If you’re living in a sick society, don’t be surprised when you inherit some of that sickness.
Like pulling up weeds but leaving the roots in the ground, as soon as it rains again and the conditions are ‘right’, the weeds will come back.
Why?
Because you can’t solve a problem without first understanding its cause.
Even if it’s a personal trauma, say someone was sexually assaulted as a child, there is always something deeper to explore.
Why did the abuser abuse?
Misogyny? The patriarchy? ‘Incel culture?’
It all stems back to one source — a collective trauma imbued by society.
Therefore, when, on your daily commute, you turn your nose up at the prostitute standing on the corner, or the man hunched over in the telephone box with a needle sticking out of his arm, what you really should be turning your nose up at is society.
By failing to recognise the part that society plays in the mental health system and remaining complicit (see also: ignorant), you feed the monster and strengthen the machine.
The overarching fact is that no one chooses to throw their life away; they do so because the pain of reality is, in their eyes, far worse than the pain of anything they could inflict upon themselves.
All feelings must go somewhere. If you try to keep them in, you’ll explode.
Some people internalise their feelings, which can lead to mental ill health in the form of addiction, self-harm, eating disorders, etc, and others externalise their feelings, contributing to the ‘hurt people hurt people’ rhetoric.
I have seen both sides.
Writing from personal experience, as a teenager, I developed Anorexia as a way to cope. I used food restriction and exercise as a way to feel in control of a society that was so far out of my control.
It wasn’t just about body image, which formed only a tiny part of my illness; it was about the lack of control that I felt over my life… Like when I’d switch on the TV and feel a pit in my stomach as I watched the news…
There’s a reason why that feeling would all too often arise, and it’s related to how we live our lives.
We go through our lives spectating when our soul desperately wants to participate. Mindlessly consuming propaganda sold as ‘empowerment’, we feel anxious because we were born to create, yet we live in a society whose main message is: ‘CONSUME. CONSUME. CONSUME!’
Alas, when we do that [consume], we allow something from the outside to come in.
We reaffirm that we are the passengers, and society is the driver.
When we create, however, we bring something from the inside out. And… Wow… Doesn’t that feel good?
Unlike consumption, which is focused on us buying into someone/something else’s ideals, creativity helps us to feel like we’re part of the world.
No longer feeling like we’re just passing through, when we create, hollowness is replaced with pride.
And so, this is why I dedicate my days to creating.
Instead of starving myself so that I can feel something (or rather, nothing. The absence of feeling, as I have learned, is still feeling), I now write. I write about things that are bigger than myself — politics and social justice — and demand that my voice, a voice that I have been told all my life is insignificant, is heard.
And this is the key point…
You can get treatment for a mental illness, but when the therapy finishes, what then?… You need to have something bigger than yourself to give your days purpose.
Society will always try to knock you down. Your strength is proven in the way you get back up, with more fire in your soul than you had before.
Eternal.
When you realise the transformative power of creating, the flame will never die.
Portfolio of Hope 