I might as well tell you the truth. I’m not doing very well right now. What does that mean? It means I’m going through another depression. It means I’m trying to fake confidence and hu$tle my words and act nice because I don’t know what else to do.
I’m still taking my meds, I’m still doing my usual self-care things, but I am feeling… “sad” is not a big enough word. Melancholy, despondent, angry, and yes, suicidal. The kind of suicidal that makes me bargain with myself: Live through Summer, and see if you still wanna kill yourself in September; wait ‘til you finish your second novel and see if you still wanna be dead.
I’m not a very good friend when I’m depressed. Although I desperately want to feel un-alone, my instinct when I’m depressed is to retreat. Inboxes on my various social media accounts fill up; if I don’t respond to a message right away, I get a second message to remind me that I haven’t responded; if I don’t write back to a message on Etsy, I get the same message on Facebook. Just so you know, this does not make me write back sooner; it stresses the hell out of me; it makes me want to disappear so I can focus on myself. While the internet is pretty much the best thing ever for my introvert weirdo self who needs to communicate but can’t always handle in-person contact, it also takes up so much space in my life that I feel like I am not allowed to take the time to take care of myself because there is always always always somebody on the other side of the screen waiting for me to acknowledge them. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but even when I love you, I sometimes just want you to leave me alone. My mental illnesses make me a Bad Friend sometimes, and a Bad Correspondent; they make me hate you and they make me hate myself.
Last week, I broke up with one of my best friends. It’s a long story and not something I want to write about on the internet, but suffice to say, the break-up, and the reasons I chose to no longer communicate with them, played a major role in triggering this current depression. For a few days, I was barely able to get out of bed or get dressed, and I refused to speak because I couldn’t find the words for what I was feeling. A week later, I took a Greyhound to Guelph to check the P.O. Box I hadn’t unlocked in more than a month. I didn’t want to return because I am having some strong feelings of rage about that town, but it’s where all my mail is being held until September, when I find a permanent address, so I had to go. While I was at the bus terminal in Toronto, I was sexually harassed by a stranger, who talked to me explicitly and at-length, while I remained trapped in the quiet corner I had chosen to sit, frozen, wishing I had the guts to scream and scare him away.
Gender dysphoria is something I don’t write/talk about much because, again, I cannot find the words, and I really don’t think anybody gives a fuck. But, another thing contributing to this current depression, is getting triggered by just about every gender-specific thing I read online (Ladyfest Everywheres, women-only writing groups, and boring white cis dudes trying to promote themselves at me, I’m glaring at you), and also, hating cis people, which is kind of a problem because 98% of my friends are cis, so what am I supposed to do? I’ve been struggling with feeling like a lot of the folks in my life are both Good Friends and Bad Allies at the same time; instead of talking to them about it, I turn my hatred inward. I cut myself and I go back to bed.
I had a lot of good, colourful mail waiting for me in my P.O. Box, but I haven’t opened most of it yet because I am struggling hard with trying to give a fuck, and I don’t have it in me to write back right now. The friend I broke up with has been showing up in my dreams every night, and when I wake up, I feel lonely and hateful.
My coping methods right now are: chugging coffee (my favourite antidepressant, though I feel incapable of communicating without being all hopped up on caffeine, and that is a problem), holding onto safety objects (right now, these are amethyst stones, flowers picked while wandering, and lavender-scented soap), reading Canadian fiction & memoirs & biographies, growing new plants, and writing & drawing in my diary.
I don’t know what else to tell you.
Depressingly Yours,
