Timeheels: Whatever Life Throws

Written by Andi Bazaar, Tsarevich Matthew Wynné, José Schenkkan Joseph and Clayton Euridicé Schofield | July 14, 2023

“Toxic positivity is harmful and induces guilt, just because we may be lucky in certain areas of our life doesn’t negate the mental health experiences we are going through. People telling us others have it worse only makes us feel worse about ourselves and decreases self-esteem.”

On Jan 21st, I got to chat with Wynne's and I am super grateful also excited to share this new article as part of the inspiring stories series "Timeheels"

Timeheels: "Whatever Life Throws" (Chapter. 1) is written by Andi Bazaar and MHMTID in collaboration with The Me: You Can’t See Community.

We’re excited to share a deep dive into our project and can’t wait to share this article about one of our brave and amazing contributor Tsarevich Matthew Wynné.

Wynne’s challenging and complex story truly serves as a source of strength, inspiration to so many our readers and making his own journey.

A. PERFECTIONISM

Let’s talk about perfectionism, it can be destructive and add even more to our existing depression and anxiety. It also impacts our self-esteem because perfection is a standard that cannot be achieved and therefore, we may feel in a constant state of failure.

Perfectionism is defined as the need to be perfect and feel that there is a perfection status that we can achieve, it can become a goal for everything we do from work, to our social life and relationships. We may try to control or tweak things constantly to achieve it.

Just as with most issues related to mental health, it has its roots in our childhood. We live in a culture that is highly comparative, we grew up listening to us being compared to others when it came to school, and how to be a “good” kid. These “others” were the perfection.

Of course, we didn’t realize at that age that those other kids our parents idealized were probably going through the same thing in their own households and they are also compared to others. Furthermore, validation and approval were sparse from caregivers.

For example, let’s say we achieve a goal of cleaning the house but we forget one spot or even one room. Rather than being validated for doing 90% of the work well which is amazing for a kid, we will be yelled at or punished for the 10% we may have overlooked.

It teaches us that unless something is done perfectly, it is not worth doing because it will lead to nothing but internal misery and external punishment. As adults, that can translate as debilitating fear to try anything new because we can’t do it perfectly.

Why pick up an instrument, try a new hobby, learn a language or sport if we won’t be able to do it perfectly. It is just going to add more stress to our life so the status quo is better than exploring our environment, which also triggers us because we feel we are stagnating.

When it comes to our relationships, we may feel lonely because our friends or partners don’t understand that aspect. They don’t want to improve with us or makes certain changes that can lead to that utopia of perfection.

We may overcontrol our environment such as our house or room, we may spend too much time and energy obsessing about how we are going to proceed for even the most mundane tasks in a perfect manner which takes more internal resources and stress than simply doing the activity.

When it comes to our mental health recovery, we may feel that anything short of a quick and miraculous recovery means we are failures and that we need to have complete control of our minds which is impossible no matter how long we go to therapy for.

The important thing we need to remember to start our recovery is to realize that perfection doesn’t exist even when our parents were defining that “perfection” — it was subjective and changed based on their mood and the situation. They couldn’t even stick to one version.

Furthermore even if it were to exist, there is no happiness or validation on the other side. We are chasing something that isn’t result based, the fact that we didn’t receive unconditional love or validation had nothing to do with perfection and isn’t our fault.

Putting the responsibility for that low self esteem where it lies helps us realize that it was never about achievements or perfection but rather about caregivers who themselves never learned how to love and transferred their own anxieties and traumas onto us.

We can also start adopting a technique of anti perfection. For example, when we journal let’s make spelling errors on purpose or not stick to the line on purpose. It is going to help us realize that it doesn’t take away from the process of journaling or content of our journal.

It may trigger some anxiety at first because our brain is convinced through conditioning that going against that “perfection” leads to bad outcomes but the more we make small errors on purpose, the more our brain rewires itself to think of it as inconsequential.

Finally, it is important to go to therapy and have someone who can listen and help us dive into this process emotionally. For individuals with perfectionism, we may go to therapy with 50 pages of notes and try to solve it all intellectually.

However, that doesn’t work and our therapist will encourage us to set those aside and talk about it from an emotional standpoint in order to make sense of those experiences and allow for some positive changes to happen.

I hope that this part on perfectionism makes sense, if you experience it, please know that there are ways out even if it takes a little time. After all, we are trying to undo decades of conditioning!

B. NARCISSISTIC

Let’s talk about growing up with one (or both) parents who display narcissistic personality disorder or narcissistic tendencies, this topic is very heavy and the consequences can be far reaching.

Generally speaking, a narcissistic parent will not their kid(s) overshadow them. The child becomes an object for the grandiose behaviour of the parent, they use the child to gather sympathy from others when it suits them or display them to make them look good.

The child becomes an object that suits the purposes of the parent, in a household with more than one child the narcissistic parent will pit the children against one another to see who will be the one who will please the parent the most.

The one that always does what the parent says becomes a “golden child” they are the one that can be malleable and suits the purpose.

The child that resists the most or doesn’t play along is commonly known as “the black sheep” — the parent will pretend that this child gives them too much hardship, that they are trying the best by that child but it seems like a lost cause to gather sympathy from others.

This dynamic creates a lot of conflict within the household and there are many mental health consequences for both the “golden child” and the “black sheep”

Let’s remember at that point that children are unaware of what is going on, they can’t put words to what they are experiencing.

Growing up in that environment leads to a lot of trauma, lack of self-esteem, a general distrust of others or thinking that relationships are transactional. Sometimes, that pattern can continue in future generations but at other times there is a recognition that what happened was wrong.

