If the World is Imploding In On Itself, Do I Still Have to Go to Work on Monday?
The truth is that I am utterly, thoroughly exhausted with myself. Everything I am is used up and burnt out. I am existentially embarrassed. There is a peanut gallery just outside the frame at all times, sighing loudly and rolling their eyes at my every move. I can’t say I blame them.
“I am so through with being a hopeless, worthless, listless burden,” I say to myself. “Okay,” Myself says to me, “What do you want to do about it?” So I go to the grocery store and buy one hundred and fifty dollars worth of foods that are feasibly easy to make and consume for a cripplingly depressed, overworked twenty-something with a fifteen-year-long eating disorder. “This is coping!” I say to myself. “This is taking control of my own life!” Myself laughs and reminds me of all the times I have tried and failed to take control of my own life before. “It’s going to be different this time!” I insist to myself, somewhat frantically, as myself tsks and goes back to whatever myself does when I’m not looking.
I am often my most enthusiastic and proactive about Taking Care of Myself when I am suicidal. I say “suicidal” in the most liberal of terms — I have a horrible fear of death and all of these goals and dreams besides, so the only course of action I have is to get really into mindfulness and Being Present In My Body, whatever the fuck that even means. I start going to therapy again because, really, I shouldn’t have ever stopped going in the first place; honestly, Sage, what were you thinking? I tell my therapist half-truths, so she doesn’t suggest I go back to the psych ward. I beg my doctor to fill my Klonopin prescription. I buy books I hope might inspire me to work on any of the several books I’m writing instead of staring blank and horrified at my laptop, trying in vain to stave off the voice in my head that says I’m not a writer if I don’t actually write, and if I’m not a writer I’m nothing at all.
I fantasize about being the type of person who doesn’t need a week to prepare myself mentally and a week to recover just from going out with my friends. I fantasize about getting in an accident and everyone who has ever harmed me apologizing tearfully by my hospital bed. I fantasize about waking up without this sickening dread in the center of my chest.
Why is it so damn hard to be a person? I’m trying my best; I really am, though my best often isn’t good enough; I know this, I have historical evidence of this fact, but I really am trying. It all just feels insurmountable — how am I supposed to be a normal, healthy, functioning person when I have malware in my brain actively attacking me every waking (and sleeping) moment? How is anybody supposed to be a person when the world is literally on fire, the inevitable heat death of the Universe is a ticking time bomb, and hundreds of thousands of people are dying every day, and there’s nothing you can do about it but vote and sign petitions and go to work and go to work and go to work and try not to run your car off the road on your way? Asking for a friend!
