My Existential Crisis When Met with Silence
Your Voice Matters
First, I’m sincerely sorry for my moment of weakness and my disgrace if you saw my online rant I posted on December 7th.
Most importantly, I want to THANK YOU, each and every one of you for your support.
Let me set the stage for you…
As many of you know, this year has been challenging for me to be the sole legal guardian and advocate for my mother who has dementia and was in hospital care for six months.
Not to mention everything I had to deal with as she transitioned from independent living to long-term care living before her hospitalization.
In being my mother’s staunch protector of her rights, I discovered the true character of my siblings and their children. While I have extended family members, a biological father, a stepfather, half-brothers, nieces, a nephew, and so on who are very much alive, my family consists of my mother and me.
I feel the weight, on a daily basis, of supporting my mother and knowing that it is likely there will come a time when she will not remember who I am. That sense of isolation is both profound and overwhelming at times when you also factor in that I live alone and don’t have children.
Writing and publishing every week for the last 39 weeks has been…oh, I can’t find the ONE WORD. Purposeful. Empowering. Enriching. My respite. Where I can both push my limits and practice self-love by expressing myself, in good times and bad.
I launched this newsletter with my first short post (and only short post 😊) STOP MAKING DECISIONS WITH YOUR MIND as a way to test if I could grow an audience on my journey to becoming an author.
I sincerely thank all of you who have been with me from the start and for staying with me. I’m grateful for all those who have joined along the way.
It’s taken me some time to find my voice as a writer. I have been a teacher and that’s who you heard early on. I also know how to be a motivational speaker sharing my personal stories of transformation. Finding the right balance and tone between those two personas, to offer you support without coming across as if “I’m superior to you” (hey, I’m not!) or as another authority like I know better than you what’s good for you (I don’t) all the while I have also been evolving into my beingness has truly been rewarding work.
That said, following my post last Friday, I didn’t experience my usual HIGH of satisfaction. A few things were happening.
One, my birthday was December 8th. I didn’t have any SPECIAL plans made for that day. I had learned early in my childhood to accept that my birthday was just another day. It’s the first time that I felt a dissonance with that but at the time I didn’t understand WTF I was feeling. I craved recognition.
Birthdays are significant. It’s not so much about how many cycles you’ve completed around the sun in the counting of the years gone by. What it’s really about is a day to give recognition for your existence, for you to receive love and gratitude for being alive. This made me feel my estrangement from my family all the more.
Added to this, one of my followers has been sharing with me other people’s posts and drawing my attention to how many likes (hearts) they get, or how many comments or restacks they get when the post is all too familiar to FB (i.e. lacking substance or depth).
Trust me, I don’t do what I do for the likes! I’m not here for a popularity contest – that’s why I don’t share how many subscribers I have.
I’ve never been one to try to “sell someone something”, not a product and not me! I’m also not trying to make you be “like me”!
It is my aspiration that my stories reveal some human dynamic about yourself or perhaps help you relate better with someone you know so that you recognize the different ways we are conditioned. It is this conditioning that sabotages you. You are not guilty of being weak or broken. This is the human experience. It’s the same for me.
In my moment of weakness (vulnerability), I was conditioned to seek validation from you, my readers (and I did so, in a disgraceful rant – eek! Embarrassing).
My mistake was in comparing my low average of likes (hearts), comments and restacks with these cheap “FBish” post statistics. My “not-self” was frustrated.
Part of me also felt like a fraud or hypocrite – when I look at myself in the mirror and I know the truth can I live with myself – and every week I give thanks to you, my reader, for your engagement but truth be told, there has been very little “engagement” in the way I want.
I launched this publication because I know what it is to suffer in silence. I know firsthand the stigma of mental illness. Depression. Anxiety. PTSD. Weirdness – oh, I mean autistic. And I sincerely want to create a community, a safe place for us to come together to talk about the craziness going on in our heads. In that sharing, we can feel normal, understood, and supported.
What I want is to engage with my readers. To share our stories. To support each other. To celebrate your growth. But maybe you’re not ready to participate on this level and it’s not right for me to try to force it. So, again, my apology.
So, here is full disclosure of that rant, if you missed it.
To be honest I’m hurting.
Being authentic and letting go of my protective mask here on Substack and in my personal life means I’m open and vulnerable and yet still deeply sensitive.
What wears me down about being authentic in the world is not feeling connected with others as in not having that connection be reciprocated.
I’m looking to engage with my readers. To share our stories. To support each other. To celebrate your growth.
And lately, I’m seeing Substack look more and more like FB, a selfie (which is fine) with a one-liner with zero depth and that gets thousands of likes, or hundreds of comments, or dozens of restacks!? Seriously, WTF!
Where is the real engagement and human connection?
Maybe I haven’t found the right platform or maybe what I’m writing about simply isn’t connecting with you?
I know my writing isn’t for everyone which is fine by me. But FFS if you are enjoying it, then why aren’t you letting me know with a simple heart? I need feedback people! I’m not a mind reader. Even if you disagree with my writing, that’s fine too. Any feedback is better than no feedback.
It sucks to put yourself out there into the void and still feel alone.
