I have a tradition of writing little reviews of each year, what I did, what I learned, what I want to bring into the next one. Reflections and intentions and seeing the good. And then 2020 came.
Trying to write about this year makes me choke up. Trying to make resolutions for the next year makes my stomach swirl and my head ache.
Here's the truth:
I don't like what this world has become.
I don't feel like I have a place in it anymore.
I'm scared of this world.
I feel hopeless about this world.
I haven't felt this awful since I was 19 and having major withdrawal symptoms going off hardcore medications after 11 years of taking them(quite funny that I'm back on medications now but still somehow feel the same)
I'm trying and trying and TRYING and sometimes it feels ok. I stick to a pretty strict schedule and my day-to-day feels like it's getting better.
But I'm still getting so low low low low low sometimes.
These little moments, these snippets, they hurt a lot.
And we are all feeling this hurt, I know this. I guess it helps to know we're all in this together.
But that doesn't diminish the hurt for me.
Here's my 2020 story:
I soon started the year with a breakup, a very mutual breakup from a very short relationship, but still, who the hell wants to start the year with that?!
It did throw me off balance, however. I began to realize I didn't have enough groundedness here. I am air; I flit around, I float, I don't commit to anything, my thoughts and emotions fly wild. I don't always recognize the stability of earth, but it's still there and it's still needed(this is why my element tattoo is on my forearm, so it reads both air and earth depending on where it's pointing!)
After moving out of Ashland, the place I called home for 6 years, my earth faltered. I stayed with my parents, I moved to Chicago, and then in August of 2019 I made the incredibly difficult decision to move here and go to grad school.
This all just flew me around even more. I tried to find stability here and stability in my own mind. I went back to therapy, went back on medications, and did a lot of self-exploration at the beginning of this year. The one thing that felt like home became to be the puppet lab. I spent a lot of time crafting in the corner of my cozy desk, wrapped up in a blanket because it was always too cold for me. It gave me stability.
By late February/early March, I was starting to feel pretty good. I was working so hard on finding a place to belong, in a place I really didn't like. Things were looking up.
You know what comes next.
I remember it all hitting me as I sat at my desk, mindfully sewing with headphones in, trying not to listen to everyone around gossiping about it. There was so much talking and shuffling. I tried to pretend nothing was happening, it would all be okay. Ignorance is bliss. I sat there for a long time as everything unfolded around me one by one. I couldn't get up from my chair. The school announced canceling classes the week before spring break. Then a phone call from my parents saying they had to cancel their flights to come visit for the first time over the break. The school announced shutting down for the rest of the term. Everyone instructed to clear out their desks. Everything going online.
It felt as if my whole body shattered. All the earth I had grown was taken away. And it just became worse as the year went on. The pieces broke more and more. I moved back in with my parents for three months over the summer, for mental health and home-life reasons. I came back to Connecticut and moved into a one-bedroom apartment alone. School went entirely online again. Everything in the world got worse.
And worse and worse and worse.
After my power was out for an entire week(fucking ridiculous), I had a mental breakdown in August that caused me to seek more mental health help. I did an intensive outpatient program, got a new psychiatrist who actually respected me, changed medications to something much more suitable, went through A LOT of therapists(I'm now on my 6th one of the year. Only have had two appointments so far, but fingers crossed it's finally a good match), found more comfort in my witchy spirituality, focused on making my home a cozy lovely safe space, dove deep into myself and worked on mental health on my own too.
And I'm still working hard. And sometimes I feel like I'm getting better. And I'm somehow still having breakdowns, that are getting to be once a month, at the least. I've had more panic attacks this year than any other year of my life, I'm pretty sure. I was scared and paranoid nearly all the time. I was intensely depressed nearly all the time. I hardly ever left my home(still don't). I didn't socialize often. I didn't do much. School helped, but it also brought along its own sets of frustration that would push me down further. And other things happened that made me feel more alone and insignificant and upset, as much as I would like to say they didn’t affect me at all.
It's hard to know what else I can say here. I won't go into details of how bad my mind has gotten this year. I won't talk about everything that happened. It's still raw. I don't know where to go in 2021. I don't know how to think about the new year. I don't know how to find hope. New Years is my favorite holiday. Thinking of the future, I do not feel well. I'll be staying on the east coast at least until my lease is up in August, but I don't know what I'll be doing from there. I miss the west coast more and more every day, I know I don’t belong over here. School is completely online again and I'm not looking forward to it at all. But I'll still finish out this next term so I can at least have a Masters degree. Staying in school for another year to have a big project and an MFA is still up-in-the-air. The career I've been working towards is nonexistent, with no ideas of when it will come back, or what it will even look like if it does. My innermost values and goals in life still feel impossible. I have no idea how to make resolutions. Current moment, I do not feel well. I'm sitting here typing while a Cosmos show is playing in the background and Carl Sagan is talking about isolation in the universe and being made of starstuff and it's making me cry. I haven't been feeling well since right after Christmas. I guess it is due time for a breakdown. I just remembered it's a Cancer Full Moon tonight. Those always get me emotional. I think I will try to re-write another version of this in a few days, if I feel better. I think this one is important to post too, though. It's truthful. I'm nervous to post something so vulnerable; I don't want anyone to worry and this isn't me calling for help. It's just the truth. This shit all just fucking sucks, you know?
Commenti