This article was originally published on Medium.
In the pursuit of healing, I realised something about myself. I'm addicted to misery. The negative thoughts that wreak havoc in my brain are my safe space. And when anything threatens the existence of these negative thoughts, my brain rebels against me until it forces me to return to my baseline. Misery.
It's where my brain thrives. It's where it feels safe and comfortable. I had this false belief that I wasn't a negative person, that I didn't engage in much self-criticism. It wasn't until I went to therapy that I realised it was because I suppressed my emotions and barely processed my feelings that I didn't realise that my brain was a black hole of darkness.
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I falsely believed I was the epitome of positive self-talk and self-love. This realisation opened my eyes to the fact that I didn't know myself as well as I thought I did. My identity and self-perception shattered. I wasn't acquainted with my own thoughts because I spent so many years shutting them down. I became a master at suppressing emotions. Of course, that resulted in my physical suffering to the point it forced me to seek therapy because my body was breaking down.
My mother once asked me, "Aisha, why do you talk to yourself every time you walk home from school?"
I was surprised by her question. At the time, I had no idea I talked to myself. I did daydream a lot, later on discovering I was a severe maladaptive daydreamer throughout my childhood and teenage years, but I wasn't aware that I spoke to myself. I had a very rich inner world. My mind became my safe haven. It was the place that protected me from the horrors around me. No matter how much fell apart in my external world, I'd perfected the art of retreating into my inner world, convincing myself that everything was fine. But it wasn't.
The worse things got, the more elaborate my inner sanctuary became. As a child, there was so much happening in my life, my little mind didn't have the language or perception to even begin to process what was happening, so I retreated. I deleted memories that didn't serve me and built a false reality on top of my fractured one.
I went years believing that I wasn't that affected by my trauma. That despite everything, I was functioning as a rather sound human being. But every year that passed, the void started to overspill. It started to knock on the windows of my mind, urging me to confront what was behind the walls. But I couldn't. My body became the victim of my repression, constantly getting sick, out of balance for months at a time.
Despite all of this, I was someone who liked to do introspective work. I journalled a lot and tried my best to understand my feelings, and these things gave me a false sense of healing. I read back through my old journal entries and couldn't believe how deluded I was. The words staring back at me were proof of how I used to think. It was surface level, never digging beneath the surface. A reflection of my repression. I was the ultimate unreliable narrator.
It got to the point where I knew I had to talk to someone. It was the beginning of the end of opening up the door and all of the thoughts and emotions I suppressed throughout the years burst like a dam.
As my mind palace got bigger, the void that was my brain became infested with darkness the longer I spent not acknowledging anything negative that happened in my life. When I was forced to confront that darkness, I came face to face with myself for the first time. Seeing the reality of my state, as I awoke from my delusion, was like waking up one day to find everything and everyone you've ever known disappeared and you were left with nothingness, making you question if everything you've ever seen and experienced was a figment of your imagination.
The subconscious is a powerful thing, and because I went my entire life not acknowledging what was happening in my deepest inner world, I left it unattended to do what it pleased. I came to find that all that I had suppressed became the voice of my subconscious.
Misery.
In the pursuit of healing, I let these emotions and thoughts wash over me. I confronted them head-on. Each one chipped away at me.
"You will never succeed."
"Nothing will ever work out for you."
"No matter how hard you try, you will end up right where you started."
"Give up. Give up. Give up. Just give up."
These negative thoughts give me peace. It's what I know. It's how my body and mind have programmed themselves, and when I try to fight it, it becomes a battle. A battle I get too tired to fight, so I end up right where I started. Retreating into my mind palace in defeat. And misery laughs and laughs and laughs.
Misery says to me, "I am what you know. You are safe here. Let me protect you."
I get sucked back in, and the cycle starts again until I decide this is no longer how I want to function. I start fighting against the negative thoughts with positive ones. But misery gets angry and floods my mind aggressively with negative thoughts at a speed where I can't refute them all. Being so conscious of my subconscious exhausts me. Yet again, I wave the white flag and retreat. And misery preens with success for surviving again.
But what I didn't realise at the time was every time I went against those negative thoughts and emotions, I started to break down my baseline of functioning. What I thought was a failed battle was just a recuperative period to fight again stronger and stronger. Weakening Misery down until I emerged as the victor.
I'm addicted to misery. Its darkness, a sweetness in my mind. The voice that attacks me with negativity, a friend that comforts me. Growth, happiness, success and positivity were the antithesis of my state of being. If I achieved something, my brain could never be happy with it. If I tried to be positive, my brain quashed it down faster than I could process, and success was something I, inherently to my very being, believed I would never achieve.
They say our thoughts create our reality, and my reality was one I wanted to change. I have dreams and aspirations that require me to work hard and truly believe in myself that I can achieve what I set my mind to. Thus began another battle with my mind. But this time it was a battle I promised myself I would win. It's going to be a battle of a lifetime. A battle that will probably take my lifetime, but a battle I will not lose.
I refuse to lose.
In the pursuit of healing, I realised I had to be conscious of my thoughts. I had to fight against every negative thought that crossed my mind. I spend my days actively trying to visualise the future I imagine for myself and combat the negative emotions my body got so used to being in with positive ones. Some days my brain fights against me. Some days it's easier. I notice the change. And some days it takes everything I have within me to not fall back into old habits. Some days I do fall back, and misery says to me, "See? You are destined to fail. Save your disappointment and be happy with me."
Those days are the hardest. I have to say to myself, "No. One slip-up doesn't define me. I will try again tomorrow. And if I fall again. I will try again tomorrow. And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. As long as there is a tomorrow, this fight is not over."
I'm able to breathe a little easier when I do.
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It's gotten easier. I'm fighting to rewire my brain. Self-sabotage has become my default, so I've worked hard to identify the thoughts and patterns that lead to me sabotaging myself. My mood has become more stabilised, and I don't experience extreme highs or lows as often as I used to.
Making the conscious decision to rewire my brain has changed my life. I no longer want to be a captive of misery. I no longer want to be comforted by negativity. It felt impossible, and it took a lot of brain energy, but the more I was conscious, meditated, visualised, prayed and refuted the negativity my brain was spewing, I noticed a change. It was subtle at first, and it felt like it was getting worse, but the more I persisted, the easier it became.
I noticed I wasn't chained to misery anymore.
To read more from Aisha Yusuf, visit her Medium page.
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Feature Image: Instagram @aishatheauthor.