Introducing Stacey
Stacey hangs around with me quite a lot. But if I’m being totally honest, she’s a bit of a bitch.
She has very little social etiquette. Quite often, she’ll turn up unannounced. And she doesn’t take a hint to leave. She’ll quite happily rant away at me, even when I’m clearly busy, making it impossible to concentrate.
She’s even been hanging around during lockdown — zero regard for social distancing.
It’s not like it’s because she likes me, either. In fact, she’s pretty horrible to me — and it’s incessant. She’ll criticise my weight. She’ll tell me I’m rubbish at my job. She’ll make judgemental comments about the cleanliness of my flat. And when she can’t find anything to have a go at, she’ll start throwing random horrific scenarios at me; “What if this truly awful thing happened to someone you care about? How shit would that be, eh?”. In fact, nasty abuse and planting random but terrifying seeds of fear is the sole focus and full extent of her repertoire. But, we are inseparable.
A few months ago, my therapist explained to me that naming your anxiety allows you to recognise it, and that it’s separate from you. Don’t ask me how we got to ‘Stacey’ (and apologies to any Staceys reading this — I am sure you are much, much nicer than mine is), but it stuck.
I’m still not totally comfortable with “speaking to” Stacey, but the concept does make sense to me and it’s something I’m going to run with. It’s started to help me distance myself from the internal monologue when my thoughts start to spiral. Sometimes she’s easier to spot, for instance if I walk past the full washbasket and good old Stace pipes up with “Wow, you really could have dealt with that this afternoon rather than watching that TV show. You’re pretty lazy really aren’t you. I can’t believe you went to bed early rather than do that washing up last night too. Yeah you’re a pretty awful human being.”. Other times, she takes me by surprise — “Oh heyyy! I know you had a really good day with work, but remember that document you wrote? It probably could have been better really, couldn’t it? So you didn’t have *that* great a day did you? So you actually aren’t all that great at your job…” and so on. There will also probably always be the days where she totally floors me and won’t even let me keep myself together for long enough to get out of bed and have a shower. But again, at least now I know on those days it’s just ‘That Bitch Stacey’ (read in a Tiger King voice, obvs) and — most importantly — Not. My. Fault.
It’s probably not a bad technique for anyone to adapt. We all have those moments of imposter syndrome or unfounded guilt, but being able to take yourself a step away from it does help you to realise it’s not what you’d say to one of your friends — and you needn’t be saying it to yourself.
So I’ll stick with it for now and just make sure I draw the line at shouting obscenities out loud at her in public places. I’ll just quietly tell Stacey to do one, sod the washing up, and go and treat myself to a glass of Pinot and a packet of crisps. Cheers Stace.
