You are not your own Freud. A cautionary tale.
I look at my diary. Page after page of me analyzing why I am the way I am. Why do I suddenly become self-conscious while deep in conversations? Why do I struggle with the concept of being in a relationship with someone? Theory after theory after theory. Page after page of advice I gave to myself: think of everyone as being your fan. Allow yourself to "just be". Spread more love.
And the most common one: Stop overthinking everything, including yourself and your own behaviours, so much.
On my bookshelf, a plethora of books call out to me: The Highly Sensitive Person; The Wisdom of the Enneagram; Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment. These are all books I read, believing it contained the answers to why I was the way I was. Perhaps, in these books, I could find the clues, the answers, to be better.
I started analyzing myself at a time when I was not happy with the way I was. I simply wanted to "improve". I wanted to be "emotionally intelligent", so to speak, and I also wished to upgrade my social skills.
At the time, I was overly aware of everything I said in every social interaction. I told myself that I had handled a social interaction "well" or "badly" (and there was really no in-between). This made it feel like I was performing, trying to play the part of a human who was normal and happy and relaxed. I felt like a robot trying to navigate what it meant to be myself.
This made it feel like I was performing, trying to play the part of a human who was normal and happy and relaxed. I felt like a robot trying to navigate what it meant to be myself.
Every behaviour I had, there was some sort of reason behind it, waiting to be pried open and analyzed. Any negative emotion I had, there was some sort of hack to dealing with it.
For example, whenever I felt slightly sad, I would start analyzing it.
THINGS I TOLD MYSELF WHEN I WAS SAD:
Why am I sad? Did something happen? Why did I let it get to me?
Why is my sadness not going away? What can I do to make it go away?
Let me figure out how to make the sadness go away. I'll read a bunch of self-help books and maybe it will fix it.
I am so good at psychology! I don't even struggle with negative emotions because I understand why they're there and what's causing them and can fix them.
Wow. Let me write down every strategy I need to start using so I don't have to feel sadness anymore.
After I while, I realized I could no longer feel.
I couldn't "erase" my emotions. Nobody can. Instead, I was numbing myself. I was applying bandage after bandage atop my emotions, adding and adding ways to deal with them, instead of just letting them be. I forgot what it felt like to be sad, but at the same time, I forgot what it felt like to be happy.
What I was doing was using the defence mechanism of intellectualization in order to avoid actually feeling my emotions.
What It Means to Intellectualize
According to Psychology Today, intellectualization is "a defense mechanism in which people reason about a problem to avoid uncomfortable or distressing emotions."
For me, intellectualizing looked like trying to use psychology and self-help books, mantras, and self-psychoanalyzation to try to "bargain with my mind".
I told myself that I had no reason to feel the way I did. If I was upset about something that someone said, I told myself: You don't need to be upset. People's opinions of you don't matter. You have to tell yourself that you are your own person and what people think of you don't matter. DON'T let it get to you!
I had lists of things I had to start doing so that I wouldn't have to be "so emotionally-flawed". You have to start meditating, Sophie. That's why you're sad. You have to start working out. You know you're sad because you're not being creative enough! Maybe you're sad because you're overthinking too much...? (Talk about a catch-22... I was literally overthinking my overthinking.)
Does this look healthy? At the time, it did. I thought that I was above other people because I could "hack" my emotions and "rise above" them rather than feel them.
It worked but then it didn't. Rather than feeling like I had achieved some sort of "self-actualization" (which was what I imagined myself experiencing after I analyzed myself and read enough self-help books), I became completely dissociated from myself and my own feelings.
This was kind of scary, to say the least.
The Problem with Self-Help Books
The people who are the most neurotic read the most self-help books. But they are neurotic sometimes because they read so many self-help books.
It may seem ironic that reading self-help books can be actually negative for your mental health, but it's true.
Reasons Why Self-Help Books Aren't Always Helpful:
Reading self-help books is like putting a "band-aid" over your emotions. It seems productive, and it might help for a little bit. But in the long run, it is an avoidance strategy that allows you to try to "work around" dealing with the actual issue at hand.
It allows you to continue intellectualizing your emotions rather than feeling them.When we read self-help books, we aren't actually allowing ourselves to feel whatever it is we're feeling. We often are actively trying to force our way out of it. Whether you're reading a book on grief, or a book on breakups, often the only real solution is to let yourself feel the feelings. You can't escape the pain of life just by reading a self-help book.
Self-help books can sometimes complicate our problems. When we read self-help books, they often will tell us multiple different reasons for our problems. Maybe we aren't confident enough, or maybe we don't get enough exercise, or maybe we need to start caring less, or maybe the problem is our spouse, or the fact that we work too much, or the fact that we eat too much gluten. What if, at the end of the day, we're simply just sad, and need to allow ourselves to feel it?
Self-help books often make us feel as though emotions are something we can "solve". As I explained previously, the main issue with my intellectualization was that I thought I could problem solve my way out of every single emotion I had. This is simply not true - emotions don't work this way. You can't wrestle your grief away, or just tell yourself not to be depressed until it leaves.
Self-help books often simplify problems and make everything seem "easy" when emotions never really are "easy". When we read a self-help book, it makes us feel safe. It tells us that all we have to do is follow these steps, and we will be okay. It seems so simple, and between the pages our self help book, everything is laid-out and perfect. But real-world emotions are never so simple.
Why It Is Impossible To Psychoanalyze Yourself
The trap I fell into was believing I knew the reason behind every emotion or behaviour I had.
I saw myself as my own therapist. I didn't need to talk to anyone - I knew exactly why I was the way I was, and I knew exactly what I had to do to solve it.
But then I started becoming numb, and I didn't know how to get rid of that feeling. And I started to have a voice in my head that told me I wasn't good enough, and no matter how much I self-therapized, it wouldn't go away.
I was mad because I couldn't understand why I was acting the way I did, or feeling the way I did. I continued read self-help book after self-help book, and did whatever I could to change my own feelings and behaviours. But nothing worked.
I was mad. I thought I understood myself completely - my goals, my intentions, my needs.
And then, finally, I burnt myself out trying so hard to get rid of my emotions. I was exhausted, and sad, and done. I curled up, and I let myself cry. I let myself wallow in my pain, so to speak. I let myself be a mess, and have no control over my own emotions. I let go of all understanding of myself.
And then - albeit very slowly, and very painfully - I began to heal.
I realized in that moment that often, we are incomprehensible, even to ourselves.
No one can truly explain every aspect of human behaviour. Sometimes we do things or think things that are completely unexpected. Sometimes we are a different person one minute than we are the minute before. Sometimes we may feel like we don't have a personality because we are a collection of so many different fragments and things.
This is okay. And that is what I needed to realize in that moment.
The problem with psychoanalyzing yourself, and analyzing all your problems and emotions, is that it give you a false sense of control and knowledge.
In reality, no one can truly understanding every reason behind what they do, or what they feel. Often, a lot of our feelings and behaviour can arise out of our subconscious, a part of our brain that contains memories and thoughts we do not have conscious access to. This means that often, we are truly unable to know the "why" behind what we do.
What I learned is that there is no clear answer to every emotion and problem in life.
And why try to know every reason? When we allow ourselves to let go and stop trying to understand every aspect of ourselves, we also let go of the weighty burden of constant self-reflection.
Rumination is not helpful at the end of the day. What is helpful? Allowing yourself to simply feel emotions.
What I learned is that emotions and feelings and behaviours sometimes have their own agenda. They can't always be controlled or understood. No matter how much you pride yourself on being "reflective" or "thoughtful", you are never going to truly understand yourself.
And that is okay.
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