chrisg

It has been more than 2 months (with the exception of a few days) since I have been back in my apartment and almost all of that time has been spent with uncertainty being the word of the day.

It is funny that all of this happened because I did not have the skills to cope with what I was feeling and could not accept that it was real but now it does truly feel so unreal that I almost cannot remember the person that I was when I left Finland in June.

A period of no-contact has ended and certainty now exists. Echoing from my first post about this, I am deeply sorry to any one that has been hurt by my actions. Notably, this most recent relationship was me acting in ways I have not acted before and taking coping mechanisms/negative behaviours to extremes that I did not even think I was capable of. Partly, that mental compartmentalisation, that separation of self, made it somehow easier to split those coping mechanisms from “daily life” and to ignore how out of control I really was. In many ways, this was the epitome of “to start again, you first have to burn it all down”. This created a version of me that I never want to identify with and struggled to accept for a long time.

Coming back and facing that empty apartment, calendar, bed and life, is soul crushing. Acceptable, sure. Understandable, certainly. But soul-crushing nonetheless. Gaining that certainty was so freeing, however, to not feel subject to all the thoughts that my brain could throw at me and to allow me to see the situation from the harsh reality that it truly was. Not only that, it forces one to address harsh truths that we may not want to think about (or accept) about ourselves.

Urges of joining dating apps/sites flare up anew (it feels like a testament to how much I wanted it to work that those urges did not exist for so long) and the need for some certainty/direction begins to eat at me. The harshest truth to accept is likely this:

I do not truly know who I am when I am not with somebody and I let myself get consumed by a relationship in order to help the person I care about succeed, at the cost of losing myself.

Interestingly, I must accept that progress has been made. This has typically been done through masking or hiding my own needs or acting in the way I think they want but that has not been true for some years. In the case of this last relationship, I could not accept the positive view that my partner had of me, that I added any value nor that they really wanted the dream we both discussed; so I had to constantly silence those thoughts and also show my value through actions all of the time. It sounds exhausting, but it wasn’t, this person was so supportive and validating that my actions almost make no sense to me without accepting the fact that I wanted that shared future so badly but could not accept deserving it.

What I have been reading

• Avoiding Anxiety in Autistic Adults – Yet another self-help book. I would say that I am tired of these but I am mostly grateful that so many exist in the subject area and happy for any small insight that can be gleaned from these

• Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will – This is a potentially dangerous path to go down but the premise of this book is a view of life that I have subscribed to for a while; though it does take it to an extreme. The story is simple: everything we do is influenced by the trillions of things happening around us, inside us and everything that has happened before. If someone is a sweatier person than another, is it their fault if they slip and pull a trigger when their less sweaty alter-ego would not have done the same.
  Of course, this also brings up so many moral issues and the generic “why don’t we all do awful things if everything is predetermined?” but I don’t see that as the logical conclusion, ironically, my conclusion makes the least sense because it comes from a person who does not share this view for themselves:
  Everything a person does is impacted by so so many things that we can never see or understand, so everyone deserves understanding as the default first position.
  That car that pulls in front of you is probably not trying to purposefully piss you off or cause an accident, it is much more likely that they are lost or they did not fully understand the GPS instructions and acted rashly in a sense of urgency. Now, you can certainly flip them off and scream to some Linkin Park but it might make less sense to follow them super closely and flash your lights.
  As individuals, we are special and unique and we are the sum of trillions of actions, genes, environmental factors. However, as humans, we are pretty much the same: no one human is more capable/special than any other and just as we might scream “its not my fault” when some awful thing comes from our actions, the same has to be true of our view with others. Something that is much much harder when you are surrounded by political unrest, corporate negligence and violence but that is at the group level. Individually, we are all scared, selfish, short-sighted and deeply flawed people. And it is not our fault. What we do with that, however, is vital

• A list for every day – A gimmicky notebook that my mother bought for me; ordinarily I would add it to the expanding pile of blank notepads and figure out what to do with it at the next batch of cleaning but I felt like I should make the effort and do things differently this time so I have tried to complete the short list every day as a mindful/reflective exercise; it has been quite nice.

What I am learning/figuring out

• What the frick now and what the frick next?

  • I moved to Finland for that sweet winter weather and I quickly realised that the country was not all I expected. That is not to say that Finland is a stunning country, with a deep and rich history and so many positives. Though it comes with some negatives:
    
    • Finnish is hard. Of course it is. And it is even harder when you are a native English speaker that only has to make menial efforts to learn other languages. Though, unlike other countries, documentation and resources is not always available in English so it can be problematic to do even the simplest of tasks
  • Location, location, location – Despite Stockholm being a hop, skip and a jump away, the number of cultural happenings in Finland (or Helsinki) is many orders of magnitude lower. Helsinki is an amazing city and the size is part of the charm but this fact alone adds easily to the feelings of isolation
  • Healthcare – An unsolved problem in any country but, with multiple private providers and a public service, this can be difficult to navigate. If you are a family, or you come with no issues, then this may not be an issue as general healthchecks and one off appointments are often fine. However, if you come with a medical issue, it can be difficult to evidence and receive treatment. Perhaps the most concerning is the fact that, with a medical issue, it can be overly complex to receive the recommended treatment (something that has happened with myself but also with Finnish colleagues/friends) as providers seem to be hesitant to book a 2,000 EUR treatment for you, even if you have mentioned being ok with the costs.

  • So now I am faced with “what now?”. I am so incredibly fortunate that my job is remote and flexible enough that the actual location is not much of an issue, though it does mean I am impacted by the paradox of choice. Sweden feels like an obvious choice but it may be hard to move there without an actual Swedish job. Svalbard does have the magical climate though it does not give me a long term plan and does not contribute to a permit in the end. Of course, I could suck it up and try harder to integrate into Finland (my efforts have been minimal, probably), and gain the permit to stay after a few more years (since I have been here for 2.5, I am already half way there…)

    What for me?

• This is always going to be the harder question and unlikely to have one single answer in the future.

• I need to learn/figure out who I am (or if that person is the same person as it was/I thought I was)

• Most important, I need to be ok with sitting with discomfort and separating urges/thoughts from actions in order to figure out what I really want/am thinking

• Possibly I need to separate myself from relationships and determine if my goals in life change

• Finally, in the wise words of Lifehouse (and from a song that I have heavily overplayed, both in the last 2 months and in life)
  > you gotta love yourself if you can ever love me

Goals (the realistic ones I can actually do something about):

– Learn Swedish (and continue with German)
– Meditate as much as possible
– Use this blog as the scratchpad/outlet when needed
– Own my past but do not get defined by it
– Figure out why I am constantly tired and if it truly is the Finnish air or this pesky narcolepsy that Finland does not seem to want to accept