Inside Boo Boos

Therapy is basically just realizing that your personality is almost entirely composed of symptoms and trauma responses. It's a harsh truth that sets in softly, and has the power to send you reeling down the slipperiest of spirals, at supersonic speed. It's ' I think, therefore I am ', right? But what about when the way you think is dictated by layers and layers of past experiences, mental illnesses and years of environmental conditioning? Does that mean we are all just products of the summation of our circumstances? That so many factors, that we have absolutely no control over, play such an important role in who we turn out to be? This absolutely terrifies me.The thought that even the deepest parts of myself, might not really be mine at all.

Bewitched by the illusion of choice, we fail to see that in addition to living a life we didn't choose, we are also living as a person we could neither choose nor shape. So we're playing as a character who we have close to no control over, in a game we didn't pick. What the fuck.

This is the point where the nature vs nurture debate pokes it's head out of the Jar of Tired Faux Intellectual Conversations. Our genetic combination rules over so much of our traits, and so does the environment we are raised in. But, in the context of this particular strain of existential dread, it doesn't matter if the culprit was nature or nurture. Either way, something totally out of our control shaped us into who we are now.

The genetics, well, there's not much to be said about that is there? Mom and Dad passed on their dominant traits, generational trauma and mental illnesses on to you, and you end up as a cocktail of the most bizarre combinations. Anxiety riddled ADHDers who's insides churn as they stay confined to their beds, wanting to do everything at once, but can do nothing at all because of ADHD paralysis. Bipolar babies that take their anti-depressants with a shot of vodka, one-upping their humble alcoholic fathers. Extremely confused teenagers who constantly crave the company of all their friends, whilst being irrevocably infatuated with the Japanese shut in Hikikomori lifestyle, all because their extroverted parent thought they needed an introvert to balance out their energy. Girls traumatised by their mothers, who were traumatised by their mothers, who were traumatised by theirs. Kids who grow up misunderstood, never really fitting in, believing that they were doomed to feel that way for the rest of their life. Children who will never love, because they were never loved.

Nurture is no picnic either. The environment you grew up in strongly influences how you are as an adult. The relationships you had as a child with your parents and peers, determine the way you behave in personal relationships. And not just in Instagram awareness ways like attachment styles and love languages, but right down to the way you feel and treat yourself. Every non-nature trait of yours can be traced back to some event or occurrence in your life. Which means, the fuckers who traumatised us won. They have caused irreparable damage to our psyches, and turned us into who we are. The scars, marks and voids they left influence our life in such remarkable ways. Our identities devolve into mere byproducts of the trauma we were subjected to. BT indeed.

So, if all the bad things have such a big impact on us, that must mean the good ones did too, right? They are just harder to see and notice. But it's true, every random act of kindness from someone, every smile from a loved one, every hand that slipped into yours and gave it a squeeze when you were fighting back tears, they all shape who you turn out to be as well. The good things are the ones that fill us with love and hope and make us want to be kinder, to ourselves and everyone else. Your face, cupped by a child's hands, a warm plate of food, all the music your friends snuck into your personal library, a handwritten letter, the last hug from an old lover, the evernew kisses from your final one. Everything plays its part. Everything moulds us. Softly, but surely, and leaves us better for it.

So what does this mean? The most extraordinary thing about the human brain is how user friendly it actually is. You can rewire it, reroute the circuits. Once you find the problem and pin it down, all you need is a little bit of patience and a lot of grit to get rid of it. And love, of course. Lots and lots of love. For yourself. You have to believe that you deserve better in order to start trying to get better.

So think about your fondest memories. Feel their essence. Retain the goodness they were filled with and cast your rich, golden patronus . Life gives us enough honey to soothe the scars and all the stardust we need to fill the voids. But the only things we can see are the craters left behind by those scars and voids. To put it simply, we are who the world made us. But that doesn’t mean we have to live our lives as that person. Who you are can be modified, enhanced. Changed. Even if you didn’t pick the character, you can pick their skin. You can customise it. So there’s hope after all then, eh? Hope was always there, hidden behind every good memory, every sweet gesture. And that hope, is our fuel.

It’s hard being a human. We would have been a completely different person if we were to set aside all the gifts nature and nurture gave us. And most of us go through life without ever meeting that person. We fail to peel the layers away and get to the centre, to stare straight into our souls. But that’s okay. It’s an extremely difficult and time consuming process, which might end up being futile. So, lets put that aside and focus on what we can do. Which is, being the person we want to be, DESPITE of all those layers. That’s doable, achievable. Now we just have to figure out how.