Getting By

A few days ago a close friend of mine posted a tweet that actually made me stop and think. Who would have thought that in the midst of all the "Wow this professor is so boring!!!" and "@hotguy99 let's hang out later ;)" there would be something poignant? The tweet said "Are you contented with just getting by?" It was obviously meant to encourage people, to shake them up and say "do more!" I remember all those times I told myself again and again that all I had to do was get by. I remember when that was the hardest thing in the world to do, when it was a struggle to just be.

But I am better now! Back then, I would look back and try to pinpoint when I started feeling that way, how it all started. I remember in junior year of high school when I would cry in bed but I could never remember why, only that I felt stupid for crying so much. So much of it was feeling stupid and selfish, that my feelings were completely unwarranted. I look back a lot, actually, and I still try to piece it all together. It's all just a blur and it makes no sense at all.

I doubt anyone ever really knew how bad it got, because I joked about it a lot in a self-deprecating manner. I never told anyone. When a friend would confide in me about fights with their boyfriend or betrayal with other friends, I'd think of how they would react if I confided in them that I was almost empty on the inside and something continues to swallow me up. But I never did tell and I avoided what would have been the barrage of pitying smiles and awkward silences. I avoided what would have been my parents telling me to "cheer up and it'll get better." There were no dramatic suicide attempts or anything like that. It sort of makes it that much harder to make sense of it all, because there was nothing concrete, just a lot of feeling shitty and not leaving the bed. I suppose the worst of it all was the first couple years of college. I remember the first week of school, how I wrote down on my notebook that I was happy to be in a new environment and I was almost certain I would feel much better. I didn't. All the people and the activities and the pressure just brought me down. The people, most specially, I think. I won't even try to make any sense of it, because it's pointless.

There was a time I was just waiting. I was waiting for what I thought was the inevitable fact that I would just go nuts or top myself or something. I considered getting help, but I felt stupid. A friend of mine was depressed and she was sent to the hospital for a while. She had to stop school. What do I have to show for my struggles? I didn't need help, it was all in my head, if I wanted to get better I could. Also the feeling of selfishness won over. How could I be so ungrateful of the wonderful life my parents built for me and still ask them to pay some shrink to teach me how to be happy? So I waited. I thought it wouldn't take long. It's been years, I'm bound to go off the rails soon. Then I wouldn't have to ask for help, people would just give it to me. Partly, I also wanted it to reach some conclusion to finally affirm what I had been feeling, that I had not been well and it wasn't just in my mind and I wasn't just being overly dramatic. It never reached that point. I never use the word depression, because I still can't be sure I had it. I never asked for help and was never diagnosed. If I start feeling that way again, I doubt I'll ever get help unless I'm already a self-sustaining adult.

I was sure I wouldn't live through my senior year in college. I wouldn't even be alive to start my thesis. I figured that my situation had gone on for too long, surely it would finally drive me off a building or into moving traffic before I reach Senior year. I never imagined the other option: that it would just go away and I'd get better. I guess that was the least likely possibility then. During my waiting period, I wasn't scared. I thought that when I finally get to the point where I'd want to end it all, then there'd be nothing I could do to stop myself. If I ever reached that point then so be it. And once I finally do it, then there are no regrets, just eternal sleep. Death was nothing to me then. Hearing me talk about it now I think of those emo kids we all make fun of on the internet. But it was how I felt. If I died, then I died. (One of the things that tells me I'm better now is that I'm afraid of dying.)

I couldn't tell you how I got better. How it ended is as much of a blur to me as how it all started. Little things like wanting to meet people and being able to like what I see in the mirror are the tell-tale signs (at least for me) that it's not as bad now. There are still a lot of things that feel wretched to me. And what's hard to understand is that these are the same things that mad me feel wretched before. My appearance, for example, has plagued me my whole teenage life. I still feel as bad about it, but it's a much different, less unhealthy; it's no longer that that would make me feel worthless.

The weird thing about getting better is having to adjust to normalcy. For a long time all I strived for was to get up, not let anyone know of my inner turmoil, not make my parents kill themselves with disappointment, and go to bed. The getting up was what I had the most trouble with, I think, but for the most part, I succeeded and here I am. It really was not easy. I didn't want to expose this metaphor to the public, but here it is. I felt like there was a baby inside me. Not that I was pregnant or anything, but that there was a toddler that I had to indulge and pacify. I had to do things I enjoyed so I would not go into a slump. There was no one to hand hold me through it all. It wasn't like the movies where my gal pals kidnapped me to go out dancing to feel better. No one knew I was fucking dying on the inside, so that same me who didn't want to do anything had to force myself to do something. A lot of the time I didn't even want to do the things I enjoyed, but I had to. Let's say you fucking love bacon (Who am I kidding, of fucking course you love bacon.) Imagine feeling so damn shitty that you start to despise bacon. And then imagine.having to force yourself to eat bacon because you need to feel not shitty. The baby metaphor got lost somewhere, but the point is that I felt like a baby in that I had to have my favorite things or else I would cry. School? Fuck that noise that shit would get me on the edge of a building faster than you could say Critical Theory. So everything just fell by the wayside and all I did was listen to music and study fashion. That was how it was getting by.

I keep saying that there was no clear point where I want from bad to fine and yet there was no gradual adjustment for me. I don't know how to strive for something other than to "get by." What do I do and what am I capable of now? I used to think I wouldn't be me anymore if I was happy. It felt like the sadness was so much a part of me that I'd be gone if it was gone. So it's odd looking back and realizing that it is gone and I am here and I'm still me. Of course I'm still the girl who hit a rough patch but I'm no longer the girl who is in a rough patch. And while I was in that tough time, I wondered what I could be accomplishing if only I was better. But I haven't become a prolific writer or a supermodel or Academy Award winner yet. Nobody can even tell that I'm better now. And I want to work on that. I want people to be able to see how I've improved. I want to prove to myself that I have gotten through the rough patch and I have moved on and I have learned from it and all that wishing to get better so I can be the best me I can be came true.