I Don’t Always Know How To Say “No”

(And That’s OK)

I’d fantasized about it for years.

The ability to look at something, anything really, and say no to it:

My Mother’s mashed potatoes.Vodka martinis. Salt. Himalayan Pink Salt. Oatmeal raisin cookies. French Grey Sea Salt. Netflix. Coffee. Hawaiian Black Lava Salt. Sex.

You name it, I wanted more of it.

I became this rolling ball of conflict: Inside I knew that I shouldn’t want those things. I knew that I shouldn’t be putting salt on everything. I knew that I really didn’t need one more drink.

But it wasn't the habit I was policing, it was my failure to police the habit that I was policing.

Imagine you’re watching a big boxing match on HBO. You’ve got the two fighters duking it out for the heavyweight championship, you’ve got a referee who’s trying (and failing) to keep it a clean match, and then you’ve got another referee refereeing that referee, screaming in his ear about what a shitty referee he is.

That was me.

My body started to shut down, my hair started to fall out, my skin eventually developed eczema. I went from my annual “three-day cold” to a “monthly weeklong cold”. I was a wreck, and I didn’t know why.

Naturally when my health starts going south the first thing I do is go to a bunch of doctors. Within a week I was stocked: pills, creams, ointments, shampoos, creams to compensate for the side effects of the shampoos.

I’d become a walking test lab for GlaxoSmithKline, and after a month of prescribed use, none of it was working.

I finally saw a dermatologist who looked me square in the eye and said something I hadn’t heard yet: “Nothing is wrong with you. Er, well, something is wrong with you, but it’s not physical. You’re stressed.”

And I was.

I tossed the shampoos, tossed the creams, kept the Propecia (that shit is expensive) and started researching therapists at the recommendation of a trusted friend, ultimately finding a solution that fit my hyper-limited budget, and dug in.

Within a few sessions a pattern became apparent. Alan, my therapist quickly pointed out: “You’ve consistently circled back to your disappointment in various habits and aspects of your life, and you refuse to acknowledge them as part of who you are, why do you think that is?”

“Alan, I have no id..”

As I finished the last word, revelation it hit me in the form of a bizarre metaphor.

I’d always been obsessed with attacking any pimple that popped up on my face, pinching at it, squeezing it to death, having fantasies of plier misuse, the usual. Of course this only angered the pimples, prolonging their stay. I couldn’t have been doing anything worse for my skin, and as I would later learn from Wikipedia, I could have potentially caused brain damage.

It turned out that I’d been applying the same principle to my inner monologue.

By constantly reprimanding myself for failing to self-police, I was making the task of safely controlling habits and urges exponentially more difficult.

By exerting control, I was losing control.

“Catholics have been practicing misplaced self flagellation for centuries” Alan joked.

While I can’t speak for the Catholic church, I can certainly speak for me. In the week following our conversation I put into practice what now sounds like the most obvious advice I’ve ever been given: I stopped being so hard on myself.

I accepted that I want to over salt my french fries. I accepted that I want to have another drink. I accepted that I’m a horny 24 year old male.

Through the token act of acceptance, I gained power. And through power, I gained choice.

By choosing whether or not I wanted to acknowledge my urges, I gained freedom.

I can’t say that this freedom will be covering up my bald spot any time soon, but I can happily say my eczema is almost completely gone.

Not that you’d want to hear about that either way.