a guide to showing up for yourself

it's not what you think, actually it's everything

Around two years ago, I booked an emergency sessions my therapist. At that point, we’re on an on-call basis. No need for routine weekly appointments, but I knew when I needed for ask to help.

I don’t remember the exact play-by-play of our rendez-vous, but it probably was the same as all my session with any mental health professional: I walk in, we lightly joke about how it’s been a while, he asks how I’ve been, and I say “not as bad before, thankfully, never as bad before - but I need to talk.”

It was a secret I learned when I was 18: no matter how bad it is, just talking about the thing will make you feel better. You don’t need to expect the listener to save you, fix you, or say something magical to make everything disappear. You just need to talk, and for someone to listen.

Although I don’t remember exactly what was making me sad, I can imagine it wasn’t something entirely new; my sadness has a habit of being very cliche. What I do remember, vividly, is telling him “I spent all day crying, and I went to get my nails done.”

Except I didn’t say it in a casual way (a word I would never use to describe myself), it sounded more like: haha am I crazy? I’m totally miserable rn but I went to get my nails done as if that changes anything?? Does that make me the poster-child for functional depression in your 20s? Am I even sad or is this just weirdly who I am????

Except, when I said that, his eyes lit up. He actually looked proud.

“That’s exactly what you do.”

I looked at him like he was the weird one.

“Malak, do you actually think no one other than you ever gets sad?”

First of all, how dare he! Second of all, yes.

When your teenage years are tainted with learning about yourself, your feelings, emotional regulation, and healing some pretty messed up stuff, being sad can feel weird in your twenties. It’s a mixture of feeling the same sadness at sixteen but with so much more wisdom and self-compassion. Personally, I really, really don’t like being sad because the feeling reminds me of such a bad time when I couldn’t regulate my sadness. I do anything to escape it and when that’s not easy: I freak out. And normally every time I freak out, I book an emergency therapy session.

But what that particular therapy session was about was that I needed to make peace with the fact that I can heal trauma and grow and learn emotional regulation and I’m still gonna get really sad sometimes. And that if I want to really heal, I have to stop fighting it.

I recently got out of a pretty dark time that I would not describe as my darkest (thank God) but definitely not the lightest. They did prompt an emergency session or two. But one sad day, I woke up and took a cold shower to ease my anxiety. Something that is not easy, not comfortable, but necessary at the time. I knew the physical feeling I had needed a physical fix. I thought about how weird it is that I took a cold shower when I was sad. The same way it was so weird that I went to get my nails done while crying.

I fought the urge to stay at home and wallow. I wallowed when I needed to. I journaled, and wrote things I was scared of saying out loud. I prayed, and said things I was scared of saying out loud. I went back to my morning affirmations. I put on makeup and get dressed anyway. I worked out anyway. I made my bed. I slept early. I painted my nails my favorite shade of pink. I showed up for myself.

But the most transformative thing I did was not letting myself go through it by myself.

I still believe one of the suckiest things ever is people not being vulnerable anymore. When I began to realize that this epidemic of invulnerability was seeping its way into my life, it started to affect me. It became harder to talk about my feelings, too. I avoided it at all costs. Even if it meant I would be distant and silent, also two words I would not use to describe myself.

When I realized I wasn’t feeling well, I turned stubborn with my sadness. I felt like grown-ups go through it by themselves and it was time I was a grown-up too. There has to be a way I can get through this without asking for help.

I went to my sessions and worked on myself by myself, cried a bit to my best friend on the phone without saying anything of substance so that she can actually help me (isn’t that what grown ups do?) and was feeling more functional, but not necessarily better. One day, I went to my best friend’s wearing my official sadness outfit, nails painted pink, and a determination to not talk about my feelings. I was challenging myself and I was set on winning. I knew in my heart that if there was anywhere that was safe to talk, it was with her. But this whole turbulence was entirely inside of me, this weird debate of whether a 25 year old can explicitly tell someone, even the people who have seen it all, if she was unokay was all in my head. It has nothing to do with anyone else - which is often exactly how vulnerability works.

After some casual conversation and going back and forth on what food to order, my friend surprised me with a heartfelt gesture that made me feel seen to my core. All of a sudden, the 18 year old inside me who knew the power of sharing made an appearance. I gave breadcrumbs first, to test how I felt. Then I gave the whole freaking bread loaf.

I said the things I was scared of saying out loud and I was met with compassion and a “me too”. In just a few hours, both of us on her couch, talking and sharing the burdens of this phase of our lives of after stuffing our faces with chinese take-out, I felt the weight of the world lifting off my shoulders.

On the way home, I heard 18 year old me saying “I told you so”, with a tone of “did you really think NOT talking about it was going to work???”. I love her, so it’s okay coming from her.

The truth is after that day, the power of my affirmations - workouts - dressing up - writing - reading has been a lot stronger. I feel braver. I feel more loved. I still believe in grocery list style self-care items, with all my heart. What makes me feel human is not giving in to sulking in bed and getting up to have a cold shower or get my nails done. What makes me feel better is opening my heart to those I trust.

You can’t do one without the other. You can’t forget to take care of yourself fundamentally and leave the mess for others to clean up after you. You also can’t put yourself together, act like the biggest grown-up in the world, and forget to let anyone in and wonder why you feel empty most of the time. Showing up for yourself means remembering to be a person in your own vicinity and to invite people to be part of that experience, and to gallantly be that safe person for other people. It’s so easy to forget this. I know I almost did.

The single-handed most transformative thing you can do when showing up for yourself is letting others be part of it. How lucky am I to go through the motions to discover how magical this is, every time?