Ever been in the position where the things that make others happy aren’t the things that make you happy? When you do what helps you it’s assumed you aren’t doing as much as you could to help yourself get better because there’s a disconnect over the idea of what could and should lead to happy.

Try convincing anyone who treats first responders with PTSD that solitude makes you happy and that it’s okay to be alone a majority of the time and watch with amusement as they’re the ones to start having all the feelings.

As an example, I’m fucking tired of urban life but I’ve been trying to go for walks recently anyway. Good for me, right? Outside is championed quite a bit in recovery circles. I wholeheartedly agree but this isn’t the outside I need. I do say hello to most people I pass and it is like seeing a few trees instead of just the forest but still, busy roads, train tracks, regular sirens, a major highway, construction, air traffic, factories. On and on I could go (this is actually a mindfulness exercise, naming things in the environment you can hear). All of this is heard WITH headphones on. When I say that a walk is exercise but it’s not relaxing I’m met with confusion.

How could all of that not be chill?

Living here makes me feel like I’m constantly vibrating. The only immediate relief available is the living room stereo or the workbench in the basement. I am very, very grateful to have both. Some have nothing. If my walks weren’t a tolerance chore lined with hydro towers and train tracks and coloured by urban noise would I go on them more often? Would I spend more time outside if it didn’t always feel like being in a living 80’s movie audio track attempting to elicit excitement for the situation by paradoxically using undesireable city noise? If I wasn’t constantly overwhelmed by pressure from feeling like I’m being pushed and squeezed into my little rectangular “piece of the pie” by congestion would I tolerate and want to be around people more often than I do now?

Or, should I just stop now before this leads to another diagnosis? Love thy fellow man or something and stuff.