Weirdness

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“What were you just cackling about?” my husband asked as he entered my lair, aka our bedroom, where I was hunkered down behind the blackout blinds at 4PM on a beautiful summer Friday, looking like Charlie in “Always Sunny” writing his Dayman song.

No, I wasn’t in there huffing paint, but I had just popped a melatonin gummy and settled into my usual routine: burrowing into bed, flipping on one of my crimey comfort shows, and scrolling Instagram to numb out after another week white-knuckling it as a mental health professional who’s not exactly, like, the gold standard of mental health herself.

I squinted at his silhouette, backlit by “Law & Order,” as my foggy brain sputtered (*old school computer noises*) to translate silly —> sane. The man I married is a “normie” in every sense of the word, and bless him, after two decades together, he continues to seek logical explanations for inexplicable phenomena — such as, WTF I am doing or saying and why.

“Uhhh…” I stalled, swiping at my screen. I tossed him the phone. “This?” 👀⬇️

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Do I hear groans? Oh well! At 47, and six years sober, I’m at the point in my life’s journey where I’ve finally learned to let go — of at least some inconsequential concerns. Like, my pants size or “macro” count, my permanently furrowed forehead or chewed-up fingernails…or whether my sense of humor “makes sense” to anyone else.

I’m still obsessed with color-coordinating all my outfits, though, and these new navy and brown (oh, sorry, comet and twilight) glasses are proving quite the challenge, considering 3/4 of my wardrobe is black! 😨

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Call me weird. There are worse things! And these days, I’m just grateful for any hint of amusement. I mean, of all the shit that can blindside you in the Bizarro World Trauma Factory in which we live, an attack of The Sillies seems like a best case scenario.

When I’m hit, and that first chuckle cracks open my clenched-up belly, triggering ripples of release throughout my body, I’m struck with just how intense a departure it is from my baseline, depressoangsty state. And this realization — I am desperate to feel joy — typically tips me over the precipice that I’m always precariously straddling.

I get maybe 45 seconds of laughter before I start to weep.

Given how many curious noises he hears wafting from whatever corner of our townhouse I happen to be hiding, it’s cute that my husband continues to check in when I start popping off. You know, just in case this time I’m actually in distress and not just barking at stupid criminals on TV, or belting whatever workout tune is playing in my PowerBeats Pros, or bargaining with my anxiety, out loud, because self-talk >>> self-medication, or giggling like a deranged hyena when I’m on my phone and happen upon the latest meeting of the Do Not Care Club.

(Try explaining to a dude why this is funny! 😓)

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It’s impossible to really articulate what’s tickling you, and if you even need to try, you’ve probably already lost your audience. I’m a bit of an expert on this topic, having existed in an awkward state of incongruence — in other words, feelin’ weird — for most of my life.

Not that these feelings weren’t, to some extent, based in fact. I mean, even as a little kid, I had the sense that something inside me was “off,” and when I’d had my fill of being “on” for the sake of my family or a select few other kids, I retreated to my own little private world. Usually my room, or the woods, where it felt safe to grapple with the confusing swirl of thoughts and storm of emotions that I was sure no one else would understand.

Should I give a few examples? …Oh boy; buckle up!

I remember obsessing over the old “Muppet Babies” cartoon, to the point that I set my boom box up next to the TV on Saturday mornings to record the audio, and later at night when I was in bed, I would play back the tapes for comfort (…hmmm, guess I never grew out of that!) I was so touched by the lyrics to the sweet little songs they sang in every episode that I cried myself to sleep on the reg. 😳

I used to wander the fields at my grandparents’ farm, pretending I was starring in movies with different plot lines and dialogue I made up on the spot — one, as I recall, was “Stand By Me,” only with girls! 🤣 Truthfully, I kinda always felt like I had a camera on me everywhere I went, and I was outside looking in with the rest of the audience. …which is reason #756 why I should’ve been in therapy like 40 years sooner, so basically at birth.

