Self esteem is a tricky topic and one people are loath to discuss openly in public the majority of the time. It's a classic British trait to be self-deprecating and yet beneath this quirky fault-based humour seems to lie a genuinely low rating of our true self worth.
The more I've looked into it, the more I believe there is a real correlation between mental health issues and creativity. Moby, an incredibly prolific and talented musician has admittedly to cripplingly low self esteem. Sylvia Plath is another classic example of creative brilliance teamed with aching depression. People whose artistry is admired the world through seem to have those days, like a lot of of us, where they just can't seem to shift the malaise.
I struggle heavily with mood swings from both sides of the spectrum, particularly on the low end of the scale, what I call 'The Black Dog'. It's something I don't seem to have too much control over. I've learned staying away from stimulants seems to lessen the depressive side of things, but only in the way that a cheap anorak stops your clothes from getting wet - the rain is still pouring heavily, you just get slightly less soaked. I appear to be a slave to my tumultuous emotions and I quite often feel like I'm strapped into a rollercoaster without access to the controls. It's a classic thing to hear in these cases, but I am loath to take prescription drugs to lessen the effects. Medication would feel like I was being lead off the Big Dipper and onto the children's teacups, a numb safe experience in which there is no danger, but no chance of any thrills either.
I guess for me the important part is learning how to cope when a particularly black patch hits, and that's still very much work in progress. Those who know me very well (of which there are very few) know that my opinion of life is so dichotomised that one day I can think it's the most thrilling adventure ever and be crying with the very joy of being alive, the next I can have sunk into the lowest pit where all I can do is sit, numbed, on the sofa full of self pity and regret at where my fabulous life went wrong.
I've recently realised that I'd been afraid to buy into life here in my new city. Afraid that if I committed slightly to living here for any length of time I would have to give up on my plans to live in New York again. It would be a sign of failure, of weakness, and an admittance that my plans were flighty and naive, that I wasn't living in the real world. It's only now that I look back that I see that I've just denied myself the chance to live a full and interesting life for the last year. All I've done is feed those self-esteem monkeys in my head that clang their saucepans loudly and tell me nothing is worth getting out of bed for, I'm better off just staying there, where the world can't hurt me any more. Those monkeys are wrong, the world is a beautiful and thrilling place. I've realised I'm lucky to be such a sensitive person. That sensitivity brings with it crushing disappointment each time anything mildly negative or critical is said to me, but it also opens me up to a world I am so happy to be part of. It means I can appreciate great works of art, I can read one line of prose and feel as energised as if I'd spent an hour running, I can walk down the street and see the world in the way a child does, marvel at colours, at beauty, at life's real magic. I spend hours thinking about how things work, and people watch imagining how these colouful and interesting characters I spy upon really life their life and who they are.
The dark side is one to be tempered with the light, at times it feels like such hard work, yet I've come to accept it's part of me. Ask me when I'm in a dark place and I may sound like I have a different opinion, but right now I wouldn't have it any other way.
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