We went roller blading over the school holidays. It was my first time. We arrived to loud music, children shrieking, the clank of skates hitting each other, and the thump of bodies crashing into the barriers. Roaming skate instructors, gave snippets of advice to the inept among us:
‘Lean forward and put your hands on your knees. Don’t look at the ground.’
With each instruction the tension in my body ramped up.
In our first world society martyrdom is more insidious than the lick of flames on skin, the sizzle as fire catches hair. If you don’t count what can happen on social media, we don’t have public disembowellings. And the causes we sacrifice ourselves for are often not great, necessary, or noble.
Martyrdom today is working until midnight every night doing a job you hate until it breaks you, without investigating your options. It is smugly telling your mothers’ group that you breastfed your baby as your cracked nipples dripped blood, because you were doing what was ‘best for your baby’. It’s going to work even though you’ve got the flu, because you believe you are indispensable. It is having Sunday lunch with your extended family every week even though it drains you emotionally.
Most of us fall into the trap of martyring ourselves for something at some stage. I did so early on in my career.
How do you learn to live with the difficult truths of your life? The ones you can’t just step over and leave behind?
Confirmation of my Bipolar 1 diagnosis was one of those truths for me. For several years after my first episodes of illness, we didn’t know whether we were dealing with Postnatal Psychosis or Bipolar Disorder. In my mind one was transient, the other a life sentence. Each time I’d press my psychiatrist for a definitive diagnosis he’d say:
‘We’ll have to wait three to five years to see if you have another episode.’
This answer frustrated me immensely. I wanted to put the whole experience of being mentally ill behind me.
Have you ever heard or seen a word or phrase that made you feel intensely uncomfortable with who you are?
Until about eight years ago, I had never been on the receiving end of discriminatory language. And yet it managed to find a way into my white, straight, agnostic, charmed life. The first time it happened, I was walking through a shopping centre. The words assaulted me suddenly, shook the breath out of me: ‘PSYCHO BITCH’
Thought Food 