Mental health
In lights of the World Mental Health Day – that I’m… not late to, because the conversation shouldn’t start and stop on that day – I wanted to share… let’s call it a diary entry, that I wrote in June of this year. I think I’m at that point again, in a way. I can’t seem to get my head in the game and I waste so much energy on feeling guilty for it that I have no energy to actually help myself and change that.
Anyway, here’s what June me wrote in an outburst of energy, before crashing down again:
It's raining outside. There's not much rain, but the thunder is deafening. It's like the sky opened right above me. And the electricity has gone out. Now I am properly separated from the world, closing myself inside of my college apartment. The phone app said that it's supposed to be sunny, so I don't know where this came from. I try to study, but I can't see in the dim light and I use that as an excuse not to do it. I feel the engine failing again. I've been noticing the signs for a while now. Music doesn't soothe me. My stomach protests at any sign of food, but I am hungry. It's the middle of the week and I'm drinking coffee that I made yesterday and the sink is filled with dirty dishes and I was supposed to put my clothes to wash and go pay the bills, but it feels more urgent to sit on my couch and stare into the opposite wall and contemplate my empty thoughts... I could also use a shower, but as I sit here, silently screaming at myself to move and get going, the list of chores I create in my head (that I will definitely get to in a minute) goes to the back of my mind, in the garbage can that I could also empty out. While I'm sitting here, my brain sends my body the orders to move, but I'm motionless. Can't even tell if it is my body or my mind failing me. A few days ago I wanted to make myself some pasta to eat, but it was only after maybe ten minutes that I realised that I never poured the water into the pot and I did turn on the stove. I could've started a fire.
My coping with emotions and states has always been working. I needed the distraction and that’s what would get me out the void. Although that system isn’t in the slightest a healthy one, it has been my approach for so long and it worked, for the most part. But, this year I reached a point where working couldn’t calm me, couldn’t distract me from the pain, exhaustion, grief, pressure, and eventually, indifference I felt towards where that state could lead. As I’m losing my focus, but still trying to get going, I wanted to share this to, first: be honest and open about this, and second: I want to create a space where we can all dump our weighting thoughts so we don’t carry that much burden in ourselves.
