am i just the same now as i was at 4? (Patreon)

I’ve been spending a lot of my days recently thinking about myself when I was 4 and 5 and 6.

My only memories of that time seem to be either beautiful; immersed in nature - mud, water, tall grasses, and immersed in imagination.

Or, immersed in anxiety, specifically existential anxiety. I went to a christian elementary school and remember coming into the classroom many different times crying or feeling like crying and asking someone to help me say the prayer to accept Jesus into my heart because I didn’t think I did it right before or was honest before, and I needed to re-do it again.. and again.. and again.

And crying in the car about my younger sister, being scared that she was going to go to hell because she didn’t accept Jesus into her heart yet. And I wanted to trade places with her. Or laying in bed at night, having what I didn’t realize were panic attacks until a few years ago. Laying there thinking about the world and the universe and outer space and feeling unable to think. Unable to process (because of course, who is able to process that) and getting so scared of what life is, how I got here, why I got here. What to do with being here? Why can I think? Why can I feel? Who is meredith?

I have been thinking about those moments more because as I got older I learned how to push those thoughts away, deep deep down. Because what was I to do with them? But they turned into nightmares. And the nightmares turned into not sleeping, and not sleeping turned into finding ways to distract myself.

Now I do specific things to bring on that anxiety and existential dread purposely, because the more I think about these things, the more I try to process the un-processable, the more my brain becomes a livable place. The more those thoughts turn from anxiety to curiosity and a deep gratitude for the fact that I am here. I am able to live and breathe today, to watch the steam in the bath, to smell the coffee, to go to work and meet new people, to feel the wind and the sun, to touch another human.

I have been wondering, and I mean this in the least judgmental way as possible, though it may not come across that way… but the more I wonder if the deeper you are raised in a specific way, the stricter the rules are around life and belief and the deeper constructed your life is, if the more stifled your brain is. I think this because of two of my friends who I have, who were raised without any religion, without any constraints on who they could be, seem to be the freest, the happiest, and have the most grace and compassion and love for humans. They welcome people who are different from them even when that being different is judging THEM for their not believing. And I have friends who grew up so much stricter than I was, and they seem to have an even harder time accepting and loving; themselves and others. Especially themselves. And maybe that's what it is. when you can love yourself, you can love others. And when you’re raised that there is a specific way to be, to believe, to move, and to think, and you don’t think that way, that turns to shame and hatred of yourself. And then shame and hatred of others?

For me, it felt like those constraints were more than just a hatred of self, but it felt like my critical thinking, and creative thinking were stifled. I can’t help but wonder where I would be now if I didn’t feel shut down in my disbelief or doubt about heaven and hell, but was given tools to explore those ideas. At 4 and 5! I am only now allowing myself to think about the things that first came up for me THEN. What if I could have thought about them then, of course, conclusions could and probably would have been different. But a lot of what I am questioning now and finding different answers for now, or realizing that there is no answer for, I questioned then. And instead, I had to push them away. I had to bury strange ideas and desires.

But no more. I will be me, and keep being me and allowing my brain to think and feel what it does. Desire what it desires, come up with weird ideas and thoughts as it does. No shame allowed. Well, its allowed, no shame about feeling shame either.

And allowing all of these questions and doubts and existential dread to penetrate my every molecule allows me to feel the most alive that I have ever felt.