Why it's SO Uncomfortable to Pause in the Gray
It's not meant for forever, but without tolerating it, you can't understand why it's shown up, or learn how to move past it.
Thirteen years ago, I had the honor and privilege of spending the summer in the extra bedroom of a condo owned by friend, who also happened to be the CEO of the non-profit I worked for. She was also completing her MBA and was doing a lot of traveling that season, so I watched her place and took care of her plants while I abided my time between home here in Chicago, and my much anticipated move to Ann Arbor Michigan to begin graduate school. I’ll always remember life during that time as special - things moved slower. Every day had choices. I did a lot of cooking. Reading and journaling on the balcony. I spent a good amount of time with friends, knowing I was not just going to right around the corner anymore. I accidentally ran into a high school friend in the elevator bay of that condo building, reigniting and creating our family of choice more than a decade later. I was at ease. It was before anxiety and depression rooted their way into my life in a semi permanent fashion. Dare I say even, that I was happy? I loved everything that summer gave me, and if I could repeat it, I’d do it exactly the same, all the way through.
One night when my roommate friend was in town, we were indulging in pasta and sharing a bottle of wine when she said something that I’ve never forgotten.
“What would it feel like for you to sit in the gray? You’re so black and white, so rigid, always going going going, what if it’s ok to not always know what’s next?”
I’m fairly certain that based on the ways we’ve both been exposed to life in the decade plus since then, both the way the question was asked and the way it as answered would’ve been dramatically different than they were back in the summer of 2011, when I was admittedly basically just a child, naïve enough to still believe that someone else could fill the very specific hole in my heart that had left me flailing for years prior. Instead, as I often did in those days, I took the question to my laptop, to the blog I religiously wrote in that season, and typed until the words blurred together on the page.
Looking back from 2024, I image the current version of my friend would’ve followed her question with words like this: "Exhale. You’re safe here. You can rest. You don’t have to be hypervigilent. You can breathe. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. You are okay. AND you don’t have to prove that to anyone. I see it. I see you.”
And the emotionally scarred twenty five year old inside of me would’ve leaned into that reply, believing someone I trusted, who’d seen a lot more life than I had, and who was in fact watching my life from the outside at very close proximity.
To be honest, I haven’t thought about that question, or how it might have changed, how it might have been asked and/or answered differently as time has progressed, for at least for the last few years now.
But it came up again this week.
The idea of sitting in the gray. Or not even sitting there, but pausing in the gray.
For the first time in 13 years, I feel confident that the asking of that question was critical then, in a different way but just the same as it is now. The only difference being that at that time in my life I was young, naïve, and missing crucial mental and emotional health tools to take in advice in the manner it was likely meant. If I’m being honest, in that stage of life, I was also completely unable to let go of the rigid internal matrix which I truly believed was all that was holding me together on the inside.
In 2011 didn’t have a therapist or a professional to help me understand there were things I’d lived through that actually constituted trauma, and that many of my behaviors were actually just survival skills - doing exactly what was necessary - allowing me to land me in that place, what was I running toward (or away from) and what would it look like to actually, truly, not in a platitude manner come to understand that “It’s ok to not be okay.”
This week during therapy, I was three days out from my most recent ketamine infusion, and I had started to notice some themes coming up over and over again. That’s when I first realized that maybe this was working. That maybe my conscious has given my subconscious some permission to delve deeper down, to note the intricacies of the strings tied together inside of me, how to tug a little bit here or how to pull a lot there in order to somehow undo this web that has spent most of my life in complete and utter disarray (also labeled medication resistant depression, years in the making).
At the time in my life, in my 20s and even early 30s, I refused to pass go and collect my $200 (if you’re too young for this reference we’re going to need to talk). I kept my head down, and I pushed through, no matter what the challenge was. I developed an arsenal of armor that I believed kept me safe - overloading my plate, spending a ton of time in transition, driving and belting out the words to my favorite songs, taking on more responsibilities than there were hours in the day, demanding excellence from myself academically, being the most reliable friend possible, never giving less than 100% - things I have learned in the interim were all “positively rewarded” anxiety behaviors which were actually in fact masking the ADHD behaviors I never even knew about until just a few weeks go.
Today, the difference is this. I’m learning, slowly, softly, patiently, to sit in the grey for tiny moments one at a time. Sitting in the grey (the anxiety, the depression, the unknown) has come to mean not picking up my phone and scrolling endlessly to mentally check out, not binge watching TV to get invested in other people’s stories, not cleaning or organizing or fidgeting to keep my hands busy; just … resting. Sitting or laying with my eyes closed, being mindful of the panic or anxiety symptoms I’m experiencing, but not running from them. Not even ignoring them. Just… being with them.
This is VERY new for me. It’s approximately 3,000 levels away from my comfort zone, but it’s also very much a part of my healing process.
Here’s what I’ve learned, although not profound, but still what feels like great significance to someone like me:
It’s okay to not know. [I know, I immediately want to delete this sentence, but its true. and things can be both painful and true, or profoundly uncomfortable and true. So, it stays. I still HATE not knowing. How can I prepare if I don’t know?]
Sit still. It is uncomfortable AF to think about the things that you’re used to running from - physically and metaphorically. But running doesn’t serve you now like it did then. And gosh, it might’ve served you SO well for SO long, and you don’t have to put it away forever, but you do need to at least put your running shoes in the closet and take a break, at least for now.
Breathe. It seems like this should just happen. I mean, our bodies require it to function. However…Ive learned that when I pay attention to my breath, it’s either shallow or rapid, and sometimes I’m even holding my breath without noticing. Like, if I dont breathe, I don’t move, nothing bad will happen. Friends - we have to keep breathing. We have to find the breathing pattern or exercise that works best for us and we have to practice it.
Interview yourself. Ask yourself what it is that you really want. Or really need. Ask yourself what you can let go of. Where you can unsubscribe. What you can donate. What you can say a polite goodbye to. Ask yourself how you can best care for you at this moment in time. Is it forgiveness? Is it asking for help? Is it drinking more water or engaging in movement or curling up with a blanket like a human burrito? You might be surprised at what you can hear when you’ve turned down the noise everywhere else in your life.
None of these things came or have come naturally to me… and to be honest, most of them are brand new and I’m just learning how they fit into my day, my body, my life. Some of them might stay. And some of them might go. I might reach for some intermittently. The point is, I’m learning. Or trying to learn. Because here’s the thing - when you’re in the darkest dark, you’re willing to try any suggestions that seem even remotely feasible, because the only thing scarier than standing in the darkest dark is staying in the darkest dark, alone, being absolutely 100% unsure if you will ever find your way out again.