I’m not sure any of us are ok, maybe all we can do is say it out loud

I keep a journal. Sometimes I write in it multiple times a day for weeks on end and then I don’t write at all for a month. But I keep it in some form. I’m sharing some of what I wrote in my journal today because even though it’s not happy or reassuring, maybe somehow sharing the words will mean something.

I’m not really sure why I’m sharing this, except I feel like at the moment, virtual connection with others is all we have. Sometimes these people are strangers, but I know at least for me, reading something that tells me I’m not alone makes me feel a little relieved.

Wednesday September 30th, 1 PM

I’m so tired all the time, so, so tired. I wake up tired, not even sad, just tired. I go to bed tired and sometimes sad. I think it’s the endlessness of this situation, or at least how it feels totally endless in this moment. I know I have friends, I know I do. But often I feel like I must be really draining to be around because why can’t I just be happy and normal. Why would they choose me, if they could choose someone happy? It’s not like these are new thoughts, but they’re at the front of my mind, given everything that’s going on.

I know there was a time before. Before covid. Before returning to England. Before a totally understandable, but still disruptive delay in starting university. I used to wake up in the mornings and get ready for work, I used to get on the bus and laugh with my students, or sometimes huddle up in my jacket and wish for just a few more minutes sleep. I used to make coffee and chat to my co-workers, gossiping about mutual friends or the hilarious state of my love life.

I used to talk about politics and not feel entirely hopeless, because it seemed then as though perhaps somehow the world would right itself in the end. My lucky streak, the thing that somehow allows me to experience absolutely awful things and still come out the other side, would continue.

And I know, in the part of my brain that still feels somewhat ordered, that I will have those experiences again. It won’t be exactly the same, I’m moving on to new places in my life. But I will go outside. I will get on a bus or a train. I will talk to people without the terror that someone I know is going to die. I will read books again, and the words will have meaning. I will listen to music and sing along and it will just be fun, instead of something I desperately cling to. I’ll hug my friends again, hug them so tight and I’ll remember what it feels like to be close to another human being.

But right now I struggle to remember that this will happen. I can write it down, I can know the truth in my words and yet feeling them, really feeling them in my soul is impossible. I know that I need to take time for myself. Time away from social media and how it helps me to connect and yet overwhelms me all at once. I know I just need to pick up a book, go for a walk, watch a film. But I can’t do it. I can’t convince myself that leaving the house is worth the energy it takes me. I can barely even read anymore. Last week I could, this week I can’t. Even reading, the thing I love the most exhausts me. I’ve tried watching films. Tried to lose myself in Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings or any number of Disney favourites. But they all feel hollow. I struggle to connect and after five minutes I’m bored and restless. It’s easy to tell myself to take the time to do things I enjoy, much less easy to follow my own advice.

I worry all the time. I worry that if university is on campus I won’t be able to social distance properly. I worry that I’ll get sick. I worry that it will be too much change. And yet I crave that change at the same time. Because if I have to study online will I continue to feel isolated? Will I get progressively more exhausted until I can’t open my eyes, can’t type another word.

I’ve been here before, I suppose this is how I know it will end, because I’ve managed to drag myself out of this in the past, so surely I can again? I don’t want to hurt myself, don’t even think about it because it all seems like too much effort, so I suppose there’s that. Maybe I’m better than I was the last time? And there are good moments, it doesn’t always feel like this. There are times when I voice chat with friends and I laugh so hard I feel a bit sick, laugh so hard I cry and can hardly talk. In those moments I remember what it feels like to be a real person.

I want to write about the Princess Diaries. I know it seems unrelated, but if anyone can find a way to make the Princess Diaries relate to every possible situation, it’s me. I don’t think the series handles mental health that well overall, but there’s this bit that really speaks to me. When Mia starts seeing a therapist her depression is described as a hole. She’s at the bottom, the very bottom of this awful hole and she can’t get out of it because the sides are too high. She can’t even see out of it. But progressively she does. Bit by bit. It doesn’t happen overnight, it can’t. But somehow, in the end, she’s out of the hole. Or at least out of it most of the time.

I’ve been at the bottom of that ridiculous, awful hole. Somehow every few months I keep falling back in it, climbing out then diving right back in. I guess I need to find a way not to fall in it. But right now I’m there. I keep reasoning with myself that I’ll find my way out again, I always find my way out. And maybe telling myself this is all I can do, until I start to believe what I’m saying.