Tips for a Satisfactory Human Experience

I don’t talk about my therapist a lot on here or really the fact that I still go to one. So (Mario voice): Here we go!

We had a really interesting conversation this week. Do you ever feel like you’re performing for other people? Like you’re you, but with little pieces of who they want you to be sprinkled in. My therapist rarely tells me her analysis of me as if she’s read me like a book but she called me a performer. I take on whatever role I think people want me to play and I play it well. For example: a man tells me he wants to keep things casual. I say, Oh of course, me too. Which even if that’s true, I, Amy Fillhouer, would never say that shit. My core values actually reject the concept of strategically planning out your feelings to the point of not letting feelings happen. Yet there I am, agreeing with whatever they want me to say because I want to connect with them. When will I learn that unless I stop compromising my authenticity, I’ll never fully connect with anybody? When will I accept that who I am down to my core is someone who feels a lot of shit and I feel it deeply? Even if I wanted to reject the feelings that bubble up inside of my body, I don’t know if I could.

Whenever I’m asked for advice, I’m torn between telling them what they want to hear and telling them what I would actually recommend. They say, I’m sad, lonely, etc., how can I make this feel better? And I say, Go to the gym! Get up every day and get ready and look pretty and you’ll start to feel pretty! Don’t let them know that you’re hurting! But what I would do if I were them is Be sad. Be lonely. Make yourself at home inside your body because guess what – you’re a human being and feeling sad and feeling lonely and feeling etcetera are all part of being a human being. You’re going to be sad again and you’re going to feel lonely some more and it’d be smart if you got comfortable. So try and cry a little. And then maybe write down what you’re feeling. And get in bed at 9pm tonight after eating french fries for dinner and cuddle your dog and watch a shitty movie.

I don’t know what the point of this post is. I suppose I’ve just exposed myself as a performer. And hopefully if you know me personally, you know this doesn’t apply to you. (Just kidding, it might). But maybe you’re sitting there on your phone reading this, thinking holy crap do I do that? And if that’s the case then I hope you take this as the reminder to treat yourself the way you deserve to be treated by everybody else. Don’t let yourself morph into a version of you who sounds like you and looks like you but doesn’t feel the way you want to feel. Be demanding with the type of love that you want. And if you’re still waiting for it, be patient. Love yourself in the meantime.