Another Dawn I'm On the Wrong Side Of
When I was in high school and in college in Chicago, I knew I was fat, and therefor ugly, and therefor unlovable. But I also knew that I was smart, and capable, and depressed and therefor my conclusions about my lovableness were suspect.
It fucking sucked, a lot. I had coping mechanisms that mostly also sucked, and eventually I quit school, moved back home, worked in a bookstore, and developed my relationship with my current partner until things got better, either because I had taken myself out of a stressful situation or because I had daily proof that somebody loved me or because I just fucking outgrew some of that emotional volatility. I got a degree, though I pretty much half-assed it and am therefor not particularly proud of it.
Now, a decade after leaving Chicago, I know I am loved, and intellectually I have rejected the idea that weight and/or beauty are any measure of moral worth, though I still struggle with emotionally accepting that reality. But I have lost all of those other certainties. I feel stupid. I feel completely incapable. And I have even begun questioning whether I have the right to claim mental illness.
I cannot find a job. I cannot find a job because nobody's hiring here, and because I have been out of work for five years and don't have a tremendously long work history before that. I also cannot find a job because I can barely bring myself to apply to one per week, and I cannot bring myself to do any of the follow-up I know that one should do -- making follow-up calls, trying to sign up with a temp agency, going to a work placement office for help. And I can't bring myself to do those things because my brain slides away from the idea of them, my heart rate kicks up and my stomach gets tied up in knots and I lose the ability to comprehend the words on my computer screen.
But that isn't *quite* a panic attack, is it?
I cannot make any plans. I try to figure out how to get from where I am to the life I always thought I'd have as an adult, and I come up blank. Right now, I have no job, I have no job prospects, I have a mountain of debt I am simply ignoring, and my living expenses outpace what my partner is earning by enough that we have no idea how we are going to heat the house this winter. Where I thought I'd be is in some sort of white collar work with benefits, so that I could do things like get regular medical care (including possibly seeing a therapist) and consider having children and save towards things like cars and houses and retirement. I have literally no ideas for how to get between those two places, and even thinking about the distance between them again speeds my heart and twists my stomach and reduces my reading comprehension to a five year old's.
That study linking poverty to decreased intelligence has been on my mind for months, and I know there are similar studies linking depression with decreased intelligence as well.
I can read fiction critically, write critically, and write creatively still, on most days. But when I've tried to do things that are reminiscent of my academic pursuits (editing someone else's fic for grammar, taking an arithmetic test as part of a job application, reading mildly technical non-fiction) it has been almost physically painful, the level of concentration necessary. I know that this is partly because I just haven't done those things in so many years and so the mental muscles are a little atrophied, but it is terrifying.
I failed at filing my taxes. I failed at applying for food stamps. I failed at even looking up the consequences for not having health insurance next year.
And through all of this runs a constant mental litany of "What the fuck, this shit is not hard, just fucking sit down and do it, what the hell is wrong with you, you lazy, entitled cunt?" Because when I was in high school and in college in Chicago I spent a significant portion of my time feeling really, really bad, and yet I was at the top of my class and always on top of things that needed to be done, like standardized testing and college applications and arranging travel to and from school. But now I am pretty much failing at life generally and other than nights like this one I'm just sort of mildly stressed and unhappy. Not miserable, not wanting to die, not even really wanting to hurt myself.
Which makes me question whether I'm mentally ill at all. If I confine my thoughts throughout the day to the world I exist in on the internet -- tumblr, social justice blogs, fanfic reading and writing, SFF reading and writing -- I feel like a perfectly normal human being. If my thoughts stray from that realm even the slightest bit I completely fall apart, as evidenced by this post, but I am capable of not feeling bad at all for significant periods of time. That's what mental health looks like, right? And if that's what mental health looks like, well, then, I really am just kind of a waste of oxygen, a parasite on my partner and my parents, though not on the system, because as I said I totally failed at doing things like filing for food stamps or Obamacare.
It fucking sucked, a lot. I had coping mechanisms that mostly also sucked, and eventually I quit school, moved back home, worked in a bookstore, and developed my relationship with my current partner until things got better, either because I had taken myself out of a stressful situation or because I had daily proof that somebody loved me or because I just fucking outgrew some of that emotional volatility. I got a degree, though I pretty much half-assed it and am therefor not particularly proud of it.
Now, a decade after leaving Chicago, I know I am loved, and intellectually I have rejected the idea that weight and/or beauty are any measure of moral worth, though I still struggle with emotionally accepting that reality. But I have lost all of those other certainties. I feel stupid. I feel completely incapable. And I have even begun questioning whether I have the right to claim mental illness.
I cannot find a job. I cannot find a job because nobody's hiring here, and because I have been out of work for five years and don't have a tremendously long work history before that. I also cannot find a job because I can barely bring myself to apply to one per week, and I cannot bring myself to do any of the follow-up I know that one should do -- making follow-up calls, trying to sign up with a temp agency, going to a work placement office for help. And I can't bring myself to do those things because my brain slides away from the idea of them, my heart rate kicks up and my stomach gets tied up in knots and I lose the ability to comprehend the words on my computer screen.
But that isn't *quite* a panic attack, is it?
I cannot make any plans. I try to figure out how to get from where I am to the life I always thought I'd have as an adult, and I come up blank. Right now, I have no job, I have no job prospects, I have a mountain of debt I am simply ignoring, and my living expenses outpace what my partner is earning by enough that we have no idea how we are going to heat the house this winter. Where I thought I'd be is in some sort of white collar work with benefits, so that I could do things like get regular medical care (including possibly seeing a therapist) and consider having children and save towards things like cars and houses and retirement. I have literally no ideas for how to get between those two places, and even thinking about the distance between them again speeds my heart and twists my stomach and reduces my reading comprehension to a five year old's.
That study linking poverty to decreased intelligence has been on my mind for months, and I know there are similar studies linking depression with decreased intelligence as well.
I can read fiction critically, write critically, and write creatively still, on most days. But when I've tried to do things that are reminiscent of my academic pursuits (editing someone else's fic for grammar, taking an arithmetic test as part of a job application, reading mildly technical non-fiction) it has been almost physically painful, the level of concentration necessary. I know that this is partly because I just haven't done those things in so many years and so the mental muscles are a little atrophied, but it is terrifying.
I failed at filing my taxes. I failed at applying for food stamps. I failed at even looking up the consequences for not having health insurance next year.
And through all of this runs a constant mental litany of "What the fuck, this shit is not hard, just fucking sit down and do it, what the hell is wrong with you, you lazy, entitled cunt?" Because when I was in high school and in college in Chicago I spent a significant portion of my time feeling really, really bad, and yet I was at the top of my class and always on top of things that needed to be done, like standardized testing and college applications and arranging travel to and from school. But now I am pretty much failing at life generally and other than nights like this one I'm just sort of mildly stressed and unhappy. Not miserable, not wanting to die, not even really wanting to hurt myself.
Which makes me question whether I'm mentally ill at all. If I confine my thoughts throughout the day to the world I exist in on the internet -- tumblr, social justice blogs, fanfic reading and writing, SFF reading and writing -- I feel like a perfectly normal human being. If my thoughts stray from that realm even the slightest bit I completely fall apart, as evidenced by this post, but I am capable of not feeling bad at all for significant periods of time. That's what mental health looks like, right? And if that's what mental health looks like, well, then, I really am just kind of a waste of oxygen, a parasite on my partner and my parents, though not on the system, because as I said I totally failed at doing things like filing for food stamps or Obamacare.