What are Brain Worms? And why have I got them?
More to the point, why should you sign up to an email about them?
“It’s not a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s an oncoming train”.
My dad said this quite often. The first time I heard it, I was primary school age. Sometimes he’d say it with a smirk, just to wind up my mum, who despaired of his negativity. Sometimes he’d say it in response to her telling him – or me – that something bad was going to turn out okay. Sometimes he’d pipe up out of nowhere, and tell me to remember it— “oh, and while we’re here, remember you can’t trust anyone either, they’ll all stab you in the back to get what they want”.
That, I think, was one of the first brain worms to embed itself in my mind. As a child, I didn’t think to question it—my dad, as an adult, surely knew more about what the world was like than me. So my pessimistic worldview began to germinate, but unfortunately for me, I didn’t experience much in my formative years to challenge it. I didn’t have many friends at school, I was a weird kid who got teased, so as far as I was concerned, my dad (and Slipknot, some years later) were correct: people = shit. Apologies to anyone who likes a happy ending, but while I’ve softened, I’m still a proud pessimist. My life motto is no longer “people are shit”, but it is “expect nothing, and you won’t be disappointed”.
“I realised how easy it is to ignore yourself as a person, to forget you even exist, when mental illness and society at large compel you to value yourself only by how others see you”
I like the image of a brain made of shifting, pulsing worms, changing form and finding a comfortable configuration, because that’s how therapy felt to me. I learned about all the negative worms that resulted in faulty and damaging behaviour patterns: not being able to dump horrid people, purposely seeking horrid people to date, impulse-booking a trip to climb Kilimanjaro because I felt my life was meaningless then having to pay a doctor to write a letter about how I wasn’t mentally well enough to actually do it in order to get back the £400 non-refundable deposit. Developing an addiction to giant expensive Lego sets.
As I unpicked the worms and learned about emotional regulation, setting boundaries and that actually, not everyone experiences romantic attachment as permanent, disabling nausea and anxiety, I felt my life improve. I still had low expectations of people, but I had higher expectations for myself. I realised how easy it is to ignore yourself as a person, to forget you even exist, when mental illness and society at large compel you to value yourself only by how others see you. Which leads to the purpose of this newsletter: the brain worms the world gives us.
My friends often ask me how to give less of a fuck, because I seem to have missed the bit of female socialisation that makes you a people-pleaser. I find it easy to say no and to voice my opinions. I’m comfortable with the fact not everyone will like me. I have no desire to be perceived as nice or nurturing. The fact that so many women do, and that this desire often leads to us being taken advantage of in relationships, work or by family, is one big brain worm insidiously injected by society into anyone female or femme-identified.
So yes, this newsletter will be about mental health and my own recovery, but it’s also about societal expectations and the damage they do, misogyny, dating, and advocating for yourself. It’s for anyone who’s ever asked why they’re not good enough. That’s the wrong question—the right one is, “If someone’s making me feel like I’m not good enough, why haven’t I walked away?”
I’m not a counsellor or an agony aunt, but I think I give pretty objective advice. I won’t tell you it’s an oncoming train, but I won’t tell you everything will be fine, either. Everyone has brain worms in some form, so imagine this is a classroom, and we’re about to dissect them.