I spent an awful lot of my formative years feeling spiritually and emotionally paralysed. Late teenagehood is a classic time of intense emotional growth within the tiny confines of reality; and the world stopped spinning during lockdown, so I felt even more claustrophobic.
The first moment of paralysis I can think of began with a story I started religiously writing when I was 16. I began conceiving of myself as a character in a grand, terrible, melodramatic coming-of-age movie. The only way I could conceptualise my life having a purpose and meaning was to narrativise and disassociate it. The problem with this is that the movie of my life did not have a particularly adept director. It was not romantic or cinematic. I was not good at controlling the storyline, nor was I good at adapting the script. I would react in extreme bursts of anger at every minor occurrence, until eventually exhaustion would give in and I would close my eyes for too long. I was obsessed with, in an abstract sense, cultivating an imagined community who would perceive me constantly. What kind of character was I? What arc was I going through? It didn’t particularly matter how I felt about anything; I was viewing life as something that was happening to me. I was a recipient of life, and I was crafting a specific narrative designed for the ether to appreciate.
During the height of lockdown, the narrative had drowned in self-pity and the movie had long turned into a dreary silent film. I was wasting my days away; eyes closed eyes semi-open eyes closed and closed and closed. I was barely even cognisant enough to recognise myself as paralysed at the time. There was no sense of time. If I wasn’t sleeping, I was lying in bed with the blue light reflection of my cracked phone casting sharp shadows on my face. At some point in my doom scrolling, I did a silly little thing where I asked people on my Instagram to send in their ‘core memories’. A surprising amount of people wrote back. I would place their responses in a collage with a nice photo and accompanying song, and I soon had dozens upon dozens of these to sift through. People would respond with the smallest of things, from moments with friends and first kisses. People would spill their guts, speaking about death and secrets. It was a small act, but I liked being able to twist these moments into something tangible for them: a carefully chosen photograph, a soft sad song, a particular choice of words. I was in charge of that specific re-interpretation of their words, and by tenuous extension, fragile moments in their lives. This was the first task in months and months that made me feel like I had a semblance of agency, that I could also contort my life into something worth romanticising. As something that did not happen to me, but rather with me.
I wish there was a film reel here, a quick highlight of all the small, quietly elegant moments which led to my metamorphosis away from catatonia. It’s difficult to articulate, and perhaps my single greatest fear is being inarticulate. It’s the paralysis of language which strikes me here. All I can write is that, eventually, the movie is in technicolour. I learn to direct, but I lose the ability to rewind the film reel. The twisted thing about being swept away by better circumstances is that you’re so eager to accept this newfound lightness that you never quite realise what’s laying dormant underneath it all.
Maybe it all came down to the year you were sixseveneighteen and everything froze and you’ve figured out how to ignore the ice in your veins. It’s far too late to soften now. I spent such a large chunk of my formative years being so obsessed with chronicling the state of my decay that it sped up the process.
My formative years weren’t entirely paralysing. Yes, I was often encased in a cocoon. Sometimes, your life spiritually grinds to a complete near-death moment of stillness that you can’t conceptualise as anything but dizzying, until years after. I still live in the same room. Maybe those slow moments are a gift; paralysis numbs the growing pains.
