What Grows in the Dark

Have you ever heard the saying “Feelings are like mushrooms, they grow in the dark?”. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. As with every story I write it’s a bit of a journey so if you’ll bear with me, I’ll try to explain why.

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When I first started drinking I was a real crier. We all have that mate who can’t drink without having a teary and unfortunately for me, I was that girl. You know the type. She’s the friend who cries because, “Oh my God JeSSiCA I jUst LovE yoU sooOOoOo MuCH & I dON’t KnOW wHAt I’d dO wiThOUT yoU”. The same friend who cries because her childhood was shit or her parents didn’t understand her or someone said something to her in grade 9 and she’s never gotten over it and she still thinks about it every night before she goes to bed and if only she could rewind and stop it from happening then maybe, just maybe, everything would be ok. So there I’d be in the middle of the valley with a half-eaten kebab in one hand, my high heels in the other, dress hiked up way too far because I don’t have a free hand to keep pulling it down and the remnants of my “smokie eye” making a slow but steady journey towards my chin. If I can digress for a moment – why did we commit so fearlessly to smearing charcoal all over our eyelids back then? My friends and I would literally walk into Mac and say, “Hi Kelly, if you wouldn’t mind taking that brush and fucking my whole life up today, that would be great.”. Kelly would then charge us $150 for the privilege which we could claim back by going home with the very same products that ruined our lives in the first place. Products which, mind you, we had no idea how to use. What a vicious cycle.

Now where was I? Ahh yes, kebabs in the valley. So there I am, all cried out after having expelled some thoughts I’d never share sober whilst trying to haggle with a Taxi Driver to accept my last $10 for what is clearly a $50 cab ride home. I would then wake up at 2pm on Sunday with a monster hangover and the most debilitating anxiety you can imagine. Memories of all that crying and word vomit are burning a hole in my cerebral cortex and no matter how many episodes of Will and Grace I watch, I can’t quite shake it. Nevertheless, being totally committed to my own psychological demise (aka being 18 years old and having no idea), I get back on the horse and do it all again the next weekend.

You’re probably wondering why I’m revealing what feels like (and is) a seriously cringeworthy memory for me. Apart from the fact that it’s literally the purpose of this blog, I also know I’m not that girl anymore. Even more importantly, I know exactly why. On the very windy road to understanding myself, a road I will travel for the rest of my life, I realised that everything I ever cried about was a secret I unknowingly kept from myself. Every emotion, every struggle, every hurt and upset I’d bottled up and kept inside since I was a child was revealing itself with each drink I took. At some point I just decided I didn’t want to take myself by surprise and have an emotional outburst in the middle of the valley. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

Luckily for me I knew exactly what to do. I got straight onto Google and typed “Why do I always cry when I’m drunk?”. Results came back with “If you cry when you’re drunk, there is a high possibility that you have Cancer”. I probably should have predicted that would happen so I made a mental note to stop leaving everything in the hands of a search engine and moved on.

What I really did was take a stab in the dark. I read some books, wrote down my feelings, started meditating and eventually, made an appointment with a Psychologist to participate in the art of severely overpriced oversharing. Was it hard? YES. Did I enjoy it? Not in the beginning. Was my Psychologist the best in her field? Wouldn’t have a clue. She and I didn’t agree on everything and to be honest I walked out of there sometimes thinking I knew better than a person with a Degree and decades of experience under her belt (Scorpio tingz). But what I soon came to realise is that with every session, the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. An hour became far too short and every time she looked at her watch to start wrapping up, I grew increasingly frustrated. There was always more I needed to say about feelings we had only just discovered. All the things I finally had the tools and the courage to unpack would have to wait another week and the idea of that didn’t sit well with me. I would walk out of my session, hand over $250 to the Receptionist and stroll back to work thinking, could it be true? Did I actually like talking about my feelings?! Everything I had held inside for over 20 years was finally coming out and there wasn’t a single wet pussy shot in sight. Even if there was, you wouldn’t catch me crying about SHIT anymore. Actually, that’s not true. The whole “Oh my God JeSSiCA I jUst LovE yoU sooOOoOo MuCH & I dON’t KnOW wHAt I’d dO wiThOUT yoU” is definitely still my vibe. If your girlfriends are anything like mine, you get it.

Obviously there was a looooot of stuff that happened in between my sessions but despite the last 974 words I’ve written that are all about me, this story isn’t all. about. me.

It’s about you. Or your friends. Or your family. Or someone that you know.

It’s about all the things that you keep hidden inside. The secrets and the shame and the grief and the fear. It’s about you and your husband not making love anymore and you’re too afraid to ask why. It’s about the Manager at work you’re scared of because she reminds you of your childhood bully. It’s about that really awful thing that happened to you when you were young, the one you still keep from your parents. It’s the demeaning way your wife looks at you when you’re trying to feed the baby. The way she huffs and puffs because you never do anything right. It’s about your parents constant disappointment because you’re nothing like your sister. It’s the way your Dad told you to toughen up at the first sign of a tear. The shame on his face when you couldn’t hold it in. It’s the passing of your brother who was the only person who truly understood you. It’s the frustration boiling over with your kids when you’re supposed to love them unconditionally. It’s all the things you’re too afraid to talk about, scared nobody will understand. Scared to be judged for everything you wish you didn’t feel. Scared that everything bad will jeopardise everything good. Scared that once you start you’ll never be able to stop.

Every example I just listed is real. It’s what my friends have revealed to me drunk and sober and crying and straight faced. Some took my advice to get help, others borrowed books but most just needed what we all do. A listening ear. An assurance that we aren’t alone in the four corners of our minds. A chance to stop suffering in silence.

If my drunk crying is proof of anything, it’s that nothing good lurks in the dark. It might take 5 glasses of wine or a few really bad days at work but one way or another, everything you’re hiding will find its way to the light.

I know you might think that loose lips sink ships, but what if they keep you afloat?

With love, always

J