What Have We Learned? A Psychoanalytic Blog-Retrospective

There’s nothing else like it.

For those who don’t know, this blog was conceived during a period of great stress and unhappiness in my life, a period from which I have thankfully escaped since Express Elevator to Hell’s “debut” in January, 2013. I have touched on these circumstances in blog posts and pages here and there, some of which remain while others have since been deleted due to either poor writing or irrelevance; at the time, Express Elevator to Hell (EEH) was an attempt at hybridizing both my emotional angst and my passion for filmmaking, the formation of a type of public journal that simultaneously allowed me to practice my writing and understanding of movies while also excreting some of the five pounds of shit out of the four pound bag that was my twenty-something persona. In more ways than one, I owe much personal and emotional development to this site, its usefulness in getting my head screwed on straight being on par with help from family, friends, and significant others from 2010 till now.

Like I said, though, that period of emotional crisis is over. Stopping the desire to kill myself was the “easy” part; now, comes life.

Given that, I decided to summarize a roll call of the lessons I’ve learned since the inception of EEH, a blog-retrospective that is a compromise between ranting and preaching. What follow are seven lessons I’ve learned that either (A) helped me recover after hitting rock bottom or (B) have since helped me achieve and maintain a level of equilibrium, ways of dealing with the ordinary ups and downs of everyday life.

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1.) Don’t kill yourself & Don’t (physically) Hurt Other People & Don’t Break Other People’s Stuff: What I like to call my “emergency rulebook” for surviving most any extreme situation, emotional breakdown, rock bottom impact, or midlife crisis is this three-for-one rule. This rule is arranged in descending order of importance, and while obviously I never broke the first rule, I can’t say I always obeyed the latter two. The important thing to remember in your worst moments, however, is that if you can avoid these legal and/or lethal pitfalls, most any emotional breakdown, no matter how embarrassing, is not going to haunt you or others for the rest of your life. That’s not to say life isn’t worth living if you get into a fistfight with your brother or break your girlfriend’s laptop, but the cliched yet critical lesson to remember is that, no matter how emotionally compromised you may become, you are always held responsible for your actions. Try not to learn that the hard way, as I did.

2.) Guns Up: That being said, if you’re going to lash out (verbally or nonviolently) at others who you feel mistreated you, you may as well go all the way. The applicability of this rule, like the rest of these rules, is contextual of course; but I’ve found it’s often better to cut out the passive-aggressive undertones of most toxic social interactions and rip off the band-aide, so to speak. People seem to respond better to rants, being chewed out, or you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit exclamations the less apologetic and more blunt you act when you finally do explode.

To be clear, this is a break-the-glass-in-case-of-emergency option to prevent violent altercations or the prolonging of a destructive social or professional situation, and may result in one burning bridges that can’t be rebuilt. That’s still preferable to failing any part of Lesson #1, and offers some pushback against bullies, antagonists, and other assorted assholes.

3.) You are your last, best (and sometimes, only) line of defense: I call this lesson “necessary selfishness.” Being selfish is often and appropriately labeled as a negative trait, but there are numerous instances throughout life where it is not only a helpful but vital mindset. In toxic relationships (romantic or otherwise), when being taken advantage of by employers or superiors, or under the thumb of well meaning but overbearing parents, you must look out for yourself; your interests should come first in these situations, and without any caveats

Left: Sometimes, life-lessons are corny just because they’re corny. Other times, they’re corny because they’re right. Right: So, make way.

Authors like Mark Manson argue we should become more comfortable with admitting how ignorant we are, not to mention that some of the most despicable miscreants are the most at peace with their negative behavior, but I’ll push back by saying most of us non-sociopaths need to go easier on ourselves; by extension, we should realize that we are the sole individual who will always have our best interests at heart, even if we don’t always execute perfect actions to that effect. Some times — maybe even many times — we should trust our instincts about ourselves, if nothing else.

4.) The Power of Observation: In contrast to Lesson #2, a tutorial I’ve taken from the work of Robin Williams is to recognize the power in listening, or more broadly the power of observing others passively with the concerted effort to understand them. This is a relaxation of responsibility, on the one hand, allowing others to lead in conversation or action, and on the other allows for opportunity to learn from others by empathizing with them. This is a reminder how powerful the “strong, silent” archetype can be, the allure of quiet confidence, and more importantly allows us the opportunity to observe the world around us with greater objectivity.

