A while ago Daniel and I watched the movie Better Man, which is a biographical movie about Robbie Williams. Now the whole him being a monkey was hella weird but it was still a really good movie. Honestly I was shocked that Daniel wanted to watch it.
It affected me quite a lot. Robbie has dealt with a lot of mental health issues including depression and they were depicted so well in the movie, and it was hard to watch because I felt them so deeply and related so much to a lot of it.
There was a line he said at one point during the voiceover part that really resonated with me. “I probably was always going to be an addict but the fame and money made it easier.” He is acknowledging that the tendency to addictive behaviours and all that come with that is inherent in him, part of his genetic makeup, not something that can be changed. How he manages those tendencies is a choice but our choices are very strongly influenced by our experiences. When things are good it is much easier to feel like and exert some measure of control over the parts of us that we don’t like or are weaker. When things are hard, it all feels overwhelming and is too much to deal with.
I.. probably always would have had issues with depression and anxiety. I understand enough about how these things work to know that the potential for having these struggles is just a part of me, of the particular set of genes I inherited from my parents. No-one’s fault, a basic biological fact. My experiences – both the abuse and also likely the otherness I felt as a probably neurodivergent child trying to fit in with NT peers – are what has turned them from a low-medium level issue to a large-gigantic issue. It is also this combination of factors that makes it hard for me to know how much reversal of the active symptoms is realistic to expect.
One of my “Stuck Points” was “I am damaged forever.” Part of what I have been doing more recently is using a set of targeted questions to challenge the assumptions and beliefs in the Stuck Points that I identified and to untangle them into thoughts that are based in reality and facts rather than the skewed beliefs I had because of the way my experiences had shaped them. This one is a little difficult because my “damage” isn’t only because of the abuse, it’s partly because I am also just simply a person who has genetic tendencies towards being depressed and anxious. Theoretically none of that would be activated if I lived in a perfect world where all of my needs were met and I never had to deal with anything stressful, worrying, unfair, injust etc. That world does not exist.
Yeah, never got around to finishing this one.