I’ve been on Quora a lot lately, part of me says way too much. Perhaps I’m already addicted? (Cue critical inner voices talking trash…)
I think the tree to be barking up, though, is to get curious about what exactly my experience is, possibly even, what needs are being met here.
In a nutshell, my experience here is that I can freely offer encouragement and it is received with open arms. I also receive a lot of encouragement and support and at times, admiration, from people who know what I struggle with in terms of mental health.
It’s an experience of being known. I don’t want to go as far as to say fully known. But known in a way that is very real and substantial.
It feels very good.
It’s a type of being known that seemed to be in such short supply for so much of my life.
Quora isn’t the only place I experience this. I have felt similar things at church and with the people I work with (I work for my church). I have felt it in spiritual direction and therapy. It’s like it started in small doses at my work, like with the IT guy telling me I have a very good reputation, and with my boss (who is the pastor of a parish numbering in the thousands of members) being truly open to my innovative ideas and even wisdom. This past Sunday I was sitting in the pew like a good Catholic, ready to take in the homily (a sermon that occurs right after the Gospel reading during Mass) and the first words out of my pastor’s mouth were nearly word for word something I’d shared with him in a recent meeting. That got my attention! It got more intense in spiritual direction and therapy, but still only in anywhere from monthly to weekly doses. And… it’s starting to happen in bits and pieces in my family too. That’s like the final frontier in a way because due to my backstory I have so many hangups about family and I think there’s a lot of love I simply haven’t been able to take in and so it’s often felt like it wasn’t there… and now I’m starting to notice it more.
What is unique about Quora is the nearly constant (as often as I’m on it anyway) reinforcement of the experience of giving and receiving encouragement and support in a context where it is also known that I struggle with some difficult things.
That part takes some getting used to. Perhaps part of the “addictive” aspect of it is a compulsive need to keep checking on the grounds that it all just might be too good to be true. Maybe I’m in full blown filling my cup mode. Maybe I’m making up for lost time. Maybe I’m trying to get to the point where this actually feels normal (as opposed to the anomaly it still feels like at church and work and even therapy).
Whatever is going on, for now I’m just rolling with it. I thought of bringing it up in therapy later today but… I also really want to work more with the sadness, see if I can get closer to the crying little girl. And I only have fifty minutes! So this probably won’t come up in therapy today. Perhaps after a few more weeks of rolling with it and seeing where it goes.
Being known. A strange and yet totally natural and normal way to exist in life.