How to re-shape your story

With Lindsay Johnstone

Today, I’m bringing you a guest column by Lindsay Johnstone about how changing the stories we tell ourselves can positively impact our lives.

Lindsay is a writer, literary critic and workshop facilitator based in Glasgow. Her memoir about intergenerational maternal trauma, motherhood and recovery is currently on submission, while she works on her second book.

Lindsay’s Substack acts as a necessary space-holder, both for herself and others, who are entering midlife while still very much figuring things out. She writes about mental and physical health, the reality of living with a caring responsibility, and about our reading and writing lives. It’s also where she hosts her Writing for Better Mental Health short course and her flagship online course, Memoir in a Month, which launches in Spring 2024.

I came across Lindsay right here on Substack and I was immediately drawn to the kindness and compassion displayed throughout her writing. In this essay, she unpicks the narratives and patterns that were holding her back, and describes how doing so allowed her to shed those stories that were weighing her down…

How We Make Sense of the World

by Lindsay Johnstone

We are all storytellers — it’s how we make sense of ourselves and our world.

The most compelling stories, however, may not be the ones we consciously tell ourselves, but those formed in early childhood or even before we were born. We may not be aware of them, nor the ways they continue to impact how we live our lives. My memoir explores the ways in which the stories of our childhood, and even those belonging to our parents and grandparents, can impact the course of our lives. We don’t exist in a vacuum, and I found it incredibly healing to be able to place my experience on a timeline. To see my experience of mental illness alongside what my mother and grandmother experienced too. It was a cycle of trauma that I knew I had to disrupt, if not break completely, for the sake of my daughters.

As the eldest of two, growing up in a chaotic home with parents who were often unable to care for us, I imbibed the story that it was my responsibility to keep myself and my family safe. This was a flawed story which shone a spotlight on unresolved ruptures in trust and lack of consistency in our early lives. I never voiced this, but instead developed hyper-vigilant behaviours in relation to myself and others, which I also felt shameful about.

Later, I assumed this parent role for friends and partners and I gleaned a great deal of satisfaction from being The Rescuer. The fixer. It became a part of my identity, which I didn’t want to question or shed. So what was I doing with all my own unresolved, unacknowledged feelings? Where was I turning? I never liked asking for help or admitting any need. When asked, I always said that I was “completely fine”. I built walls around myself personally and professionally but, of course, it wasn’t sustainable.

I had experienced health anxiety and panic from a young age, though it wasn’t until my mid-20s that these issues started impacting my daily life. The wall began to crumble and those vulnerable parts of myself became exposed, which prompted further shame. Still, I refused to admit that there was a psychological cause for my experiences, I blamed everything on a whole host of physical problems which, if only I could resolve, I’d be fine. My health became an obsession — I’d record every sensation, symptom or concern in a way that I thought offered me control. I can now see this for what it was — yet more storytelling.

In my late thirties, I embarked on a therapy journey that helped me to tell a different story. I came to understand that many of the legitimate feelings I had would be recast as physical symptoms. I’d say, for example, “I’d be able to cope with what’s happening with Mum if only this niggling pain in my armpit would go,” and truly did believe it. It was a means to distance myself from the very real emotional pain of seeing my mother in distress — a pain I would do anything to guard myself against.

I think that when we are in a story, it can be so hard to see, objectively, whether it’s helping or hindering us. I’m far more able, now, to step outside of the story. To witness events in isolation for what they are, rather than as part of a catastrophic narrative. I have come to understand, too, that I write about my life because forming new stories helps me wrestle the internal and external chaos into something beautiful. I write because I cannot get enough of those vapoury, blissful moments of flow. Above all, I write because I am fiercely protective of my mental health. Writing is medicine. It’s not my only medicine, but it is the most potent.

Journaling helps me, too, by giving voice to the scariest thoughts. The ones that threaten to overwhelm. Seeing them on the page gives me that distance, and it allows me to step outside of the story and read it as an observer might. Practising deep self-compassion also saves me in moments of crisis — when we are sad, scared or anxious we must tell ourselves a kind story. We can offer ourselves the love and support we’d give to a friend, which might look different for everyone but for me, it can mean something as simple as giving myself a hug or a neck massage if I’m alone, while repeating a soothing mantra that gives me permission to feel whatever I feel in that moment.

What strategies help you to tell a different story? A more helpful one?

How can you hold compassionate space for the stories you have told yourself out of necessity, even when they no longer serve you?

Thanks so much to Lyndsay for this beautiful piece.

Until next week,

Tamzin xx