If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now: Depression, Personality, Compulsions, and Letting Go
“I’ve learned that secrets make you sick. I’m
learning how to be a voice and not a victim … I’ve learned that love is necessary,
heartbreak is unavoidable, and loneliness is brutal. I’ve learned that the key
to being happy is to tell your truth, and to be okay without all the answers.”
Hi, my name is Jeffrey and I’m obsessed with being perfect and I’m obsessed with getting it right.
In the 1950s, two cardiologists coined a hypothesis regarding two types of personalities: Type A and Type B. Type A personalities are described with traits such as ambitious, sensitive, rigidly organized, impatient, competitive, anxious, proactive, obsessed with time management, and afraid of ambivalence. In other words: neurotic, highly strung workaholics. Predictably, Type B personalities are the opposite: they can work more steadily, are more laid back, and have a greater tendency to disregard physical or psychological stress if it occurs. It should then also come as no surprise that Type B personalities typically live at much lower stress levels than those of Type A, and that Type A personalities are more at risk for heart disease. It’s also no surprise that Type A people are not only much more likely to be perfectionists, but they also crave information in order to always be ready with the right answer in any scenario. In case it wasn’t already obvious, I’m Type A, and I’ve spent my entire life trying to learn that, despite my personality traits and urges viciously saying otherwise, life does not work that way.
It’s very easy to know your own personality and your own tendencies, but when you are Type A, you also very quickly begin to come up with shortcuts and workarounds in order to navigate daily life with fewer pitfalls. I have done this for as long as I can remember. It was easier for me to work alone rather than in groups because not only would it allow me to have more control, but I also wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else—me and my mind have always occupied enough for me to worry about. But in order for me to always be at my best and satisfy the overachiever that lives inside my head, I quickly had to begin devising ways to outsmart my compulsive tendencies. In high school, when I took on a longer walk home, I would often listen to music on my iPod as I walked. This felt normal since I’ve always loved my music and it has always distracted me from what’s gone on inside my head, whether I realized it or not. But around this time, I started to have the worst insomnia. It was probably just from growing pains, but my insistence on always getting the right amount of sleep so I could be ready and perfect for the next day started to make the concept of falling asleep so much more stressful than it had ever been. My biggest struggle with falling asleep was that whatever song I had listened to that day would just repeat on a loop in my head and torture me to no end. When this happened more and more, I decided that the only way to make it stop was to not listen to music on weekdays—only on Fridays and the weekend since I didn’t have to be up the next morning. And if I did want to listen to music on a weekday, I could only listen to specific songs that I was certain would not stick in my head and interrupt my night of sleep. This might not sound completely compulsive and in fact I do believe being careful of not overstimulating myself with music was healthy at one time and did help falling asleep, but in my typical Type A personality with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I of course blew it out of proportion—just like every other compulsive behavior I’ve ever had. In college—when the majority of these issues first came to a head and I was purposely overwhelming myself to feel fulfilled—was when my discipline with listening to music on weekdays got out of hand. In the past, if I was in the mood for music on a Tuesday, I could let myself listen to songs I knew wouldn’t stick in my head. But by college, music on weekdays was completely unallowed. I had to be fresh and perfect for every single one of my classes. Every assignment had to be perfect. I had to be perfect, and because the thought of dealing with that anxiety honestly or rationally scared me so deeply, I developed these compulsive behaviors to cover it up: like not listening to music on weekdays. Eventually the stress became so strong that I let myself listen to music on Thursdays and Fridays, something I genuinely saw as a “treat.” Other people might have treated themselves to dinner or a cocktail at the end of the week, but me? Take a break from your compulsive behaviors on Friday. You’ve earned it.
Flashforward to the winter of 2018, when I just couldn’t shake an overwhelming sense of dread and sadness. I was starting university for the first time, and old compulsive behaviors and anxiety rituals weren’t working anymore. Not listening to music on Monday accomplished literally nothing, but since I had committed myself to these behaviors and rituals for so long, I could honestly not comprehend what was wrong. Doing this has always made sure everything was okay in the past, I thought, so why isn’t it working anymore? In my quest for perfection, I had also developed a tendency to abandon a task or repeatedly start over if it wasn’t going to turn out perfect, and during this time I found myself going from highs of wanting everything I could buy to spark joy, and then to lows of not wanting anything at all: it felt completely chaotic and exhausting. I did practically anything I could do to avoid looking in the mirror and asking myself for some hard truths, because just beneath the surface, I think I knew those were the problems. Holding myself to such high standards, purposely overwhelming myself (and then not having enough downtime to recover, since I now had a part-time job and adult responsibilities to worry about), and ruthlessly committing myself to compulsive behaviors and rituals, all in the name of being perfect, and nothing was working anymore. The more I tried to not feel depressed, the more depressed I felt. And when I had to allow myself to listen to music on a Tuesday because I just couldn’t fathom being alone with the noise in my mind for one more second? I felt like a complete and total failure. I felt like I had built myself up in such a way that would accomplish what everyone else had asked of me up until that point, and now that I was an adult left to my own devices, I felt completely and utterly lost. I didn’t even bother to consider the adjustment period of a new level of school and a new atmosphere, or the fact that I was even allowed to feel down or depressed. I was always haunted by the fact that someone else surely has it much worse than me. It’s never been so bad that I’ve had to go on medication or anything, so what I’m feeling surely can’t be depression. I’ve since learned that words like depression or depressed can also be feelings or emotions, and not just an illness or condition. Feeling sad or depressed is probably one of the most natural emotions there is, and it would have saved me so much emotional turmoil and breakdowns if I would have just let myself feel that way in the first place.
