Shifting Internal
It’s hard to believe I’m writing this article as a mentally stable, career-oriented, it-girl at the peak of her young-adult life.
Because I’m not. Actually, I’m a 23-year-old, formally “gifted,” oldest child who is now plagued by existential dread, and an overwhelming lack of motivation and inspiration!!
(but I’m ALSO an artist living in NYC, so that’s fun and fresh of me)
Typically being the “oldest child” is to be instilled with an innate pressure to perform from birth. While the bar is set high for us, the feeling of passing that bar, and raising it even just a bit higher for ourselves is euphoric. At least, it was for me. Growing up, I measured my worth in this way. Every time I got good grades or the lead in the play, or sang the solo church on Sunday, it was like a re-confirmation of my value to those around me. I blasted through my childhood and teens feeling mostly exceptional. I had guts, I took up space, and I got results. I knew who I was and I ticked off all the boxes of a model student, daughter, and church girl. At least in public.
Turns out, it’s usually easier to please people when you willingly are operating within their parameters for how you should live your life. Crazy!! And, of course, that’s exactly what I was doing, even if I enjoyed it. My identity was rooted in being a people pleaser- just maybe not in the “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you” kind of way. When I look back and fondly miss my teenage self-assuredness, part of me just misses the comfortability with the expectations I structured my life around. I was comfortable with the image I was projecting to the world, even though my inner life was a total mess.
The truth is, throughout junior high and high school, I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I was queer. Not an easy thing to do in Dallas, Texas, when the Christian school you go to is an off-shoot of the Southern Baptist church you’ve attended with your family since you were born. It was a struggle, but not insurmountable, because if it was all in my head, I could pretend it wasn’t real. No one knew, therefore, it didn’t affect the me that people saw! Logic!! Struggling in secret was hard, but not nearly as hard as it became when I moved to New York, far away from everyone I knew, and finally was in a safe space that allowed me to confront my feelings. I finally had to acknowledge that it was all real. It wasn’t going away no matter how hard I prayed, and now I would have to come to terms with it.
To say that my 20s have been the best of times and the worst of times would be a giant understatement. So many things hit me at once that I couldn't have prepared for the fallout. I came out to my family in May of 2021, kind of by accident. I think the aftermath of that horrific day led to what I can best describe as a “dark night of the soul.” The phrase was coined by the 16th-century Spanish Christian mystic St. John of the Cross, and while its colloquial meaning has shifted a little over time, now it is a term describing an intense crisis of faith or a period of extreme hopelessness in one’s life. All at once, I lost the version of myself I had maintained for so long, and I began to question everything. I endlessly interrogated my faith, my aspirations, my place in my family, and most of all, my sense of self-worth. Things I cared about no longer mattered to me. This might seem a little dramatic, but for a lifelong people pleaser and a chronic over-thinker, this combination of particular turmoils set me up for two years of deep depression, incessant anxiety, and so much anger I didn't know what to do with it.
For most of 2021 and 2022, I was living one minute to the next, walking around and staring up at the sky waiting for it to come crashing down on me. I used to find so much joy in things like making art, cooking, traveling, and reading, and suddenly nothing seems to matter at all. Art just made me apathetic, I barely ate, and on a dream vacation with my best friend in Greece, I could barely motivate myself to climb out of bed. Just like Barbie™, I thought about death constantly!! The only books I picked up were theology and religion books so I could try to study my way out of my overwhelming sense of helplessness.
That last paragraph was super intense, and maybe I’ll write more about it eventually, but that journey lead me to the totally novel and profound conclusion that time really does heal all wounds. At least it’s in the process of healing me. For all my studying and therapy sessions and a few rounds of Zoloft- nothing has helped me so much as the passage of time. Learning to live with the weight of existential crisis has taken me years and probably will continue to be a chore, but I’m doing it! Things that used to send me spiraling don’t as often, or a least the spirals aren't as black-hole-esq as they used to be.
Without this weight, I have been given the gift and the challenge of discovering myself in a new light. Now that I can see more clearly again, I’m left with a view of myself that I’m not familiar with. I’m starting to find the joy in things I used to love again- but I’m not sure if I will ever fully return to how I was before. Most days I feel a severe lack of motivation, which I have come to understand as my motivator fundamentally changing.
Before my “dark night,” I was motivated to succeed by external pressures. My desire to achieve was directly linked with wanting to live up to the expectations of anyone who ever said I would amount to anything. Every test, every show, every achievement, all done in the name of proving my worth. But how do I prove myself when I’ve already disappointed everyone I was trying to impress? I’ve already done the worst thing I could do (in their eyes lol), so anything else I could possibly do will never outshine that or redeem myself to them. So where do I go from here?
Slowly, I am trying to shift to a state of internal motivation. I want to become a person who finds meaning and value in something simply because it is worthwhile in and of itself. I want to make art that I care about- regardless of how people perceive it or if it “goes anywhere.” I want to assign value to things I choose to do, not let others dictate it to me. I want to live fearlessly. I haven’t achieved that exact mindset yet, but I have faith that I will.
Somedays, I’m still looking up at the sky, waiting for it to fall, but more and more I’m finding my eyes gazing out on the horizon, looking forward to discovering what the rest of my 20s have in store for me.
I’m hoping that through this blog series, I can share my journey toward the mindset I long to adopt, and one day look back and be proud of how far I’ve come. Also, this is a great way to make sure I actually take the time to write this all down, because I've never been good at journaling.
Very Truly Yours,
Avery
