After sharing so much of my “Glitch,” the heavy spreadsheets of my past, and the deep pits of depression, I decided to seek a different kind of expert opinion. I finally showed this blog to my teenager.
The feedback? A heavy sigh and a clinical: “Too much drama. It’s cringe. This drama is going to haunt you.”
In teen-speak, I translated that immediately: “You’re being very vulnerable and passionate here, and I don’t know how to handle this level of intensity on the internet.” And honestly? He’s right. To a generation that uses irony as a bulletproof vest, I’m basically walking around in a neon suit with a target on my back. He’s worried that people will be mean, that the “drama” of my survival will be used against me, and that the blog era I remember, the one where we actually read and felt, is dead and gone.
Embracing the “Too Much”
After the deep, raw posts I’ve written this month about my “dark passenger” and rearranging the rooms of my life, this “cringe” verdict felt like a breath of fresh air. It reminded me that while I am a psychologist and a survivor, I am also just a parent making their kid face-palm.
So, I’ve decided to kill the part of me that cringes, not the part of me that is cringe.
If being “too much” is my social death sentence, I’ll go out in a blaze of dramatic metaphors and poetic captions. If my journey from the metro station to the therapist’s office, and from Excel sheets to fantasy journals, is “too much drama” for the modern internet, then I accept the title.
I’ve spent too many years being “numb” and “robotized” to tone myself down now. If I’m not making my kid face-palm at least once a week, am I even doing this parenting thing right?
A Question for the “Uncool” Crowd:
After everything I’ve shared about my path, I want to know: Has your child (or the world) ever told you that you’re being “cringe” just for being yourself? Did you tone it down to fit in, or did you lean into your own drama and realize that being “cringe” is actually just another word for being alive?
This post is my small “respiro”, a reminder that even after the darkest chapters, there is room for a smile and a heavy, teenage sigh.
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