It didn’t happen overnight, but I slowly clawed my way out of my dark rabbit hole of depression. I told myself that things had to be different and things had to change, because like hell I ever wanted to fall that deeply into a depression again. I slowly started to look in the mirror and attempt to be honest with myself and dig out such deeply rooted insecurities and anxieties that were never doing me any good. I started to let myself listen to music every single day of the week, and the world didn’t come to an end. Nobody died. I was fine. I started to forgive myself for not being perfect and try my best to learn that life is not perfect, and never will be. I will stop and ask myself why I’m doing that—in order to avoid developing new compulsive tendencies—and have not only come to demand honesty and accountability from myself, but from the people in my life as well. I remind myself on a daily basis that, despite how much easier it would be for me, life does not work like that. I remind myself that it’s okay to feel uncomfortable in your own skin and that it’s okay to figure it out as you go. It’s hard—I’m truly not perfect. I will feel like I’ve taken three steps forward and then I will take two steps back. There are times where I feel strong enough to give someone else advice about something we’ve both experienced, and then a split second later I will fail to practice what I preach. But I’m always kind to myself and always remind the voices in my head that loving myself—the huge, beautifully ugly mess that I am, inside and out—is the most important thing. The greatest gift I have ever given to myself is letting myself break again and again, and loving myself anyway.
“If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now” is a phrase I have often repeated to myself and copied into notebooks and scrapbooks. It’s from a favorite movie of mine that has brought me immeasurable comfort and made me feel better and understood in the darkest of times: Girl, Interrupted. It’s a phrase on a sign in the movie that the main character, Susanna (Winona Ryder), later copies down into her own notebook. Meaning to the phrase is never explicitly assigned, but to me it’s a reminder that every moment is too precious to be wasted—that there’s no sense in waiting for everything to be perfect. Maybe if we took the time to look up every once in awhile and appreciate where we are standing in this very moment, loving life and loving ourselves would be much easier. The word home connotes a sense of belonging; a feeling like that of a warm hug where you don’t have to worry. Maybe if we tried to bring a sense of home to other settings where nothing feels perfect or taken care of, life wouldn’t seem so scary.
“I lack self-confidence. I don’t know whether I shall ever get it. Perhaps it is better to be unsure of yourself, as I am. But it is very tiring.”
—Audrey Hepburn
“You can stand by your past decisions even if they took you to a present where you don’t belong anymore.”
—Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink
(Recommended listening for this essay: “Learn to Let Go” and “Rainbow” by Kesha)
Follow It's Not That Deep on Instagram — @areyouthereanxiety — and listen to my playlist of mental health songs on Spotify and Apple Music
—Demi Lovato, Simply Complicated
In the winter of 2018, I was depressed. I tried for a very long time to convince myself that I wasn’t depressed—I couldn’t be depressed—because I had no reason to be. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do. Sure, my daily schedule was packed tight and I felt overwhelmed, and sure, I held myself to impossibly high standards and forced myself to maintain obsessive-compulsive behaviors since that was only way I could ever believe everything would be okay. But, at the time, these things did not strike me as anything out of the ordinary. In the past, packing my schedule tight and the resulting feeling of being overwhelmed was the only thing that drove me, whether I liked it or not. It was the only way I ever thought I could feel productive because the thought of facing adulthood and real-life responsibilities caused me such intense anxiety, I would do literally anything to avoid it. So, my solution was to always pack my school schedule so tight because I would have rather dealt with feeling overwhelmed than deal with the true realities of everyday life. And in order to fight off those anxious thoughts of being a person in the world, a world that’s never going to be perfect? That’s when my oldest friend, OCD, would always come out to play. Even if the world can’t be perfect, I told myself, at least I can try to be. Petrified of failure and obsessed with perfection to the point of developing such intense obsessive-compulsive behaviors that I literally could only listen to music on my commute on certain days of the week? Yep, that sounds like me. And yet, why I felt depressed was a complete mystery to me, and the more I tried to figure it out, the more depressed I felt. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do, and now it was all falling apart.
