I have been quiet.
Not on the internet, but right here, in what should be my space, I have been completely quiet for over two months.
To some degree, it was forgetfulness, the way I forget to wear my retainer every night or forget about minor homework assignments until the last minute. In another sense, it was the lack of anything to talk about. My summer was rather boring. Then this fall has been nothing but work and work and school and school and trying to be social.
But I was also kidding myself in a lot of ways. The past few months were not just boring. They were mildly terrifying.
In May, I was determined to go to BEA. I didn't get a press pass and therefore had to pay for it. I was also losing my only source of income as my internship ended. I didn't have any editing jobs lined up for the future. I wouldn't have any for months. I nearly bankrupted myself to go to BEA and feed myself until I went to my parents'. I never asked them for money while I stayed, just bought what I needed while I was with them. I took my brother to get treats maybe twice. When I came in for an overnight trip, my parents gave me enough money that I barely touched my own.
But I was doing decently. I was bored a lot of the time and fell into terrible habits and was really inactive, but things were decent if I ignored the persistent nudging of my bank account and the constant worry of how I'd make do when the semester started again.
The summer ended, I had two internship interviews and I had a job within a week. I picked up two editing jobs, one towards the end of the summer and one early in September. I was going to be okay financially. Yes the internship wasn't the full semester and there might be down periods, but I would make it. I was sure my editing would pick up.
I didn't count on my mental health taking a nosedive.
My roommate had warned me that her friend wanted to visit in September. At some point in August, she messaged me and said her friend would be here for a month, but she knew that I hadn't handled having a house guest well last time, so if I needed, there could be trade offs and moving around. It wouldn't have to be a month straight. I agreed it would be fine; my roommate always seemed to see my limits and I figured she would work with me.
It wasn't that our house guest was a bad person last time. She was perfectly nice, but there were little quirks that aggravated me. She was also fun to talk to, which was distracting. Mostly, though, was the fact that I'm very much an introvert. My home is my domain and I need it to be certain ways. I need quiet time where nobody is here. I need to feel free and I need time alone. I lose that when we have a house guest. The space stops being familiar, stops feeling like mine.
Our new, temporary roommate arrived and was perfectly lovely. She was kind and generally cleaned up after herself, although our silverware and cups kept disappearing. She wasn't using my brush or bathroom supplies and I didn't feel distracted by her because she and my roommate were very close. They had plenty of inside jokes and frankly, I didn't feel like I fit in. I spent most of my time trying not to be around them and like I was intruding when I did.
But quickly, it reached a dangerous point for me. Our new houseguest was here often, having only a few friends in the city and a very limited budget. She and my roommate kept irregular hours, going out until late in the night some days, staying in to watch TV loudly others. They would cook dinner, directly outside my room, at 11 o'clock at night, knowing I had to be up at 6:30 or 7 am most days. It seemed I could never be alone.
And yet I'd never needed to be alone so desperately. I had work and school getting me up early 5 days a week and out the door until at least 5. I only had one mostly-free day during the week to run errands and try to work outside the apartment, since nothing was getting done in it anyway. I only had one gap in the day at school and my lunch hour at work. September was also very heavy on the bookish events I wanted to go to, keeping me out even later. Even my weekends were chaotic, one weekend having me on my feet for 5+ hours each day, seeing authors, volunteering, and generally running around and traveling extensively. I didn't have much time at home, and what I did have was unhappy and uncomfortable.
On top of that, I had to try to adjust to a new sleep schedule. I've never been a morning person and I spent most of my summer sleeping until 11 or noon. Getting up so early consistently for the first time in years was happening, but getting to bed early enough for a decent night's sleep was not. For most of the month, I averaged 5 hours of sleep a night. That average was likely skewed by the weekends when I could sleep in slightly.
I spent the month exhausted and desperate for my room, my home, but uncomfortable when there. I barely cooked. Barely ate at home at all, really. I was spending money I needed to save and was miserable. Suicidal, at times. I even found myself binge eating on occasion. My room became a mess. I'd worked so hard to get back floor space at the end of the semester, but the books I had brought back had no home, the books I acquired had no home, and my many, many school books had no home, so all of it was no my floor. Still is on my floor. I had no motivation to work so one of my editing jobs took two weeks longer than I'd originally promised, one is now months behind (and I am endlessly grateful to the clients who were/are so understanding about it). I also had some school/financial issues that haven't been totally solved, but required me to ask my parents for money, something I had hoped never to do. I only got to talk to my mom not via-text once. It was that hard for me to get time alone while she was also home in September. And even then, they got back halfway through the call.
