I chose to get off the hamster wheel

As a counsellor I am most useful by really knowing myself, by reflecting on my crises and realisations, times where despair led to more self-control and freedom.

The closest I came to an emotional breakdown was in my early 20s. I hadn’t come out as gay, even to myself. I didn’t recognise myself in the Mardi Gras parade. I wasn’t shiny, built or camp. I was a nerdy office slave in the CBD and was studying at night. I was new in Sydney from a small town and didn’t have a reliable support network. My ‘worldframe’ wasn’t yet socialist, but I was angry and frustrated about injustice and war. I felt isolated in my frustration. I hadn’t found my people.

It was the early 90s and outdoor advertising had been unleashed on public spaces like buses and bus shelters imploring us to shop to make ourselves somehow both conformingly cool and individual. My desk job didn’t pay very much and yet I felt I was supposed to spend up on clothes and accessories to fit in and feel good.

I remember when I almost snapped. I was getting on a bus from Oxford St to the city and I wasn’t well in my head. I wanted to cry and smash things in rage at the same time. The advertising on the bus stop almost tipped me over the edge.

Somehow after this I realised I just had to stop trying to compete, to stop buying expensive trendy clothes to ‘be someone’, to be like ‘them’. Instead I chose to revert to my family values that emphasised not keeping up with the Joneses (a lost phrase) and to combine that with a more organised and curious mental life that opened up an understanding of the con of consumerism and the alienation of life in capitalism.

I have felt better ever since. I soon found my people: others who questioned instead of conformed, cooperated instead of competed, shared joy instead of showing off.

I write this in the lead up to Mardi Gras. I can’t help but notice that a hard focus on physical presentation and comparison drives more young and not-so-young people than ever into anxiety and depression and self-harm. There is an alternative. Blame the system, not some lack in yourself. Teach yourself to ignore the marketing. Choose to get off the hamster wheel. You will feel better. I promise.