A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Dear Friend,
Every week, when I show up to write to you, I begin by writing to me. I think about the worst part of my week, and wonder what I would have liked to have been told in those moments of “ugh”-ness. (Or darkness, sadness, grief, despair, loneliness, anger — throw in whatever uncomfortable emotion word you want. We all experience all of them.) If the gentlest friend were to appear and say exactly the thing I needed to hear, what would the friend say? And then I write that down, in a letter like this one, in a style that is so long-winded that it’s actually good that I’m not my friend, because I would get secretly annoyed and resentful with how verbose I am.
This particular week, however, in my darkest “ugh,” I reached out to an actual non-self friend (in fact, I reached out to a few!), and let go of the idea that I knew what I needed to hear. I was having an all caps HARD TIME. I can’t put my finger on why the time was as hard as it was, but I experienced a well-documented psychological phenomenon called age regression: essentially, emotionally transforming into a much younger version of oneself. It’s not like I was sucking my thumb (to be fair, I NEVER sucked my thumb), and I didn’t forget how to spell “simultaneously” (the word I got out on in the second grade spelling bee); instead, I reverted to thought patterns that a smarter, older version of me knew weren’t helpful. I was saying things to myself that I have a whole litany of tools for, but I had no real access to the tools. Basically, I was beating myself up, and I was unable to be my own adult with the ability to intercede.
Do you know what I’m talking about? Like, you say to yourself, “I’m a bad person. I’m a failure. I suck. I am unworthy of love.” And while you have read each and every Brene Brown book, and you subscribe to a newsletter called “You Are Doing A Good Enough Job,” there is simply no intervention that will convince you that you are NOT a bad person, a failure, or an unworthy suck-slug. And then (hi, second arrow!), you KNOW that you are SUPPOSED to know better — like, obviously you should believe that you are worthy, that you are not a bad person, and blah blah blah — but you are FAILING TO BELIEVE THOSE THINGS, and so you are a DOUBLE failure! It’s a wild spiral that makes you feel like you have fallen into a familiar well. You know there’s a ladder out of this well, but while you are pacing the perimeter desperately, you can’t FIND the ladder.
When I found myself at the bottom of the well on Monday (“WHAT?! HOW AM I DOWN HERE?! NOTHING REALLY BAD IS HAPPENING TO ME! NOTHING IS THAT BIG A DEAL! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!?!?!? COUNT COLORS, SOPHIE! STOP CRYING, SOPHIE! GET OVER IT!!!” — these, by the way, are the dregs at the bottom of the tool box, after everything else has been exhausted), I took out my phone and started texting. I texted all three of my partners. They were all loving and supportive, and knowing that they were there to receive my (frankly, unhinged) texts was enough to keep me afloat.
It is so hard and so scary to be vulnerable with people who have jobs and problems of their own; to ask for help when it is possible that the people you love might not have the capacity for it. And it has to be OK for the people you love to say, “I love you, but I can’t be there for you right now,” because that’s part of being human, too; none of us has boundless availability. It becomes necessary to know that if a person can’t show up for you, it isn’t because they don’t love you, or they want you to be different, or you are “too much.” It’s because they are a mortal, finite, human person with their own needs and their own resources, and sometimes they, too, are pushed to their limits.
The trouble is that, if you’re approaching your loved ones with the mindset you had when you were a child, it’s difficult to access the rational part of your brain that knows, fundamentally, that “I can’t right now” is not the same as total rejection.
I have known Jess since middle school. Middle School Sophie was a child, and she was deeply mired in all her child-created self-flagellation strategies. Her belief was that if she was hard enough on herself, no one else could come in and be harder on her; that if she presented herself as pathetic enough, no one would have the heart to leave her. This was child logic, and sometimes it worked, so she kept on using it. Child Sophie and Child Jess had many of the same tactics and techniques for self-preservation, and so naturally, they gelled. We were best-friend-jewelry-types of best friends. And I could go on and on about the writerly details that cemented our quarter-century-long relationship — bags of cayenne-dusted tortilla chips, road trips, that wooden piano-shaped music box, buying matching green skirts at Ross Dress for Less — but you don’t need all that. (And I wrote about it in my first book, so if you’re like, “TELL ME ABOUT THOSE SKIRTS!”, you can buy the book.) What matters is: it helps to have a friend who knew you as a child.
Well, I mean: it helps to be an adult and have a friend who loved you when you were both children, but now you’re both adults, but sometimes one of you goes back to being a child, and then the other one sees the child, and knows the child, and loves the child, and is able to say the thing the child needs to hear. Even though technically you’re both adults now.
So, I texted Jess when I was feeling down on Monday, and I let the petulant, non-thinking child version of myself talk to her. Jess said a lot of nice things to me (to Child Sophie), but this was the one that calmed the storm:
So in this moment, we’re just going to let the activated fear response do its thing, but we’re not going to believe our thoughts. We’re going to care for ourself as if we were the most precious person in the world (because you are), and that means spoiling yourself with flowers or treats or a break.
