Felt and Feeling

I am on my second panic attack in three days. I keep having the sudden and inexplicable concern that I am going to be murdered, although maybe this only applies to when I am in bathrooms with closed doors at night? Or maybe it’s the sense of being trapped. But there I am, completely aware of how crazy and irrational it is to be afraid of being in a bathroom, still rushing to leave, feeling the panic well up. I think I may be losing my mind. 

I am gloriously, magnificently, overwhelmingly unwell. I feel it in my gut, the anxiety, the numbness, the fear. I spent three days letting the soul-crushing depression overcome me until I allowed Daisy to convince me to ask for help. And I got it. I got the extensions on my finals, which is good, but now I must complete them in not too long, and I am no where near my normal pace. I still can’t focus and whenever I think about working I feel the anxiety washing over me. My mother came for a day and reminded me of all the Things I Should Do and Jobs I Should Have, and I realized once again that the talk I needed to have with her couldn’t happen. Yet here I am with a counselor telling me I should be in regular therapy over the summer and considering medication. I am irrationally angry and apathetic and sad. I am afraid to make plans. I am afraid of telling it all to anyone, of how weak I must seem. I realized that the identity I cling to, more than gender or sexual orientation or hometown or anything is depressed me. Who am I without that? I am afraid of so much, of asking or taking or feeling anything above the superficial. I am afraid of trusting and revealing. I am afraid of how people must see me. I am afraid of being loved, when I hate myself so much. I don’t know how to do this life, but I cling, hoping for a chance, a ray of sunshine, something good. I want to be held, to be told that everything will be okay.  I hope that that is true.   I hope I can be healed, but I have so much doubt. 

When I was in high school, there were two things that were important to me: getting into college, and sleeping. A lot of the time these two things worked in direct opposition with each other. I would sleep through 3 out of 5 classes each day, in the library during lunch, and late enough each day to get me detention for tardiness. However, when I was awake I was hyper focused on my college applications. Most of the seniors in my high school were focused on the same thing, so this may not have seemed too weird, but I think that I wasn’t preparing for the future as I was obsessed. I knew everything about Mount Holyoke; I bragged about the meditation garden that I have never been to, the “dorms like palaces,” every moment that I was near a computer I spent on College Board, College Prowler, and the Princeton Review. When I wasn’t sleeping in the library I was rereading the entries in the college guide books about Mount Holyoke College. 

I had pretty much forgotten about all that until tonight. We are adopting a bunny, and last week bunnies became the thing to hyper focus on while I was supposed to be doing homework or job applications. I researched breeds and sizes and pictures and cages, the best ways to care for bunnies, common bunny illnesses, the proper diet for a rabbit, how to litter train them, and breeders in the area. I started reciting facts about rabbits that no one needs to know at dinner time. It wasn’t interest or concern, it was straight up insanity. 

The truth is that in my senior year of high school I experienced my first bout of major depression. I thought if I could get into college and get off island, all of my problems would be solved. My obsession with college was manic and probably more than a little unsettling. After my meeting with the counselling center on Wednesday my roommate said to me “You seem a lot better. And this may sound stupid, but partially it’s that you’re not talking about bunnies.” And that rung true. I was depressed and anxious and I wanted to take my mind off of it, so I freaked out and started obsessing over rabbits. I felt as I was doing it that I was losing my grip on what was sane. I sort of hoped I would go over the edge, because that meant I would be someone else’s problem, and not my own. 

I hoped that these things, leaving home, adopting an adorable furry pet, would make me happier and in a way cure me of my depression. It is scary to admit to myself that there won’t be a quick fix, that I have a genetic predisposition to a disease that affects how I function and I will probably suffer from it for the majority of my life. I am afraid of the lows and the highs. I think I have always believed that someone or something would come along and my problems would be solved, but the problem is not where I am or who I’m with, but rather something in me, and only I can take the steps to make myself better. This scares the shit out of me, but I think I’m finally tired of hiding from it. It’s time to get happy. 

This week has been an emotional roller coaster, with good news and scary news and I just want to be home, where feelings will not be less complex but certainly a little cozier. 

I’m tired of ups and downs. I thought to myself today that this could be my best college semester yet, grade-wise. But I’m still feeling my appetite fading and it gets harder and harder to get out of bed and go to class. I’m napping off feelings again. I am lonely and frustrated. It is a feeling I know well, and while I am afraid of it, it is also comforting. It is hard to use strategies for wellness when part of me just wants to sink into melancholy. I am sad. I am still going, I have not stopped yet; however, I am afraid to see my motivation slipping away. I wish I had security. I wish I new how to be happy. I wish I didn’t feel so alone. 

I really need to go home. 

Stressstressstressstressstress.

I just want to sleeeeeeeeeeep.

So at school we dialog a lot about identity. And usually I love this, right? But recently it rubs me in a lot of uncomfy ways, because I am considering my ability in a new way. Living with mental health issues that affect my day to day living means that I have a disability. Or it does to me? Ability identity means that not everyone will want to claim that as part of their identity. But I do. I’m tired of not talking about it and feeling like something is wrong with me.

