the result is or whether or not I look more attractive today than I did yesterday. It also helps to motivate me to stay on track on those days when I want to cave in and eat junk food or not bother going to the gym. By changing my mentality that all of this is part of my overall self-care regimen, then I am able to keep going with these activities and stay motivated.
So far this shift of mentality is working. Lately I haven’t been eating nearly as poorly as I was a couple of months ago, and I’m going to the gym again with more frequency. While I still have a long way to go to lose the amount of weight I’d like to lose, I feel like finally I am on a better pathway to overall healthiness.
The other piece of this is trying to convince myself that avoidance doesn’t actually protect me from getting triggered or hurt. Even if I avoid going to a party or a social event because I’m afraid something will happen to trigger me, when I am home alone in my apartment my negative thoughts fill the void by convincing me that no one at the social event wanted me there anyway. Part of me knows this is a false narrative, but another part of me believes it completely, and therefore staying at home only exacerbates my feelings of angst and loneliness.
I am also hurting myself because by not attending social events I am preventing myself from experiencing the positive influence of my friends. My friends have always shown happiness and gratitude whenever they see me. If I stay home I deprive myself of this positive influence and instead have only my echo chamber of negative thoughts to keep me company.
Lately I’ve started attending my Saturday running group again, so in that sense my rebellion against my avoidant tendencies is working. I know I’m not quite ready to go to large parties yet, but it still feels nice just to get out and see people again. As time goes on I hope to build up my courage so that I can gradually increase my social activities.
So, as I trudge through the apartment transition over the next couple of weeks I will continue to remind myself to rebel against my avoidant tendencies. I know that I’m still recovering from everything that has happened to me over the past six months, and I’m also stressed out because of all of the preparations for the impending apartment move. I also know that I’m still easing myself into socializing, but I’ll do my best to keep seeing my friends, even if it’s in smaller groups for now, to embrace self-care, and to remind myself that avoidance doesn’t help me to avoid feeling hurt.
It’s time for me to have a rebellion against my avoidant self.