“Treats!” We had some king cake in the house (Happy Mardi Gras!), and I had decided I shouldn’t eat any post-weekend. But here was an adult I trusted, telling me that I was going to have to spoil myself with treats. So I cut a piece of cake, and lay in bed, and ate the cake, and felt soothed. For the rest of the day, I behaved like a person who had been consumed by a storm — I was not productive, but that was fine. (Here’s a drawing from my most recent book about that kind of moment.)
And two days later, now that I’ve had therapy and gotten some sleep and gone back to work, I’m reflecting on how nice it is (how truly LUCKY I am) to have a friend who recognizes Child Sophie and knows how to talk to her. This is coming off a little smug and braggy, but fear not: you don’t have to have a friend who knew Child You to build this kind of resource. I do think you will need to recognize some of your own patterns, and it’s best to do that when you’re not in a state of great reactivity. So here are some questions to ask yourself in order to DIY a Jess:
When you’re really going through it and reverting to old habits and strategies that you you used as a child, what kinds of things do you say to yourself or do?
In those moments, what would you have liked an adult to say to you to make you feel safe?
Who are some people in your life around whom you feel safe today?
Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to have a nice, deep, vulnerable, intentional conversation with one of the people from Question 3. Take them out for tea and ask them if they will be your In-Crisis Adult. The job description is simple: when you approach them with the language from Question 1 (“I’m a loser who doesn’t deserve love!”), they can respond with the language from Question 2 (“Let’s take a break. Can you tell me three blue things you can see? Great job! Now. It’s time to order you some ice cream.”) (Or actually, just take Jess’s words! I think they’re perfect and she’s brilliant.). That’s it! Maybe this person is your partner or a sibling; but more likely, it’s someone with whom you have a less complex relationship. Maybe it’s a mentor, or someone you were close with in college. Maybe you can offer to be an In-Crisis Adult for this person in exchange. Maybe being trusted with these duties will feel like an honor.
It’s wonderful to have a person to whom you can say exactly the things you’re thinking; even if your older, smarter brain knows that those things are silly and wrong. Even better is knowing that you are never too old to let someone else take care of you. You are always all of your selves; and at the same time, you are always, every day, new. Maybe your deepest child self still possesses the same fears she did when she was eight; but maybe, too, today’s self has what she needs to ask to be cared for.
It’s almost mid-January. Every day, we get more sun.
Love,
Sophie
Parenting Paragraph.
This paragraph is about my daughter, T, who is now 14 months old. It is a relic of this newsletter’s beginnings. Skip it if this is not your thing!
I asked Luke what he noticed about T at this age, and he said that she is impossible to trick. He surmised that it’s because she has greater object permanence. You can’t take an electronic pencil away from her and then give her a real pencil and expect her to be satisfied with the real pencil, or to forget the electronic pencil anytime soon. (I use this example because T has ruined with slobber two $100 Apple Pencils in the past one year.) He asked me what I noticed about her, and I said that she likes to dance WITH people. She will dance by herself, but she is so much happier if you are dancing next to her. She wants you to be holding her hands, sitting next to her, and also dancing. She doesn’t want you sitting behind her, looking at your phone. She doesn’t want you in the other room. She absolutely does not need you (or even WANT you?) to be watching her. She wants you hand-in-her-hand, swaying side to side, dancing ALONG WITH her. This strikes me as such a human need: the need to be in unison. This is the deep itch that is scratched when you sing along with someone else. If you don’t know what I mean, go do it! You’ll get it. Also, as has been proven in multiple blind studies (i.e., six “studies” done in my living room; I don’t know what “blind” means), T will say the word “wow” every time she sees a peacock open its tail in a video. CORRECT, T.
This Week In Sophie
There is a fun interview with me in Inside Hook this week. I’ve excerpted a question below, but you may read it all here.
If you didn’t have your Substack, would you be producing this much?
Probably! But I don’t think I’d be as happy about it. I think writing a newsletter for thousands of people has always been my life goal, and I was born at exactly the right time to make this realistic. Another time that would have been conducive to this kind of output would have been the early 1900s, when most Americans read multiple newspapers per day, and you could mail a newspaper for a 1.5 cents (versus, like, six cents for a letter). The internet tells me there were more than 30,000 print newspapers at this time. On the other hand, in 1900, people would have been so scandalized by a lady journalist spouting off nonsense (let alone a polyamorous one!), so it’s probably for the best that I’m living in the age of Substack. I have a small-but-mighty readership that makes me feel better about humanity in general. I like being a part of a smaller internet.
Please consider a paid subscription! I am putting in the mail THIS WEEK the swag for the founding members (anyone who gives between $50 and $250 a year — you can change the dollar amount manually), which includes a winter t-shirt, five new prints, and a few surprises. So far, there are 17 people at this level. They are the peacock tail of people. ALL paid subscribers at any level get two more emails per week, including more out-of-left-field recommendations and also a forum-type email where I ask a question and we all talk about in the comments and it is GLORIOUS. If you really wish you had access to that, but can’t swing the cost right now, please email me and let me know. I’m happy to add you for free.
dear sophie,
thank you for sharing all of this, as always. i'm glad you have the friends you do. and i'm glad you're the friend to yourself (and to your friends) that you are, when you can be!
i like that t's policy is "dance like no one's watching because they're dancing with you"
love,
myq
Wonderfully honest, nuanced and yet simple. Thanks for sharing.