Children learn that manipulation and guilting are efficient ways to get what they want, they are less likely to learn empathy or grow up in a nurturing environment and this can show when they later have their own friendships and romantic relationships.

In terms of solutions, recognizing that a parent may have been narcissistic is a great first step. The child realizes that what they went through was not normal and that there is another way when it comes to relationships that is healthier and happier.

The main issue becomes learning all the new ways to act, to love and to see the world while also working on recovering from trauma, depression and lack of self-esteem. While this may sound daunting, it generally takes place over a longer period of time and it is possible to recover and live a very fulfilling and happy life.

If you suspect that you grew up in a narcissistic environment, it is important to remove yourself from that environment as soon as possible and go to therapy for an extended period of time in order to unlearn many of these behaviours and recover from the consequences of growing up with a narcissistic parent.

As always, if you have any questions I am around to answer them. Hope this was a little informative.

PS: Credit goes to Jwan Höffler Conwall for asking to write about this topic!

C. DATING OR RELATIONSHIP

Let’s talk about dating/relationship when we experience mental health issues, there are so many conflicting recommendations ranging from not dating at all until we recover to family saying that the relationship would fix the issues neither of which are true.

There are a few problems that can arise when we try to date while going through depression/anxiety/trauma, the first pitfall is thinking that the relationship will save us. This is bound to lead to an unhealthy relationship because no external person can fix internal issues.

We can’t get into a relationship to fix loneliness or feelings of inadequacy we may have, that’s also a lot of pressure and expectations that the person we may date has to go through, which is also not fair for them. The treatment of our symptoms cannot come from a relationship.

Furthermore, given that the defining feature of most mental health issues is a big lack of self-worth and self-esteem we can be more likely to settle and to seek more validation meaning attracting people who can prey on vulnerability, starting a toxic cycle.

The reason why love bombing followed by abusive behaviours is so common is because the initial love bombing preys on the vulnerability of the person, leading to a quick attachment. Once that attachment is reached and it becomes harder to leave, the abuse starts.

Furthermore, given that our self-esteem is already low when our mental health is not well and can get even lower in a toxic relationship — we may start to experience as though the relationship is all we have left, making us stay in an abusive situation simply to avoid loneliness.

Ideally, whether we are looking to date or feeling as though we are not ready yet, the key is going to be recovery. That recovery may look different for each person and may need many tools such as meds/therapy/moving out of our family’s home, etc.

That process will allow us to rebuild our self-esteem from within and make sure that we are careful and take our time to meet someone new and develop that attachment. Usually, it can take 6 months to truly know someone and know whether they are who they say they are.

Let’s remember that the beginning of the relationship is when everyone is on their best behaviour, it is easier at that point to put on a mask and pretend to be someone the person may not be but as time goes by, cracks start to form into that mask to our surprise.

I had many sessions where a client mentions having the ideal relationship in the first few months and, all of a sudden, the mask falls off and the person they are dating starts becoming angry/abusive. This is because the more we know someone, the more the mask will dissipate.

So besides or on top of treatment, what are some other things we can do to be careful about these traps?

The first and foremost one is to realize that the relationship will not fix our mental health at all, even if it is the most amazing person on the planet.

Mental health issues happen within ourselves and are fixed by treating these symptoms, another important point is not to rush the initial stage of the relationship. Those first 6 months are very important in getting to truly know the person and take a look at our compatibility.

We need to remember that the person we tend to see at the beginning is the best version of them, it can only get worse from here. When we take our time, we assess whether that person is similar or completely different from they pretended to be.

We want to make sure that we actually fall in love with the real person and not the persona they may have displayed at the beginning of the dating experience, the other important point will be to notice red flags and not find excuses for them.

We try to rationalize red flags because “they had a hard day” — ”they are grieving” etc. none of these hard life experiences are excuses to abuse someone. They are not correlated at all, if they are abusive or extremely angry during these times, they will be at other times too.

It is also important to remember that a relationship is a stressor, it is an added person we have to think about, worry about and maintain in our already exhausted state of mind. The honeymoon phase, while amazing, does not last. If that’s what we are after, we are bound to fail.

We should not bow to society pressure or parental pressure despite what they may say, there is no expiry date for love or marriage.

Plenty of people find amazing partners and live their best relationship life in their 30s/40s and beyond, setting a timeline is counterproductive.

Finding love or the right relationship isn’t something we can force, we have to embrace other aspects of our life and recovery and love will find a way to shine through. The harder we try, the worse it can become because we are putting all our self-esteem on a relationship.

In conclusion, while it is okay to date and enter relationships when our mental health is not doing well in many cases we also have to remember the traps of engaging in these dates and take steps back to identify red flags and signs of abuse.

I hope that this first chapter has been able to help you all assess the dangers of dating in a vulnerable state and what we can do to make sure it does not worsen our conditions.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Andi Bazaar (Writer)
• Mark J. Levstein (Co-writer)
• Yevhn Gertz (Director Photography)
• Dr Oliver Schofield, MD (Consulting)
• Dr Seth Gryffen, MD (Consulting)
• Timothée Freimann schofield (Photographed)
• Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Editor/Journalist)
• Scott Wynné Schofield (Publisher)
• Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)
• Jwan Höffler Conwall (Art Interior Design)
• Hugo-licharre Freimann (Ass Director)
• Shot at GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan and Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph
• In appearance by "Tsarevich Matthew Wynné" (Model)
• MHMTID in collaboration with The Me: You Can’t See