Towards the end of break I read a book and started getting into a musical, each of which had at least one character dealing with a mental illness. Both stories ended with that character getting divorced because they couldn’t sustain a relationship while suffering from a mental illness. 

Is this society perpetuating certain negative stereotypes about mental illness? Or should I be aware of the limitations I might have based on my wavering mental health? Should I not make long term commitments when I don’t know how I’ll feel in several months? Should I not take leadership positions because if I feel judged it’s not unreasonable to assume I will go into a self-loathing spiral?  

I really want to participate in my life as fully as possible. I want to be able to name my disability and talk about it without freaking people out. I don’t want people to worry about my reliability based on my mental health. I am tired of being scared. 

I have been well mostly. Or not well, but able to balance unwellness with realism. They don’t hate you, you are projecting. You are allowed to not do perfectly, it does not mean you are dumb. Et cetera. But it is a struggle, always. Sometimes I feel very alone in all this. Some days I am overwhelmed. I want to hurt but I don’t let myself. Scars don’t love you back. Best to let them heal. 

So many of these writings are old but I need them here in one place, to see where I’ve gone and where I am and to remind myself of past resolutions. God this is a scary revival, and so terribly out of order. This is where the feelings will go from now on.

Tonight I am full to bursting. We will save words for anon.

Dear Julia

You’re lucky you have me, because I like you enough for the both of us, and some extra besides. In fact, I rather love you! I’ll be home in a week and a half. 2 weeks at the latest. I only have 2 sit down exams, so I’ll be back as early as I can manage. And we’ll go caroling and hang out all the time and have sleepovers and it’ll be awesome.

Things are okay mostly. You know how it goes. The thing is I’ve been waiting for so long for things to just get better or something, and I think maybe now I have to try to fix myself. I guess the difference between before and now is that I know that and I’m gonna do something about it. So yeah. 

Crazy memories. They just find you. Oh Hank. That video made me think of Mat, and theater, and warm-ups, and how it all used to seem so meaningful. And silly. How long have we been this old, that we can look back on the last few years and it’s a graveyard? 

You know how I’m a crazy atheist? The problem with that is that I can’t honestly believe those people are just gone. It doesn’t make sense, when I can still remember them and miss them and love them. Mat had so much energy, that doesn’t just go away. So maybe they’re somewhere else now. In the trees, in the birds, in the wind. In the stars. When I step outside and it’s a perfectly clear night, and I can smell the frost and the fireplaces, and it’s just the right kind of cold and crisp and Orion is out in the blue velvet sky and for just a moment the world is absolutely perfect. I think that’s where they are. Can I believe in nothing but that?

What’s the difference between winter and fucking winter? I’ll be home soon, and we’ll essentially just hug until I leave. 

Serious life has become very serious. So I expect us to run down the beach until we can’t breathe and then laugh really hard and go to Chili’s and scare the waitresses and curl up in basements and watch Pixar and adventure to Savers.

I am hugging you very hard right now. I miss you. I’ll be home soon. <3

This was more depressing than I intended. But right now I am not sad but sort of hopeful. Yesterday I asked for help. I have been avoiding that for a long time, but I did. That feels so immensely important to me right now. Like huge. And I’m not sure if I told you this, but I’ve started a new thing, that whenever I’m mad at myself or something to that effect I don’t let myself think negative things. And it doesn’t always work, and I often find myself wanting to think negative things because it’s my default, but it’s been going pretty well. So look at that. Improvement. Let’s try it together. Because we’re too awesome to not like ourselves. 

Spring break is in two weeks. And this is good for a few reasons. I will get to work and make money. I will get to chill out and sleep. And most of all, I will get to see my truly amazing friends. Words can not describe how much I am looking forward to this. Dear friends reading, you are solid, you are comfort, you are love, you are home. I can’t wait for togetherness and overlapping histories and just knowing some things. But I am also kind of nervous. I can’t help it, coming home always makes me nervous.

The thing is, when you go away you change and grow and learn different things and your cultural knowledge is different than other people’s cultural knowledge, because you are in different environments. The thing about going to college is that this is happening to everyone all at once. Then going home, you are expected to take back your old place. I think it’s worse living in a small town, because everyone knows everyone. There is no escaping who you were, or who you are expected to be.

I don’t want to go back to hiding and pretending and ignoring and despair. Somewhere in the last few months I managed to figure out that the person I am is just fine. In fact, she’s pretty chill. I’d hang out with her. And yeah, there will always be things to work on, but whatevskies, that’s true of everyone. And guys, that knowledge is amazing. There are still bad days, but they are few and far between. I have good friends, good life, and things to care about. I am happy.

I don’t want to explain myself if I am different than what is expected of me. I don’t want to cry and hug and talk and make you understand. I just want to be and have that be enough.