(Early in my sobriety, I heard someone on “The Bubble Hour” podcast admit to the same out-of-body, “being watched” feeling, and it was quite a relief! Turns out it’s actually pretty common in recovery circles, where it’s known as “the egomaniac with an inferiority complex.” Lovely! 😳)

One more nugget, since I’m on a roll: When I wasn’t busy writing my “children’s series” about skiing bunnies and ladybug birthdays, I created my own alternate human universe where my name was Stacey (yes, like the cool girl in “The Babysitters Club” 🙄), and I was a married mom of four living in Vermont and coaching my kids’ softball team. Would it shock you to hear that I came up with an entire roster of fake names and played out entire fake games on scorebook pages stolen from my real team’s equipment bag?

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I came to identify as a “square peg” who never quite fit anywhere with anyone. And that was, more or less, fine. I got along OK in school/work/society, being reasonably intelligent, a decent athlete and competent writer, and above all, a “nice girl” programmed to follow rules and be polite. Occasionally, I was even able to amuse or entertain people besides myself. But the deep-seated belief that I always needed to perform a role out there -> 🌎 to be deemed “good enough” in here -> 🧠 made me cripplingly anxious when I wasn’t safely alone. It was exhausting!

Alcohol muted all the noise and slowed the motor down. It seemed to smooth my irregular edges so I could slide into some kind of acceptable slot, at least for the requisite not-alone time I had to endure every day. And if booze was really just blacking out reality or distorting my perception, what difference did that make? Living in the world felt so much easier!

What’s funny to me now is the concept of alcohol as a cure for weirdness, when not even little fake-scorebook-keeping Stacey could have dreamed up the wacked-out shit I actually went on to do in active addiction.

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Recovery has taught me about the power of common humanity, that “we’re all a little mad here,” and that’s OK — as long as we’re not actively harming each other or creating chaos. It has taught me that “terminal uniqueness,” the belief that you’re wrong in the world and no one “gets” you, can indeed be a death sentence when it drives you to isolate. And it has taught me that acceptance, the surety that things are exactly as they are supposed to be at this moment in time, is the key to serenity.

Serenity goes hand in hand with the courage to change, and change is “an inside job.” Meaning, heal thyself, and thou shalt stop giving a shit what anyone else thinks, and then *poof* go 99% of thine earthly problems!

This is also a core tenet of counseling psychology; as Carl Rogers, the founder of person-centered therapy and one of my personal role models, put it: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

And wasn’t it Saint Francis of Assisi who advised that we “seek to understand, rather than to be understood”? That dude was onto something, too.

Accepting what makes me “weird” leads to embracing what makes me human. I am learning that I don’t have to whittle down my shape to carve out a niche; I need to get “right-sized,” as they say in AA, by taking care of my mental, emotional and spiritual health.

Life is not about fitting in. It’s about showing up, authentically and responsibly, and using what you’ve got — knowledge, skill, experience — for a purpose outside of yourself.

I see now that my anxiety, my sensitivity, the particular brain chemistry that fuels my creativity and big feelings and sometimes makes me act goofy and frequently triggers great pain …I don’t need to kill it or hide it; I need to get to know it better, learn to manage and channel it, and just live with the imperfect, or the abnormal, results.

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Being in recovery and therapy helps me to understand myself, which helps me understand the human experience, which helps me to be useful to my fellow humans. As a therapist, my job requires me to feel safe enough in my skin to get out of my own damn head, so I can create and hold a safe space for my clients’ self-discovery — a space where they feel accepted and validated just as they are…however “weird” that might be.

Weird’s a good thing, is basically the point it took me thousands of words to make. 😬

The fact that I’m able to do my job at all is a testament to the hard work that’s been done in our house over the past six years — and that is 100% a joint effort. Free from the chaos and destruction wrought by alcohol, schooled by the 12-step program, and forced to unpack our baggage in therapy, my husband and I have grown up together.

He’s come to a place on his recovery path where he can accept my “living amends,” even if some features of my sober lifestyle leave him scratching his normie head. And he makes it feel safe to be unapologetically me, even though this version is probably weirder than the one he married.

I’d like to think there’s just more to love. 😜