As I mention in the introduction to A Good Life Despite Everything, I never thought I’d live a long life. In fact, I never thought I’d reach 30, let alone 60. But tomorrow is my 60th birthday.
Pessimism about ageing is part and parcel of complex trauma. Many of us suffer from a sense of a foreshortened future. And I think it is quite understandable, because living with a dysregulated nervous system is so hard that the thought of dying young makes total sense; surely all this anxiety and depression will wipe one out?
The statistics are not on my side either. If you have multiple psychiatric diagnoses and are on heavy psychiatric medication, life expectancy is significantly shorter than in the general population. But this does not really trouble me. My life is so hard that the thought of living another 25 years isn’t an attractive one.
Viktor Frankl stressed that the length of a life says nothing about its value. What counts is how you use your time on this planet. And according to Frankl, a good life is a life where you have realised, to the best of your ability, the meaning potentials that only you can realise.
Frankl’s philosophy is my guiding light, and no matter how hard my life is, I seek meaning every day. I use my gifts to realise meaning potentials. I love language, so I write in all three languages that I know. I love music, and I aspire to become a deeper musician, even without an audience to perform for.
While writing, I can search for truth about living with suffering. And when I try to extend my improvisational skills, I connect to the value of beauty. I keep the classical values of goodness, truth, beauty and love in mind every day. When I seek to realise any of those values, I orient myself toward meaning.
This does not make my life rosy, but it does give me a reason to get out of bed. My nervous system cannot deal with social contact very well, but connecting to values counts as self-transcendence — reaching beyond oneself. According to Frankl, we are at our most human when we do that. I agree, and I don’t mind my hermit’s life. A loving wife and our two lovely rescue cats are the best life companions I could ever ask for. In the end, everyone is existentially alone; nobody knows what it is like to live my life, and I know little about the internal life of others.
Suffering is an ineradicable part of life. But suffering with meaning equals hope, according to Viktor Frankl. Meaning mitigates the pain one experiences.
What will my 60th birthday look like? I have to see a psychiatrist to discuss my medications, because my nervous system has really been difficult to deal with lately, and I hope that I can find some relief. After all, Frankl suggests that attacking problems at the root is always the first course of action, because suffering isn’t necessary to experience meaning, as a tortured artist might claim. Suffering voluntarily is, according to Frankl, simply masochism.
Immediately after the appointment, I will meet up with friends for drinks. It won’t be easy, because my nervous system drains in large groups really fast. But it is meaningful to celebrate friendships that have endured despite my craziness.
I have learned to embrace my craziness. Again, Frankl has a wise thought about this: an abnormal reaction to abnormal circumstances is normal behaviour. I am a product of my past and of the life choices I have made. I take responsibility for my part, and I accept what fate has handed me without my choosing.
They say that age is just a number. But when you live with persistent stress reactions every day, you can really feel every increment in ageing. I am proud to have made it to 60, despite everything. In my last orbit around the sun, I found meaning by writing two books and dozens of articles. That is my gift to the world.
I myself need nothing. I have everything a person could ask for, except a regulated nervous system. But that is my cross to bear. And everyone has their own.