In the winter of 2018, I was depressed. I tried for a very long time to convince myself that I wasn’t depressed—I couldn’t be depressed—because I had no reason to be. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do. Sure, my daily schedule was packed tight and I felt overwhelmed, and sure, I held myself to impossibly high standards and forced myself to maintain obsessive-compulsive behaviors since that was only way I could ever believe everything would be okay. But, at the time, these things did not strike me as anything out of the ordinary. In the past, packing my schedule tight and the resulting feeling of being overwhelmed was the only thing that drove me, whether I liked it or not. It was the only way I ever thought I could feel productive because the thought of facing adulthood and real-life responsibilities caused me such intense anxiety, I would do literally anything to avoid it. So, my solution was to always pack my school schedule so tight because I would have rather dealt with feeling overwhelmed than deal with the true realities of everyday life. And in order to fight off those anxious thoughts of being a person in the world, a world that’s never going to be perfect? That’s when my oldest friend, OCD, would always come out to play. Even if the world can’t be perfect, I told myself, at least I can try to be. Petrified of failure and obsessed with perfection to the point of developing such intense obsessive-compulsive behaviors that I literally could only listen to music on my commute on certain days of the week? Yep, that sounds like me. And yet, why I felt depressed was a complete mystery to me, and the more I tried to figure it out, the more depressed I felt. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do, and now it was all falling apart.
Hi, my name is Jeffrey and I’m obsessed with being perfect and I’m obsessed with getting it right.
In the 1950s, two cardiologists coined a hypothesis regarding two types of personalities: Type A and Type B. Type A personalities are described with traits such as ambitious, sensitive, rigidly organized, impatient, competitive, anxious, proactive, obsessed with time management, and afraid of ambivalence. In other words: neurotic, highly strung workaholics. Predictably, Type B personalities are the opposite: they can work more steadily, are more laid back, and have a greater tendency to disregard physical or psychological stress if it occurs. It should then also come as no surprise that Type B personalities typically live at much lower stress levels than those of Type A, and that Type A personalities are more at risk for heart disease. It’s also no surprise that Type A people are not only much more likely to be perfectionists, but they also crave information in order to always be ready with the right answer in any scenario. In case it wasn’t already obvious, I’m Type A, and I’ve spent my entire life trying to learn that, despite my personality traits and urges viciously saying otherwise, life does not work that way.
It’s very easy to know your own personality and your own tendencies, but when you are Type A, you also very quickly begin to come up with shortcuts and workarounds in order to navigate daily life with fewer pitfalls. I have done this for as long as I can remember. It was easier for me to work alone rather than in groups because not only would it allow me to have more control, but I also wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else—me and my mind have always occupied enough for me to worry about. But in order for me to always be at my best and satisfy the overachiever that lives inside my head, I quickly had to begin devising ways to outsmart my compulsive tendencies. In high school, when I took on a longer walk home, I would often listen to music on my iPod as I walked. This felt normal since I’ve always loved my music and it has always distracted me from what’s gone on inside my head, whether I realized it or not. But around this time, I started to have the worst insomnia. It was probably just from growing pains, but my insistence on always getting the right amount of sleep so I could be ready and perfect for the next day started to make the concept of falling asleep so much more stressful than it had ever been. My biggest struggle with falling asleep was that whatever song I had listened to that day would just repeat on a loop in my head and torture me to no end. When this happened more and more, I decided that the only way to make it stop was to not listen to music on weekdays—only on Fridays and the weekend since I didn’t have to be up the next morning. And if I did want to listen to music on a weekday, I could only listen to specific songs that I was certain would not stick in my head and interrupt my night of sleep. This might not sound completely compulsive and in fact I do believe being careful of not overstimulating myself with music was healthy at one time and did help falling asleep, but in my typical Type A personality with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I of course blew it out of proportion—just like every other compulsive behavior I’ve ever had. In college—when the majority of these issues first came to a head and I was purposely overwhelming myself to feel fulfilled—was when my discipline with listening to music on weekdays got out of hand. In the past, if I was in the mood for music on a Tuesday, I could let myself listen to songs I knew wouldn’t stick in my head. But by college, music on weekdays was completely unallowed. I had to be fresh and perfect for every single one of my classes. Every assignment had to be perfect. I had to be perfect, and because the thought of dealing with that anxiety honestly or rationally scared me so deeply, I developed these compulsive behaviors to cover it up: like not listening to music on weekdays. Eventually the stress became so strong that I let myself listen to music on Thursdays and Fridays, something I genuinely saw as a “treat.” Other people might have treated themselves to dinner or a cocktail at the end of the week, but me? Take a break from your compulsive behaviors on Friday. You’ve earned it.
