Blank Stare

It’s weird living your life in the open online.  I use facebook a lot, and I’m not shy about posting when I feel terrible, or happy, or sick, or proud.  I’ve been open about my recent wave of depression, from the day that really clicked it into hyperdrive, to my search for a therapist because of my panic attacks, to my continued struggles, and successes.  Numbness, happiness, cake recipes, and cat videos, I do all of that on facebook.  I try to be my authentic self online, not just the glossy version of myself.  I struggled against instagram for a long time because everything is so damn pretty.  It turns out the filters make even my sink full of dirty dishes look gorgeous.  But I try to find a way to be me, with my rough edges, and broken spots.  We all have them, and I want --ALWAYS-- for you to connect with the entire me, not some polished aspect of me.  I want us to share our humanity, and often our humanity is messy.

I have had a lot of friends -- old and new, random acquaintances, and now even complete strangers, seek me out, to cheer me on or to tell me they were thinking about me.  A lot of them shared that they appreciate my honesty and openness and talked to me about their own struggles with anxiety and depression.  They’ve shared how knitting has helped them through their own challenges.  They’ve given me advice on treatment options, or just sent me virtual hugs and support. It’s amazing the feeling of connectedness that you can gain from sharing your vulnerabilities.  Because I spend most of my time at home, mostly alone, I have a hard time remembering how to do that in person, but it’s so easy for me to share myself online.  Bonus: I can also type while I’m crying and I don’t need to wear pants.

But my excessive sharing online made harder for me to leave my house when I was at my worst.  I kept on feeling uncomfortably exposed when went out.  I worried everyone would be able to see and tell that I was just a shell of a human and I felt sad and scared to be seen in person in that state.  Josh took a couple of days off of work, because I needed to start therapy right away and the only available appointment conflicted with the school pick-up, and also I wasn’t working so well by myself.  Because of that we were able to go to a school concert together to watch Clara play recorder with the rest of the 4th graders.  I knew that she had signed up for the concert to cheer me up even though she has terrible stage fright and I really wanted to go and show her how much it meant to me. (oh my heart, my beautiful children and husband who love and support me so much.)

Sitting around waiting to be let into the school I felt numb and scared.  I was trying desperately to play the part of the supportive parent when I was barely surviving.  I kept on looking around thinking it was so obvious that I was just hanging in there.  Unable to make my face jovial like usual, I felt my numbness pouring out of my blank stare.  It was distressing that someone could be looking at me in that moment, having read about all of my struggles on facebook, and know that I was barely surviving.  I tried to have faith that all of the people who are reading my updates are generally caring people, and just pushed through that feeling of exposure as best as I could.  The desire to hide was so great that I probably would have stopped and retreated if I hadn’t had so many people reach out to me personally.

From a rational standpoint, I think it’s important that we are honest about what depression looks like, especially when it’s a chronic condition.  People talk about how they handle chronic physical illnesses quite easily, but it’s different with mental illness.  It’s crucial that we normalize having mental illness so we can all get the help we need to live our best lives, and I try to further that cause by sharing my struggles.  I have zero qualms about saying I had an asthma attack online, so why should I not mention my panic attacks?  My friends have come to expect the overshare from me, and they seem to want to know how I am, are they the type of people who only care when I’m awesome?  No, they care all the time.  Of course I want to share with them that I’m struggling, they are part of the support system that keeps me going.

At the elementary school, waiting to go to Clara’s concert, I was knitting that sock for her and an older woman started up a conversation with me about knitting.  I was shocked that I could still talk, and say things about knitting, and recommend a class that my friend taught.  It was the first conversation about something other than how much pain I was in that I had had in a couple of days, and it was amazing.  I didn’t even cry!  It was powerful to feel like I could contribute something, even though I was having a hard time just existing.

It really made me think about how knitting connects me to so many people.  My knitting groups, my customers from the old store, all of the folks on ravelry that share their work, historically all of the makers, everywhere.  It gives me a tremendous sense of connection, and on that wednesday morning it gave me a way to have safe small talk, which was such a relief when I felt so overexposed.

Knitting was something that I could do even when I couldn’t to much -- this is a theme of knitting through trauma that I have heard from countless knitters.  Dealing with an illness, depression, divorce, cancer, whatever life throws at you, knitting can give you a sense of purpose, of productivity, of doing something positive when you can’t do much else.  It’s a very powerful thing, to make something.  It makes me feel really good to knit for people, to write patterns that other people make, to share that part of myself is so deeply fulfilling.  Writing these patterns and essays have been a love letter to what knitting has meant to me, to how my knitting can represent so much more than a sock, or a dishcloth, or a cowl, it can mean love, and care, and hope.

And sometimes knitting is my armor.  I find when I’m feeling most overwhelmed I tend to put on a lot of layers of clothes.  Leggings, skirt, tank top, long sleeve t-shirt, sweater, socks, boots, fingerless gloves, cowl (sometimes two), hat, jacket, mittens, it’s not uncommon for me to have all of that on.  I tend to get cold, and it’s been stupid cold this winter, so I can always blame the weather but that’s not really the truth.  For someone who overexposes themselves online, it’s funny to try to cover myself up so much in person, but it makes me feel safe to be surrounded by my little cocoon.  In my current icon image I’m actually wearing two cowls, one that Zoë gave me for hannukah with my Blank Stare Cowl underneath.  This was my depression uniform for quite a while.

I want to thank you for your continued support and messages and comments on the patterns and anywhere you find me online, or in person -- even though I may receive it awkwardly in real life...  I honestly don’t have the words to tell you how much it means to me.  I hope my sharing helps you feel more connected and less isolated.  When you reach out to me, that’s precisely how I feel and I love you for it.

You can purchase the pattern, Blank Stare, at this link.

*** Notes for my knitters ***

For the Blank stare cowl I was trying to take the things that I liked most about the cowls I had been wearing a lot and improve them.  As a person with asthma, breathing through a scarf is really important in the cold weather.  When I’m taking Ollie for a walk, I often have to hold one hand over my mouth to keep my cowl over my nose and mouth while we walk.  I wanted to have something that was stiff enough to stay up over my face.  I also have a cowl that is asymmetrical and covers the space where my coat comes together in the front.  So having that as a design element was important for me.  It’s so good at keeping out cold drafts!

I also wanted this pattern to be stupid easy, something repetitive, and quick to memorize. This was the first thing I designed after the sock and it barely requires me to be conscious to knit it.   I think it ticks all of those boxes. Progress is slow at the beginning, but it’s still manageable.  Once you reach the half-way point in terms of rows, it just seems to fly off the needles.  I have to also make a serious plug for the yarn I used in the first sample.  Osprey from Quince & Co is squishy and springy and holds up really well to repeated knitting (as I found out knitting the matching hat)  It also smells delightfully of sheep if I wear it long enough over my mouth and nose while I’m outside in the cold air.  I know I can’t be the only one who likes the smell of clean sheep, right?

This project also takes way less than two skeins, I had enough to knit the hat and leftovers besides.  Which makes me love it even more.  Make sure you have at least 200 yards, because any less and you’ll definitely run out.  One of the members of my knitting group ended up doing a striping thing and it’s seriously cool.  So if you have two suitable things in your stash, consider doing some stripes in there to stretch your yardage.

Good knitting,
Kim