The Concept of Natural Selection - Mental Health Part 3

*I was really ‘umming and ahhring’ as to whether to share this. I hope to the heavens that nobody inadvertently adopts this mindset as it shattered me and I was wrong to ever view myself in that light, so again, please take care should you choose to read it*

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I once read a quote from Albert Einstein that stated, ‘It is tasteless to prolong life artificially’; immediately these seven words changed my perspective on my life for the worst. If we’re looking at my situation objectively, Cystic Fibrosis is a life-threatening condition and before treatment became available, children would die before they were five years old so one might say it’s population control, which is also known to some degree as Natural Selection.

Had I not had any medical intervention, I’d be dead. Being brutally honest, I would no longer be here. And I just became obsessed with this notion of ‘I’m not supposed to be here; I’m being kept alive when there’s no space for me’ and this tied in with an all-time low of self-confidence and self-esteem, so it became a very toxic mix. This was without a doubt, the darkest place I’d ever been, all I could think of were ‘proved’ reasons as to why I was so unworthy of life and why I shouldn’t and wasn’t meant to be here, ‘I didn’t pass that, I‘m no good at this, nobody likes me, I have no special skills’ and to me, all these thoughts had a completely valid reason to be true - I was meant to die years ago, I wasn’t meant to have made it this far so there is nothing for me on this Earth.

It reached the point where it started to influence my external behaviours, so if I was alone, I would deliberately not take my medications or do my treatments in an effort to try and ‘grant the universe its wish’ (fortunately, I was living at home at the time, so I was rarely alone). But the scary thing was that I was willing to die over it and it’s hard to fathom that I let myself reach that point.

I didn’t seek help over it for months because I was so ashamed and embarrassed that people would perceive this as me having the same attitude to others with conditions and illnesses. But that never ever did cross my mind. I did not have that same opinion towards others that I had towards myself in any sense of the words, I probably had a far better attitude towards them as in ‘wow you’re standing strong against all the odds, clearly you’re here for a very special reason, you’re a remarkable person, don’t ever let anyone tell you differently or think of yourself in a negative light’. But I could never reflect that onto myself, I just kept believing all the negative thoughts.

I am glad to say that I eventually did go to my psychologist at the hospital, although it wasn’t exactly planned. It was more of a ‘Annabelle, I can tell something’s wrong, do you want to talk about it?’ and at that point everything came flooding out, the guilt of ‘wasting everyone’s time’, ‘I should’ve taken this person’s place’, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m supposed to be dead, the universe built itself without regard for me’ blah blah blah. I also mentioned the Albert Einstein quote (which turned out to be a pivotal part on this side of the story).

Now, my psychologist did an exceptional job and proved her dedication and care as the next time I saw her she came back to me and said ‘I found the Einstein quote you were talking about and there’s far more to it than you had originally seen’. I blame Instagram entirely as some absolute douche of an ‘influencer’ decided to only post a portion of the quote because they were probably trying to promote some BS vitamins over something that is 100% necessary (I’m pleased to report that I don’t follow any of these people anymore). Turns out the statement went something like this… ‘I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.’ An extra dozen of words created the biggest flip for my perspective of life. I didn’t want my original belief to be true by any stretch of the imagination, I did not favour the idea of history’s most intelligent man telling me that my life was worthless.

So, I shall now break the actual quote down.

‘I want to go when I want’ – I’m jolly well not ready just yet, there’s plenty more jobs that I need to get done, places I need to travel to as well as see my friends and family succeed (and myself of course) before death even becomes an option.

‘I have done my share’ – I am finally starting to identify why I was put here, largely to do with caring for others (through care work and hopefully one day being able to help others through counselling/psychology), as well as doing as much as I can for CF and chronic conditions in general, even if it is to a small population. And, I really do see myself having a family of my own and becoming a mum one day; I think I’d make a pretty damn good one too (I’ve had an excellent example).

‘I will do it elegantly’ – I think when good old Albert says this, he means he’ll handle it elegantly, no last-minute panic or regrets. I hope I too adopt this approach because physically, I don’t think CF deaths are particularly elegant, from what I've heard they don't sound massively pleasant but hopefully I won’t have to worry that for many more years (I do apologise but dark humour is a HUGE coping mechanism for me).

Sometimes it can still be a struggle to not fall into the trap of ‘natural selection’, it’s exhausting trying to fight it, so the key is to never allow myself into that space at all (probably a large reason as to why I’m so terrified of failure). But, despite having to go through this very painful phase, I would not erase it from my memory at all as I’ve now built a far stronger, determined and grateful perspective and I believe I am a better person for it 🤗

So to finish off this series, thank you so so much for reading and I really really hope you enjoyed the last three posts and you've learnt something about me, or mental health or even had an epiphany yourself perhaps? Through writing these, I've been very honest with myself and have learnt a lot because of it, I feel like I'm looking at life so much more clearly than I was even last week. So, I shall leave you with one of my favourite philosophies to mull over, which I think is an excellent tool to admire on a bad day ❤️

Kintsugi – (Japanese) ‘to repair with gold’ the art of repairing pottery with gold lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken