INTRODUCTION

Take these shackles of my feet so I can dance

After having being in therapy for more than twenty years – I stopped at the age of 37 because, quite honestly, I was bored. 

Over therapised. 

And generally hopeless.

Please do not get me wrong, along this journey, I have had the privilege to work with some really great therapists, and cannot deny that the process must have somehow enriched me.

Why then, at 42, am I still experiencing the same bouts of depression and difficulty in my life?

After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that while my therapy helped me navigate some unchartered territory in the journey towards self-understanding:

• Developmental damage during early childhood development due to an abusive and emotionally absent father

• That this stunt in development programmed me from an early age to subconsciously hate myself and consider myself unworthy of love and worthless as a person.

• Consequently I am prone to counter dependent, self destructive, punishing and self-defeating behaviours that are presented consciously by inner, chastising and castigating voices in my head.

When I reflect back on my years in therapy, I realise that all attempts to provide me with positive tools were silently rejected – because, to be honest, I was bringing to my therapists a subconscious strategy of one more defeat. If you think about it, its no wonder therapy aint my solution – my problems are all geared towards resisting the very concept of therapy.

I have very fond memories of the last therapist I had. She is a gentle soul and provided an empathetic ear and played a role of gentle nurturer to me. Know how I stored the memory of her? She was a friend I paid for because I wasn’t really worthy of real friends – so buying one was really my only option. I stopped seeing her. I have caught myself telling myself that she rejected me. How’s that for catching yourself with a hand in your corrupt cookie jar ?

Typically following positive personal events, I feel relieved rather than happy. I frequently put he needs of others ahead of my own and then feel aggrieved and abused.

For me things have been either perfect or totally ruined. I loose touch of myself above and beyond the situation and don’t have a personal strategy to check that I am still ‘competent’ or ‘lovable’ above and beyond the immediate experience. In other words, I am never convinced by what I have previously experienced. The result is like an on-going trial – a never adjourning tribunal of punishment – self deceptively skirting happiness.

One mistake and I am convinced that a person is a danger to me.

Personally, I am sick to death of perennial low-level unhappiness, a lifetime spent just getting by, of more or less coping with myself, everyday something to be got through – with only odd moments of feeling safe, like sleeping and eating, being in my pyjamas watching TV.  Where everything I do is tinged with fear. I avoid people, because if I don’t,  they will ring me up (my phone ringing gives me palpitations) and ask me to a dinner party, the kind of social event that fills me with dread (I won't know what to say, what I would wear, and how I would prove that I am not stupid/bad/unlikeable).

I decided to research ways to sort myself out. I trolled the internet for months – finding bits and bobs of information as I went along.

Again and again I was told that prescription drugs cannot treat this affliction;  basically drugs have proved to be at best inconsistent, at worse useless.

Psychotherapy is relentlessly touted as the only avenue of salvation. This baffles me because I now know that I subconsciously resent therapeutic attempts, because I had convinced myself that “It is just who I am”, or “I’ll change but don’t make me do anything different.”

Finally, I have come to a place in my life that I can admit to myself that even though I am capable of pleasure and possessed of social skills, much of my unhappiness is due to the fact that I have caught myself in a spin-cycle of negative self-talk, undermining and sabotaging my ability to enjoy my life. I have come to see how I have built depression and difficulty into my life.

The problem underpinning our traits is NOT depression, anxiety or emptiness. It is this personality system we have created for ourselves.

What I did not discover was a solution that resonated with me. The answers I was searching for remained elusive.

Studio Self is a representation of my determination to refuse to afford myself yet another opportunity to demonstrate my penchant for defeatism.

I am going to do it for once and for all: heal myself.

I believe that as individuals we ignore our own power : our unique qualification for authentically navigating those potholed roads of our inner landscapes.

My point of departure on this journey is this :

1.     Self-hatred makes EVERYTHING more difficult: 'What you brood over will hatch.'

2.    The point of life is actually to feel good, positive and happy. Given the choice between creating opportunities to be happy and have fun, or creating opportunities to be isolated and sad, we have programmed ourselves to believe that latter is safe.

So, I am staging my Prison Break.

If you also want out, you are welcome to come along...