September was terrible. But our house guest left on October 1.
Recovery has been slow. Achingly slow. I've found more energy to work on school projects and editing jobs. I'm still not getting any better at sleep or keeping up on errands. I still haven't cleaned my room. Part of that is because the lack of sleep and eating well caught up to me and my usual fall sickness caught up to me a week ago. I was halfway through a class when suddenly the hacking cough arrived last Monday. More and more symptoms have been building up since then, especially since Comic Con began Friday. I was downing more and more water bottles and cough drops each day of the con, ending in an Aleve an hour before I left Sunday and collapsing into bed for 18 hours of sleep Sunday evening into this afternoon.
I ate soup. I drank tea. I ate ice cream. I watched Gilmore Girls and my Sunday shows. I reread a few chapters of a book I love that comes out tomorrow. I slowly started feeling human again. Knocked one of a dozen things off my to-do list.
Then I started writing a review that required some back story while also texting a friend about something that should have been done ages ago and was forced to think about September. I started crying a bit, pulled it together, saw on Goodreads a book recommendation from a friend who said she thought of me with every page, and began crying again. And I was brought back to September again, to the day my roommate bought milk and I cried. To when our houseguest left and she put a note and some cookies outside my door and I cried. I heard plenty of kind words in September when I vaguely talked about my stress or when I jokingly mentioned it. I heard plenty of advice and my friends have always been pretty generous.
But actual acts of kindness or people actually thinking of me have felt rare recently. It's possible I just haven't noticed and appreciated them properly, but everything has felt like work for months. Everything's been draining me for months. And while I certainly don't expect constant acts of kindness and good things falling into my lap, they've been so needed and so hard to find for so long, that every time a good thing that doesn't require something from me first happens, I cry now.
I am grateful for my friends who have done their best for the past month as I've been a train wreck. I loved the time we spent together and the ways they tried to coach me through. I've been grateful for the kindness and compliments I've gotten. I've been trying so hard to appreciate the people in my life and be happy for them, but it's been so hard while I've wanted nothing more then to disappear, but I also wanted them to never leave me because I didn't want to go home.
It's hard being here because I have not been in this bad a stretch since my first suicidal phase when I was first depressed, ten years ago. And it is hard because I want to tell everyone in my life thank you for being there, but also sorry I have not been fully here and sorry I have not appreciated you enough. It's this constant guilt over never being enough after these really dark times. I couldn't keep up with life and love life enough and why was I such a terrible failure? Why couldn't I be better?
It's also hard because I wanted my roommate to recognize where I was, just like she did with the last house guest. I wanted my friends to just know. I wanted them to see what vague/joking/and sometimes just flat out whining tweets and posts meant and to send cyber-hugs (because I really don't want to be touched if I don't already feel comfortable around you, kthx). I wanted them not to ask me for anything and just be there. But I also feel guilty for expecting them to notice the signs. I feel guilty expecting them to feel sorry for me, to try to help me. And I'd feel guilty if they really went out of their way to do anything for me. Especially because I've never been officially diagnosed, much less treated. I've never gone out of my way to see what the extent of the damage is, much less try to fix it, so why should I expect anyone else to? Why should I expect anything from anyone else?
I am recovering. But I am still a person with depression. I am still a person who doesn't see the point in my existence some times. I am still a person who is going to feel guilty for not being the best at everything I can be. I am still a person who feels guilty I could not handle my roommate's friend living here for a month. But I'm also still a person who wishes the world could lighten up on me for once, to make it a little bit easier.
I'm not in danger anymore...for now. But I am, once again, nearly broke. This time, however, I know there's a paycheck showing up in my mailbox at the end of the week and it'll be in my hands when I come back from my parents'. And hopefully I'll also return feeling a lot less guilty and much more human.
--Julie
