Note 1

The only routine I do have, between sleeping and doing my job, is this: I fill up my tub, which I haven’t cleaned in weeks, with scalding hot water. I steep in it for 45 minutes to an hour. My body prunes, but my hands remain above the waterline, attached to my phone like there’s wiring between us. 

I watch mind-numbing videos about lesbian breakup drama and healing crystals, which leads to rescue cats, old people dancing, or soldiers coming home from war, (even though I’m not really that kind of girl). And I cry. I cry because I wish I could give every cat a home; or because I don’t actually see myself growing old most days; or because I wish I felt the kind of love those soldiers do in that moment every day of my life. 

I cry until my eyes feel raw and puffed. Then I drain the tub and sit in it for another half hour. I let the condensation on my body evaporate. Sometimes I imagine I can see it happening in real time. (I can’t.) I’m still dirty because I haven’t bothered to clean myself.

Every night in bed — and this is not a joke — I play Frank Ocean’s “Ivy,” stripped of it’s lyrics, slowed, with reverb added. Over and over. I do this partially because I feel like I will always live in 2018, when I felt I was happy, and I played that song a lot. But also because it’s just one of those super wistful and melancholy songs, melodically. I’m old enough to not need to hear the lyrics to feel that pain. “I’ll never be that kid again.” It stabs.

I usually fall asleep not knowing I’ve fallen asleep, then I wake up. I don’t wash, I don’t rinse, but I do repeat. 

In a book I read recently, the writer described her anxious body as being “full of bees”. It’s a pretty simple metaphor, but it’s rich. My feeling is more like I was dropped into a black hole a few years ago, which, I know from watching one Neil deGrasse Tyson video at a formative age, strips you down into a long line of subatomic particles.

I’ve certainly stripped myself of the things that gave my life meaning. My hobbies, my interests, my work, my passions, my close relationships. I am a long line of nothing.

It’s been two years since I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. It’s been a year since I was hospitalized for it.

I have one thing I’m proud of, through all of this. And that’s how hard I have fought every day to war against the little thing inside me that wants me dead. And it wants me dead, badly. 

I didn’t have a real purpose in writing this, apart from the fact that I chose to write it rather than draw myself a bath tonight. That’s something.