Ask Beastly: I Miss Who I Was—Can I Get Him Back?

Finding new pillars when old ones fall.

Hi Beastly,

I remember you mentioning your “pillars” during a response. You discussed the system pretty clearly, but I had a question to ask: what would you suggest someone do if *none* of their pillars are available? I think the past few years have been a bit of a depressive spiral that I’m still trying to pull myself out of, so I’m not exactly doing the things that I used to tie my identity to. My hobbies? What hobbies? I miss my sports clubs, my gym, my artistic endeavours, my books, my kitchen… in many ways, I miss who I used to be.

I’m not entirely sure if I need to reshuffle my pillars or if I should make a concerted effort to reconnect with the ones I’ve had. I suspect it'll be a mix of the two - what I liked about myself and what I want to see in myself moving forward. Anyways, I thought I’d ask – do you have any suggestions for helping people find their pillars?

- Chronic Identity Crisis (He/They)

Hey CIC,

Thank you for that vulnerable message. I’ve written about pillars several times, but sadly, I can’t locate or remember the exact post here you’re referring to.

For readers needing context, "pillars" are what I call the things we rely on to prop up our identities—that keep us standing, keep the ship upright, keep us grounded. It’s maybe not the best analogy, since actual pillars can break and fall. This suggests that the things that define us and our lives are similarly feeble. But the metaphorical pillars I’m talking about are things that hold us up when the rest falls.

When someone loses their job, they’re reminded of how feeble an identity founded on work can be. That’s not to say we shouldn’t define ourselves by our jobs, especially if we love them, but that’s a weak pillar. All of us will experience a broken heart and be unlucky in love at some point, which means we must all go through a harsh lesson: defining ourselves by the presence of someone else in our lives is also a pillar that can be knocked down. We all lose our parents someday. We all lose friends.

This doesn’t mean these human attachments are weak or unimportant or that we should not cherish them—on the contrary, we must. We need human connection to live. My idea of “pillars” only needs to be dragged out when you’re experiencing a loss like this, when you feel like life has pulled the rug from under you. You need some pillars that exist entirely within you, such as your self-relationship, core values, life mission, and guiding principles. You need these so that when you lose your job, your spouse, your youth, and your friends, you have some unshakeable thing that can’t fall.

And again, "pillars" may be the wrong word to use, as it suggests these things are fixed and unmoving, when in reality they are shifting all the time. My relationship with myself changes year after year. Sometimes it feels really solid, sometimes less so. But, because I’ve built it and put love into it, I know that if I lose my wild new life in Berlin, my writing contracts, my job, my parents, and my friends, I will suffer, but I will still have a golden light in the dark that I can close my eyes and sink into, and that light is the unyieling, resolute fact that I love Alex. I will take care of me.

That is my strongest pillar. Right now, I have many pillars in life: I prop up the idea of myself with my job, relationships, and friends. But all those can go—life happens. If you have no anchors, pillars, or whatever you want to call them, you have nothing to fall on when things get rough.

Meditation has helped me see that these "fixed" points of self are not fixed at all. Impermanence is a concept that people with anxiety may struggle with, but it is part of life: everything is constantly changing, both in ourselves and the world. This means our pillars will change too. And they must. My dear, your pillars are changing.

Your question reads to me as an intimate description of the ageing process. You are mourning a former self. It can be depressing to see the parts of yourself you used to ground your identity on give way, and depression itself is, if nothing else, just a thought loop that keeps grinding, keeps spinning. You’re thinking and thinking and thinking, and feeling and feeling and feeling, and this runaway thought-and-feeling mix is the best description I have of depression—that’s what it is.

A thought can become so overwhelming that you stop being present in the moment, stop imagining the future, and just get stuck in a thought loop tied intrinsically to the past and grief. I’d start here: sit quietly every morning for twenty minutes and focus on your breath. When thoughts come—and they will—label them as “thinking,” and when feelings come, label them as “feeling.” Don’t chase them away, let them come, and just as gently let them drift away and return to the breath.

That’s meditation, babe.

Depression is hard. I’ve battled it most of my life. It certainly can be triggered and activated by losing pillars of yourself that you thought were solid and unshakeable. But that process is life. Not embracing it is to overlook a gift of living: we grow.

When I have writer’s block for too long, I fear that pillar—the idea of myself as a writer—is falling. And, boy, that fear wrecks me. A while ago, I had to decide that if that pillar were to fall completely, and I lost the desire or ability to write more, I would not jump off a building; I would mourn one dream but allow it to transition into another. This means having a Plan B: I’m going to be a rockstar.

You read it here first, folks: If Alexander Cheves quits writing, it’ll be to sing rock and roll. I’m being 100% serious. (Yes, I can sing.) Having that backup pillar means there’s less pressure to stake my identity on this one profession, and that helps me love it more. So, the idea of pillars—even background, second-tier ones—stays helpful to me.

There are other things in my life like this, other pillars: looks, fitness, bottoming. All can go, and if they do, I’ll mourn, but they won’t be my end. Bottoming, in particular, has been a big struggle at times because of my stomach and GI issues. I have wondered seriously if I can live without it. Anal sex is a funny hill to die on, but hey, why not? What else do I live for? Some days, I just want to get fucked. Without that, who am I? Would I still enjoy life? Could I go on?

Yes, I think I can. I’ll transition to a dominant top and train boys to do what I did.

This feels toxic to admit, but if something were to happen to me (car accident, cancer) that barred me from working out, being cute, and enjoying what space in the competitive meat market of “hot gay men” I’ve carved for myself, I often have real doubts about whether or not I could go on. I am vain and insecure. I want men to want me. Appearance is one of the weakest pillars a person can have, but it is one of mine. But then I remember the golden light of self-love I mentioned above. I know that when my looks fade, I’ll still have that, because that love is not for my body—it’s a love for the inner me, the deeper Alex. With that, I think I’ll be okay. I hope so.

I do not know what your pillars are (or were), but I suspect that musings like this have also crossed your mind. Can I live without these things?

If your pillars are down, maybe it's because important things like this—a life mission, looks, sex—are shifting in you, and it's not fair that one is expected to live without them. The raw fact is, you don't have to. Every day you wake up, life is yours to choose or throw away. Only people with depression know what severe depression feels like—when that daily choice feels like a proper and tough decision. In my darkest months, I had to consciously choose life—daily—and some days that choice felt less certain. I often go back to the memory of my worst depressive period, in the months after I tested positive for HIV at 21, and remember why I chose to stay, and why I still do.

If you make it through, things will be different, and there will be new pillars to prop you up—and they just might be better than the ones you had before. You can fear that change or approach it with curiosity and wonder.

Try to stay and see what happens. I will, too. Promise.

Love, Beastly