And to be honest, I’d rather go back into the safety of my shell and be alone than keep struggling to make connections.
Sorry people, this is my “gate of grace/ disgrace” (gate 22) having a mini temper tantrum because it longs to hear meaningful conversations.
I feel alone and lonely because I am feeling unseen when I am with others or in regards to my writing.
My solution when I am feeling alone and lonely like I am right now; that’s when I self-isolate and want to be left alone.
Going into isolation allows me to hold myself. It allows me to experience myself and see myself and be at peace rather than feeling invisible.
I actually feel less alone in isolation than I do when I’m surrounded by others.
This is how a hermit restores themselves from the ignorance (blindness) of the world around them.
Why did I post it in the first place?
The image you have of others isn’t reality. No one has it “all together”. I’m no different.
What you see of people on social media is usually only what they want you to see. Make up on. The good times. The wedding pictures. The vacation. The success stories.
Rarely do you see the down days when they can’t get out of bed or when their greatest accomplishment that day was getting dressed. One of our greatest downfalls as humans is comparing ourselves to others, that’s not even an accurate representation of them or you!
When I shared, “I’m hurting”, I’m showing it’s okay to admit “I’m not fine”.
One of the catchwords these days is “authenticity” or being authentic. But how can we be authentic if we can’t show our bad days too?
We also don’t talk about how exhausting it is to be authentic and be met with silence. I’m showing you my underbelly like a turtle on its back and I desperately need someone, any ONE, to notice me and give me a gentle nudge (heart) to flip me back on my feet so I can carry on. Without that little recognition and encouragement, the desire to fall back into conditioning becomes enticing and then the cycle doesn’t get broken. This is no longer a pity party. It’s not all about me. The truth is, this is happening all the time because we don’t think our words matter to others.
On a coaching call this week, my coach stated that the most frustrating thing for him is the lack of feedback he gets to his emails. He is met with silence. He can’t offer support if he doesn’t get feedback. At the end of this weekly check-in when each of us was put on the spot to give our feedback, the most common response to his statement about the silence was utter bewilderment that what we could say would have value to him or others. What is striking about this reality is that all the participants are 50+ so it’s not for a lack of life experience but a lack of belief that what you have to say has value for others.
So, please, let this be a reminder to you that YOUR VOICE MATTERS!
If you want to comment publicly or privately, please do or don’t. It’s up to you. I would love to offer you support but like my coach, I can’t if I don’t get feedback.
Yes, I was having a pity party. Briefly. I was looking at the wrong metrics. What you see publicly with hearts or the number of subscribers is just another perversion of social media.
What I needed to trust was not only the growth in my readership but in my metrics, behind the scenes. The fact that my weekly articles average better than 50% open rate is phenomenal. I know that I’m writing on a variety of subjects and not every post is going to resonate with each of you but the fact that you have stayed with me should be all the recognition I need. Plus, a significant portion of you re-read my articles. That’s another compliment.
If you are enjoying my work, hitting that heart at the bottom of the page is a simple way to show your appreciation. Again, it’s not about a popularity contest but the reality is that it does feed into the algorithm and helps to increase my visibility and possibly reach more readers.
This will be my last article for 2024. I had intended my final post to be December 20th but considering its proximity to Christmas and how frantic things can get, I figured it’s just better to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy your family and friends as much as you can and remember to take care of yourselves. Peace be with you.
My publication will resume on January 10, 2025!
I sincerely thank you (no BS) for your continued support and engagement.
My publication is free and open to everyone because I strongly believe Mental Health should be accessible to everyone. However, if you would like to show your support and appreciation for my work you may make a gift through the link below.
This hit home for me on SO many fucking levels beautiful Grace 💐 You've put into words many a emotion I experience far too often for want of being seen, heard, or just even fucking acknowledged, because I genuinely want to connect with people! The lack of engagement on SOCIAL media platforms is actually infuriating, because why does it exist if not to "social"ise with the people you see there?! I also speak as someone who has their Chiron in Leo, which is "the wound of talent". It's a difficult one to navigate, because how much of the recognition we seek is purely for an ego boost and how much of it is to give us the boost we need so we can continue showing-up for others. It's a trapeze line we walk mon ami, but the fact that you are being so fucking real and brutally honest about it is actually gorgeous. Thank you for your truth xxx
I'm not sure if you will see my comments in the order I wrote them on the different things, but this post gave me context I didn't have initially and I think it's so brave that you wrote it.
I don't think your "rant" was a mistake, you expressed how you were feeling, in a moment of frustration. Maybe if you had hit pause instead of post, you might have decided to rewrite it, but it's so easy to act in the moment isn't it.
The fact that you wrote this to address it, and you allowed yourself to get so vulnerable and honest is amazing, like you say, so much of social media is only the side of a person that they want you to see, and while that's not neccessarily a lie, it's not the full story.
I feel lucky to have found so many authors here that don't sugarcoat life, that write about their struggles and hardships and are genuinely authentic with their readers. It makes it so much easier to relate. And if you relate to someone it's easier to find value.
Thank you for being your authentic self, even when it can erupt, it just proves your human, with flaws like the rest of us. Keep being you! I look forward to your return to posting.