Voicing Regret and Depression

“Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion

And all those things I didn’t say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?”

- Rachel Platten

As the eternal “bright light” with a “sunny disposition”, smile and hug of encouragement for everyone around me, I’ve done my best throughout life to tamp down on my own mistakes in judgment, feelings of regret, and the resulting weight of depression and helplessness they bring. Always positioning them as lessons learned and never to be repeated. Water under the bridge, so to speak.

And most of the time it actually has worked, or at least I told myself it had… with time and a lot of practice. It was a coping mechanism I developed to “manage” all the painful and lonely experiences that have happened to me throughout my life, and that I have had no capacity to anticipate. To try to see “opportunities” in the dark and stressful bits of life, as my ever-present “level 5 — IPEC energy” takes hold. I put it all behind me, thinking I could move on to whatever was next, on my own, unscathed.

But cancer taught me a different lesson. That my brain was keeping score of all those moments for me, packing them all in and hiding them away from me until there was nowhere left to hide them. Until it nearly exploded with a tumor that had no place left to push, and I could no longer function on any level.

But the problem with that lesson was that it was “too easily forgotten.” Days later, I was literally a walking and cocktail dress in heels wearing miracle, almost unscathed despite the jagged skull stapled back together under what was my hair.

I hadn’t internalized that my brain and body literally couldn’t handle all the suppressed emotion and stress of carrying the weight of all my depression and pain alone any more. I needed to voice it. To share it. To SHOUT about it, like I shouted about injustice everywhere else in the world.

But I had forgotten how to shout for myself a long time ago. Like my sadness, my rage was buried inside too. 2 catabolic energies — helplessness and rage battling for an outlet while my rational mind told them to be quiet and behave. I was “strong enough” to manage. But I wasn’t, and another round with cancer really did then almost kill me before I found my voice. And I said “NO!”. Because my voice, my life, and my entire existence MATTER. And they should be FOUGHT FOR. Not taken for granted.

I was reminded of that VOICE and my VALUE this week as I read and re-read the letter my local barrister had drafted against my landlords and their latest attempts to actually evict me. And I was so grateful that I had found my voice, asked for help and was listened to. And that I hadn’t allowed myself to fall back into old habits.

So, if you are like me, and struggle with those voices in your head, telling you to keep calm and quiet and carry on… alone, I will ask you, what makes you think your voice shouldn’t be heard too? And valued? And supported?

Holly Lynch is a 20+ year ESG and DEI communications veteran, board member, strategist and investor who has helped individuals and companies tackle the toughest challenges, transitions and transformations in their worlds. Having survived countless life setbacks and two rounds with terminal cancer, while seeing the country-wide collapse of the systems and safety nets for the most vulnerable in and outside our communities, she is now shifting her life and career trajectories to focus on coaching and consulting with those facing down fundamental shifts and transitions as they try to adapt to change while rebuilding their lives and businesses during these unprecedented times.