How To Survive a Chunk of Funk
Table of Contents
One of the hard things about living with complex relational trauma is that what my brain knows rationally is often still very different from what my nervous system knows contextually. My nervous system experiences early childhood rejection as if it’s happening anew.
People ask me how to know the difference between “normal” human feelings and reactions and trauma responses related to diagnosable conditions. One criteria is degree. Here’s a little story about a “chunk of funk” to explain what I mean.
My IBPA Conference Experience
Back in May, I attended the IBPA conference and book award dinner (more on that here!). The entire event was for independent professional publishing folks. Folks like me who are relatively new to the business, yes, but many, many more folks, hundreds of them, who have been doing this work for a long time. In between breakout sessions, we stood around tall cocktail tables, over plates of hummus and baked brie, chatting about what we do and how we do it.
I listened to people talk about starting their dream publishing companies with their dreamy mission statements of spreading joy and accessibility to everyone who needs it. I heard stories about folks breaking down barriers and building up equality. People of privilege helping to shine a spotlight on those who need it most. I nodded and smiled. Eventually, eyes would turn toward me. “What do you do?”
“Oh, I’m just a nominee,” I’d. (Really???!!! Just a nominee? Come on self! I would go on to drop the “just.”)
I got congratulated and then the inevitable follow up question, which I should one hundred percent have been prepared for: “What’s your book about?”
Here’s the thing.
I did not go to the conference in a sales mindset. I didn’t prepare a plan to request anything from anyone. Didn’t practice my elevator pitch. Didn’t develop tight talking points to engage publisher-buy-my-book/buy-me types of conversations. I just went to hang out, learn, and attend an awards dinner!
On the second day of the conference, a lady I’d met earlier pulled me aside to suggest I work on my pitch. The look on her face confirmed what my gut was saying, “You sound like an idiot, and you’re fucking this up.”
I both appreciated and cursed the advice. A year post-publication OF COURSE my pitch should roll of my tongue. I should be able to say it forwards and backwards. I should NOT get thrown off by someone asking me a nice question! (Note all the shoulds now appearing. Shoulding all over myself!)
As I clumsily continued explaining that my book is about mental illness, generational trauma, and complex PTSD, and, healing, and resilience, the blank stared-grimaces facing back at me confirmed my poor performance. They also confirmed how far we have to go in normalizing these types of conversations, but that’s another post.
Trauma Responses vs Normal Reactions: Understanding the Difference
For a regular person—a person without complex PTSD—being pulled aside might be uncomfortable, or even no big deal. A regular person would shrug it off and get on with their day. I felt the blood draining out of my head. My ears started ringing. Negative thoughts kicked in: Of course you don’t belong. Nothing you do is good enough. Good things only happen to other people.
Images of past failures, real and perceived, pinged through my mind. I felt sad and small and inadequate. In other words, I was in a full-blown shame spiral trauma response.
This was a chunk of funk.
Everything felt fraught with the weight of vulnerability, expectation, performance anxiety, and not living up to some imaginary publisher in the sky’s standard.
I told myself again and again that my lackluster performance was really not that big of a deal (grand scheme of current events, etc), but I could not shut the critical thoughts down. This is a classic symptom of complex PTSD: an exaggerated startle response, leading to a constant sense of danger. Inside my head, this felt akin to a lit match being thrown onto gasoline-soaked rags.
Nervous System Regulation Through Creative Expression
Thank god I brought my pencil case full of art supplies.
Every day in my hotel room I made simple art and I journal wrote. I wrote about my sadness and my frustration. I wrote about the Internal Family Systems constructs of exile, manager, and firefighter parts, since before I left my therapist had suggested I be prepared with this information.
I wrote about feeling like I’ll never get a handle on all those parts and healing (whatever “get a handle” means, exactly) which felt true in the moment even though it’s not true. I am and will continue getting a handle on all things healing.
I wrote down the 8 C’s of IFS to remind myself what my true self is actually made of, not what my inner critic and trauma brain would have me believe. And to remind myself of how far I’ve come, which is actually VERY FAR, even though that didn’t feel true in the moment either.
I wrote about learning that other She Writes Press authors’ books are selling like hotcakes–making bestseller lists–while the vast majority of mine are sitting on a warehouse shelf gathering dust. And I wrote to remind myself that that fact means nothing about my worth as a person or my abilities and to say that feeling sad is okay.
And yes. I ordered myself to have fun. A directive that is sadly too easy still for me to forget.
Dissolving the Chunk of Funk
But something started to shift when I got to this page.
I’d grabbed the wonky face image and the buttoned up steampunk cat with an intention to write about how sick and tired I am of feeling wonky face on the inside and how much I’d rather feel buttoned up and bad ass, with my steampunk cat shit together. I mean, just look at that guy.
Who wouldn’t want to feel that fierce? He’s got serious Val Kilmer Tombstone vibes happening. “I’m your huckleberry!”
I wrote about wanting to be someone other than who I am and suddenly,
I noticed my beating heart. Like, I concretely felt it beating in my chest, which does not normally happen. “Wait a minute,” it seemed to be saying. That sensation traveled through my chest and towards my brain.
Other thoughts poured in: I like who I am. I’ve worked hard to be the person I am now. Yeah, I may have further to go, but I love the wonky parts of myself. The buttoned up parts too.
I don’t want to be someone else! I want to be me. I like me! I love my life. I love my relationships. Sure, I don’t love certain aspects of things. That’s totally normal. I definitely do not love that I grew up as a walking trauma response. But I do love that I know this now. That I am able, day after day, week after week, to understand just a little bit more. See just a little bit clearer.
I came to the conclusion, again, that I wouldn’t trade my life with anyone for anything.
Glue stick in hand, I grabbed the book of phrases. Then I doodled with a pink pen, moving through green, orange, and purple. Each heart, x, and spiral sent a message of love and acceptance deeper into my soul. By the time I finished the page, my nervous system was regaining its balance. An important step towards putting another chunk of funk in the rearview mirror.
Normalizing Mental Health Conversations
I want you to know, if you’re struggling, that you are not alone. I think sometimes my buttoned up self overrules my wonky face instinct and it may come across that I have everything figured out all the time. I don’t. It may sometimes take a while, but I do have a lot figured out and I will keep sharing what I learn and the process that gets me there, because we all have a brain inside our head.
We all have mental health. You don’t have to have a diagnosis to relate to chunks, funks, or the challenges of feeling like a fish out of water. The best way I know how to normalize these “conversations” is to have them, and make safe spaces for us to share what’s on our mind.
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I love this post – your words and your art! Who wants to be looking and feeling straitlaced and buttoned up all the time?!?! I want to feel wonky, be wonky and dress wonky sometimes. That’s where a lot of the fun, laughter, and creativity live and thrive.