Flashforward to the winter of 2018, when I just couldn’t shake an overwhelming sense of dread and sadness. I was starting university for the first time, and old compulsive behaviors and anxiety rituals weren’t working anymore. Not listening to music on Monday accomplished literally nothing, but since I had committed myself to these behaviors and rituals for so long, I could honestly not comprehend what was wrong. Doing this has always made sure everything was okay in the past, I thought, so why isn’t it working anymore? In my quest for perfection, I had also developed a tendency to abandon a task or repeatedly start over if it wasn’t going to turn out perfect, and during this time I found myself going from highs of wanting everything I could buy to spark joy, and then to lows of not wanting anything at all: it felt completely chaotic and exhausting. I did practically anything I could do to avoid looking in the mirror and asking myself for some hard truths, because just beneath the surface, I think I knew those were the problems. Holding myself to such high standards, purposely overwhelming myself (and then not having enough downtime to recover, since I now had a part-time job and adult responsibilities to worry about), and ruthlessly committing myself to compulsive behaviors and rituals, all in the name of being perfect, and nothing was working anymore. The more I tried to not feel depressed, the more depressed I felt. And when I had to allow myself to listen to music on a Tuesday because I just couldn’t fathom being alone with the noise in my mind for one more second? I felt like a complete and total failure. I felt like I had built myself up in such a way that would accomplish what everyone else had asked of me up until that point, and now that I was an adult left to my own devices, I felt completely and utterly lost. I didn’t even bother to consider the adjustment period of a new level of school and a new atmosphere, or the fact that I was even allowed to feel down or depressed. I was always haunted by the fact that someone else surely has it much worse than me. It’s never been so bad that I’ve had to go on medication or anything, so what I’m feeling surely can’t be depression. I’ve since learned that words like depression or depressed can also be feelings or emotions, and not just an illness or condition. Feeling sad or depressed is probably one of the most natural emotions there is, and it would have saved me so much emotional turmoil and breakdowns if I would have just let myself feel that way in the first place.
It didn’t happen overnight, but I slowly clawed my way out of my dark rabbit hole of depression. I told myself that things had to be different and things had to change, because like hell I ever wanted to fall that deeply into a depression again. I slowly started to look in the mirror and attempt to be honest with myself and dig out such deeply rooted insecurities and anxieties that were never doing me any good. I started to let myself listen to music every single day of the week, and the world didn’t come to an end. Nobody died. I was fine. I started to forgive myself for not being perfect and try my best to learn that life is not perfect, and never will be. I will stop and ask myself why I’m doing that—in order to avoid developing new compulsive tendencies—and have not only come to demand honesty and accountability from myself, but from the people in my life as well. I remind myself on a daily basis that, despite how much easier it would be for me, life does not work like that. I remind myself that it’s okay to feel uncomfortable in your own skin and that it’s okay to figure it out as you go. It’s hard—I’m truly not perfect. I will feel like I’ve taken three steps forward and then I will take two steps back. There are times where I feel strong enough to give someone else advice about something we’ve both experienced, and then a split second later I will fail to practice what I preach. But I’m always kind to myself and always remind the voices in my head that loving myself—the huge, beautifully ugly mess that I am, inside and out—is the most important thing. The greatest gift I have ever given to myself is letting myself break again and again, and loving myself anyway.
“If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now” is a phrase I have often repeated to myself and copied into notebooks and scrapbooks. It’s from a favorite movie of mine that has brought me immeasurable comfort and made me feel better and understood in the darkest of times: Girl, Interrupted. It’s a phrase on a sign in the movie that the main character, Susanna (Winona Ryder), later copies down into her own notebook. Meaning to the phrase is never explicitly assigned, but to me it’s a reminder that every moment is too precious to be wasted—that there’s no sense in waiting for everything to be perfect. Maybe if we took the time to look up every once in awhile and appreciate where we are standing in this very moment, loving life and loving ourselves would be much easier. The word home connotes a sense of belonging; a feeling like that of a warm hug where you don’t have to worry. Maybe if we tried to bring a sense of home to other settings where nothing feels perfect or taken care of, life wouldn’t seem so scary.
“I lack self-confidence. I don’t know whether I shall ever get it. Perhaps it is better to be unsure of yourself, as I am. But it is very tiring.”
—Audrey Hepburn
“You can stand by your past decisions even if they took you to a present where you don’t belong anymore.”
—Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink
(Recommended listening for this essay: “Learn to Let Go” and “Rainbow” by Kesha)
Follow It's Not That Deep on Instagram — @areyouthereanxiety — and listen to my playlist of mental health songs on Spotify and Apple Music
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