I’m sorry, I’m not writing so eloquently. Here’s some psycho-babble instead.
As the world proceeds, at this moment, at 18 years old, I’ve never felt like I’ve understood so much before. My best friend just called me crying about her life, her failures, and her inability to admit she’s not invincible to sadness. None of us are. Here I sat, spilling my life out to her (I never told her about my depression). Remember the times when I didn’t come to school? It was because I wasn’t sleeping, and wasn’t eating, and spent every waking painful moment staring at textbooks. Remember when I came to school crying? Well I wasn’t just sleep deprived. I was mad that I had to live as a prisoner of my own ambition. People looked on with sad eyes and kind words. Chuckling between awkward sentences of sympathy, frightened by my tears, definitely…definitely not understanding.
At this moment, on the phone, I was reminded of the type of person my depression squeezed out of me this year. Freshman year wasn’t the crazy, fun, outrageous shitshow people always say. “Oh… I remember my freshman year… Hey, you know so-and-so, at, that party? Haha, oh we were so stupid then”. Freshman year for me was when I realized I was being tossed and manhandled in and out of a sense of hopelessness. I’d stare at a photo frame of me grinning at a dance recital, that I so strategically printed and placed in my dorm room. All I felt was how that cheap frame suits the fake confidence the photo-ed me had. I’d come home at my parent’s suggestion on weekends and take a deep breath of relief only to be ashamed to be so blissful at home. What a worthless baby I was. All the furniture looked different and I would wonder what it was like again to have such a simple goal of putting a nail in a wall to hang up a newly finished piece of art. I might or might not have ever felt it, actually. I might have hung up all my paintings because I wanted to see that my life was worth at least the value of 5 oils and 3 charcoals. I felt guilty that two people’s lives were so intertwined with mine. They’ve had to endure so much this year.
Then there was a time I no longer felt like crossing the street took anything but motor skills. Forebrain, cerebrum, you can finally shut down after years of torturing me with useless thoughts and reasoning. Instead, I looked at the faces of the people waiting across from me. I’d try to extract from their glare what they thought of the girl standing probably too close to the curb. Did they think I was pretty? Am I trying too hard? Can they tell what I’m thinking? What would they do if I were hit by a car?
One second later, I would snap out of it and remember to take one last look at the person who might have had the awful job of saving my life that day. I’d shutter at the thought and be quietly ashamed of myself for about two seconds and proceed about my day.
Such is the way my freshman year went. And yet, on the outside, I was still upholding all of my expectations with reserved confidence and never-ending adrenaline. I ran campaigns, was elected onto student government, I played sports, hung out with a variety of high profile, ‘cool’ kids. I worked out, designed, marketted, hooked up, crammed, lobbied, flirted, and even networked for the first time. I had perfect grades. However, there were no flying colors involved in any of my achievements. I worked my ass off to prove to the world how much of a wonderful, pleasant, and successful person I can be. There was nothing healthy or normal about me.
Two nights ago was my last day of classes. After returning from a bar, hardly even buzzed, I decided to sleep outside with a friend. As I laid below the stars and remembered how I started out, I felt a type of numbness I call the “wardrobe feeling”. The wardrobe feeling is a sad helplessness an introvert might feel sleeping in a stranger’s house. I’ve consistently felt this feeling every day of my summer days as a child at my babysitter’s house. I’d lay in a bed trying to take a nap and stared at the wooden wardrobe across the room and thought about what would happen if I couldn’t recover all the memories of my childhood in the future. I missed my grandparents in China; I missed my past. I’d try to picture myself sitting on an unpaved floor poking at poorly manufactured toys, unaware of how this moment would become a memory for me years later. I would then wonder, when would be the next time I thought about that very moment- the thirtieth time I had the “wardrobe feeling”?
I wonder now if I would recall this moment again, sitting and blogging silently while my mother sleeps in the next room. Would it be in seven years when I’m alone in my apartment and the sunlight struck at just the right angle through a window such that I felt like the sun only shone on me? Will I remember the simple happiness I was able to experience as a child as a testimony to how fragile my mental state has become? Or will I appreciate that I was just a kid with a loaded brain who has survived to be an adult with a better control of that loaded brain?
That morning, 5am, after I came in shivering from sleeping outside, I puked for 4 hours. It was a violent bought of puking that made me realize that my body and my brain was just… squishy matter. The complexity that drives me crazy is something that can be eroded away by something so insultingly simple as alcohol. As I puked I felt peaceful. I accepted that my body wanted to protect itself from this detected poison. The bitter fluid did hurt my throat but it came out clear, harmless, almost like water. It was quite intriguing. I left the bathroom at 9am, happy to return to my bed and sleep a dreamless sleep. But before I could retreat, I flushed freshman year down the toilet. The clear but volatile liquid stood no chance.
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Home
I am home for the weekend and have never been happier. Yet, it broke my heart to see how gentle my parents are with me now (I am fragile goods). I want nothing more than for them to feel like I’ve been worth loving, even when I was “healthy”. I know that sounds stupid. And I don’t want to feel comfortable here. Inevitably, I’ll be back in school tomorrow, where I drink, study, sleep, repeat, and spin circles around my emotions, alone…
So quietly, I’ve been sabotaging myself. How much I wanted to help my mom clean up after dinner and wash all the dishes in the sink. It might make both of us cry though, after all these months of debilitating depression. Am I really getting better?
I don’t think I ever will fully recover. I can cope, and I will do it, if not for myself, for my parents. Because I want then to remember this weekend as the weekend I got happy.
I grew up in a Catholic school. Now, I don’t even go to church.
When I was five, I used to spend two hours each night praying to the Lord, sometimes drifting to sleep prematurely. I’d wake up and finish and beg for forgiveness for being so horrible.
I used to have night terrors and I prayed for a dreamless night.
I prayed to be chubbier because I hated getting teased for being so little. (ironic)
I prayed for Him to protect my parents.
I prayed that everyone around me would have a good day tomorrow.
Finally, I’d pray for my future self. I asked God for forgiveness if I ever became to busy to talk to him everyday. This was a selfish prayer, but today, between classes, I slipped into the prayer tent and took Him up on it.
I might go to Easter service this Sunday. I hope He still remembers me.
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
$tudying
My professor just tore apart the third draft of an essay about Asian American miscegenation laws. I’ll probably sit and pound out a new and dumbed-down version.
Later, I have to make up a semester’s worth of biology lectures. Did you know that when divided out, 1 missed class (1 hour of class) is equivalent to about $200 wasted? I’ve wasted $600 today alone. Stupid ivy league tuition. Time to cram.
There’s a prayer tent set up outside in light of Easter.
I think I’ll go tomorrow. I’m gonna ask for forgiveness.
420
Never been much of a smoker. Last time I’ve really gotten high was three years ago. In some apartment when I was studying at Brown. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been so scared in my life after that trip.
Just went out and bought 2 grams, a lighter, and a piece. Figured smoking is a better habit than drinking. No calories. Hoorah.
Doing everything like it’s my job
My friend once told me I do everything like it’s my job.
I do. And I do it like it’s a job that one fuck-up will get me fired. I do it like my whole life and family depends on it. Just like that, I know if I wanted to I can be scary thin again. Starting right now actually — 1 water pill, 4 miles. But I won’t. Because my hair has just began to grow back and every time I spray hairspray to keep the baby hairs down, I feel proud that I’m not die(t)ing.
Finals
are in 2 weeks. Somehow I fell asleep after shaking for an hour. I’m talking prozac again. Because I can’t let my illness destroy my grades.
Cheers.