5.) Contentment through Stability: I’m not a fan of most “self-help” books, seminars, or documentaries, so depending on your level of cynicism, this post may or may not feel hypocritical. That being said, one of the few I’ve enjoyed and found useful was a brief collection of “happiness tips” titled Walking on Sunshine, by English blogger and author, Rachel Kelly, which inspired this writing to a large extent. One of Kelly’s wiser observations can be found in the book’s opening pages, where she realizes how happiness/contentment/ satisfaction with life in general is not a tangible, direct emotional status so much as it is a byproduct of various behavioral and psychological habits.

More to the point, Kelly writes how she often feels happy as a function of feeling calm, which speaks to the deleterious effects of needless stress and anxiety. I am not arguing for an avoidance of stressful situations, of course, but a refusal to succumb to suffocating anxiety when there is no point to it. Academic tests, housing situations, dating obligations et al. are meant to develop and/or test your life, not turn it into a veritable hell.

6.) The belonging you seek is not behind you; it is ahead: What is more difficult than stopping oneself from trying to “quit” life is teaching oneself to embrace life, specifically the future. I don’t advocate disrespecting the influence of the past, nor the necessity of living in the moment; but quite frankly, I now look to the future with cautious optimism not because I want to, but because I have to. If I am not at least interested in what comes around the next corner, my energy and lust for life drains from one week to the next.

Given my recent history, mixed self-confidence, and plentiful guilt over the past 8 years, I relate to Daisy Ridley’s Rey in The Force Awakens (2015), the film from which Lesson #6 is taken. A pivotal sequence in that film sees Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata advise Rey to stop waiting for the return of her family with the heartbreaking line, “Dear child, I see your eyes; you already know the truth … Whomever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back.” 

Whether you interpret this as a longing for a family member long gone, a friendship gone sour, or a former lover, this phrase hits you like a sledgehammer. This transience of the past and importance of realizing we never know what’s in our future is critical to self-actualization. Our lives are always progressing whether we realize it or not, and yet we cannot achieve that future belonging until we let go of our past demons. 

(7.) The Repercussions of Mortality: This final lesson is best summarized by the dominant theme of Game of Thrones (2011-2019). I place this lesson last because it was the final major concept I learned over these past 5-8 years of introspection, and it has coincided with the rise of one of the most popular television series of all time. To quote Jim Anesta and Will Schoder:

You can’t embrace your future until you make peace with your past.

What I find especially compelling about the series’ use of death is the way in which it spins the story, how it impacts the characters who are still alive. Take, for example, Jon Snow’s death and resurrection. As Kit Harrington points out, the experience completely alters the character’s outlook on the world: “That cuts right to our deepest fear, that there’s nothing after death. Jon’s never been afraid of death, and that’s made him a strong and honorable person. He realizes something about his life now — he has to live it, because that’s all there is. He’s been over the line, and there’s nothing there. That changes him; it literally puts the fear of God into him. He’s seen oblivion, and that’s got to change someone in the most fundamental way there is.”

Similar changes can be seen in Jaime Lannister and Sandor Clegane. While neither die, both go through near death experiences and are reborn. In the first season, Jaime tells Tyrion in regard to the recently paralyzed Bran: “Even if the boy lives, he’ll be a cripple, grotesque. Give me a good, clean death any day.” Tyrion’s response is: “Speaking for the grotesques, I’d have to disagree. Death is so final, where as life… ah, life is so full of possibilities.” When Jaime becomes crippled himself, his eyes are opened to Tyrion’s perspective, along with a hundred others he’d blinded himself to at the start of the series.

In short, it took years of wanting to end my life for me to appreciate the value of life. The overarching theme here, I believe, is that these periods of emotional suffering, whatever their flavor, help us to become more complete human beings. I have profound regrets from these past few years, but I have learned to live with them, and am grateful for the personal growth I have experienced as a result. Moreover, I am immensely thankful to all those who helped me learn these lessons and achieve that growth, without whom I may well have perished. Thank you.

And thanks for reading

— TRB