An Open Letter

Short post because going on a long walk, but I realized the double standard I held in my mind. To me, a good person is someone who tries to be good. In that line, someone who makes mistakes and does bad things but tries to change is good. So why should I hate myself for making mistakes as long as I want to change for the better?

I've decided to change, I can't let others have that much control on me. With hurt feet I hit a hr of 205 on the elliptical. That was the best revenge.

I returned just now from a coworker's bbq and realized I haven’t felt that alone in so long. With these people, I have made a conscious effort to be friendly, kind, and energetic. For some reason, a group of them just dislike me. I don’t know what I did, or what I could have done to make these people hostile to me, but that’s just how it is I guess. I’m pretty sure it’s a misunderstanding or miscommunication somewhere, but somehow the damage is already done. I’ve tried to ask them, but it’s been met with more hostility. I honestly don’t know what to say or do.

Sometimes, mostly while alone I feel that pull of a familiar and comfortable sadness. It feels like an injury I’ve carried my whole life, waiting for a bit of stress to remind the body it exists. There’s a deep sadness I carry, some days tucked away and masked by life more than others.

When busy or replaced with anything else, it stays as a background actor of the mind; but once the scene of the day ends it remains as a stable piece of scenery. A constant low drone of a quiet backdrop. Almost like a firm eye contact with no message conveyed, other than a reminder of the baseline state doomed to return to.

Bad attempts at poetry aside, I remember watching a video that mentioned that bipolar disorder was one of the few mental illnesses where victims would decide to have it if they somehow had a choice. I have fortunately not had bipolar disorder, but I’ve thought about my own issues in the same context: would I want to have them if given a choice? I do think that it does act as a driving force, as a constant shepherd behind with a crop, hitting you for not moving. A big way I motivate myself for going to the gym is the question I ask myself: am I willing to go back to how it was? And every time, the answer is that I am willing to do whatever it takes to not be back in that place again. So I guess that’s my answer, as non-commital as can be.

Everything was perfect until the day it ended. The relationship was only two months (feel free to laugh), but the effects it had on me lasted nearly a year. I remember that I had to go home for two days since I had to get my covid shot and other medical stuff, and she was sad, saying she can’t wait for me to come back. She had baked me banana bread for me and my dad, but when he came he didn’t want any and I thought I was able to leave the bread outside.

I later got a text asking about the bread, and I explained we were in a rush and weren’t hungry; and she got upset that I didn’t freeze it. I then apologized multiple times as I realized it had made her sad and I genuinely didn’t know. She stopped responding to me, and after a bit I messaged her saying how my anxiety was making me think she was avoiding me. Later when she responded, she told me that she was, and that she would rather talk about it in person when I was back.

I let my anxiety take over and I sent her a semi-frantic text asking what happened, and how I was starting to get incredibly worried. She stopped responding for a bit, then replied saying that she had taken everything of hers from my apartment, left her key, and that she didn’t want to interact with me again. I tried to send a message back, but by then I was blocked on everything. I never got closure, or knew what actually happened.

I remember a few nights ago snapchat gave me yet another notification about a memory from 7 years ago. For some reason I decided to click on it, and clicked a few through and ended up seeing a picture of me freshman year in high school; I was smiling super bright as I was covered in rain. The weirdest part is I didn’t recognize that it was me. One of the bad parts of depression is how much it affects my memory, to the point if I think about things in the past I can only recall about 10 or so things that have happened. The most fresh one was me laying down in the road at night in Australia hoping a car would hit me, from 3 years ago.

While I was biking over to the library to meet some friends, I realized how bad insecurity had gotten: I knew anxiety was wreaking havoc in my mind telling me that my friends are trying to replace me and they don’t like me, but I realized it had gotten bad enough as I was apathetic again. I know I am supposed to be sad, or panicking, but now all I feel is nothing. There’s no pain, no happiness, no sadness, no nothing. Just biking through the Pardall tunnel seeing a beautiful sky and feeling nothing.

The description of depression I like the most is as follows: imagine you get faced with something bad. Your brain thinks that bad thing is TOO much to handle for you, and so it fully hides it from you to make sure it can’t hurt you. But because of that you don’t know what is wrong, but suddenly your mood and overall function just drastically nosedive. It’s a fairly flawed plan, as its the worst of both worlds: on one hand you start feeling like shit with no pleasure at all, but on the other hand you don’t even know what is wrong so you could try to fix it.

Now I’m in that awkward middle ground of trying to solve a problem with no feedback if it is even the thing that is hurting me. I guess as a side result I’ve gotten good academics, decent at video games, and a desire to be a better person?

I don’t know which one I’d choose if I had a choice.

For the last few months, I’ve felt like I’ve had to put in a monumentous amount of extra effort than what would be normal to achieve basic things, making friends, interacting with people, exercising, all while fighting off unmedicated mental illnesses. Sometimes I have the thought creep into my head, of how unfair it is how much I unfairly struggle or how much extra work I have to put in that no one else sees, just to function as normal.

And other times, I’m so glad I do. I succeed in the things that I do because of that discipline. To survive and function I’ve had to learn to control myself, to do things I don’t want to do, to go against what my brain wants to do. Every time I talk to a friend who doesn’t want to study, work on something, put in extra effort, take cheap shortcuts, I honestly feel disgust. Or maybe pity is a better word? I hate comparison, and this is something I am not proud of, but my old mindset still has some roots. I feel an immense amount of vindication, fantasizing about telling them how I succeed when they do not because of the work and effort I put in.

I had my therapy session today (thankfully) after not being able to have it last week. Thankfully, I’ve been doing fairly well; but one of the things I talked about with her was a surprisingly powerful paradigm shift.

All my life I’ve struggled with the mindset she calls “scarcity of love”, where essentially I think that there is not love for me in the world – I will not be loved/unlovable. This has been a reoccurring problem for years I’ve been working on with her, but today I brought it up inadvertently by asking for help about the new self-esteem issue.

After further prying, we realized that it was more like a flawed argument: imagine you are arguing against someone about some point, and every time you refute their argument they change their argument. No matter how many times you show them they are wrong, they hold the same point. This is more or less what I’ve been doing with the mindset of that I am not loved. I’ve been stuck in that comfort of all I’ve known, to think I am unworthy of love. What she recommended was to instead propose a new thought.

What I wanted instead was best written by the quote:

I hope I die
warmed by the life
I tried to live

So I thought I posted an update a bit ago, must not have gone through.

Thank you to all the people who have reached out to me regarding my mental stability, I am doing much better now and am not at risk 🥳🎉

After 8 months I have restarted medication, but no longer SSRI’s or anxiety meds; this time for ADHD! Kinda surprised about it as it all happened relatively fast, but everything clicked and starting treatment has already made life feel completely different. I got prescribed Ritalin, and today was my first day taking it. I was worried I would feel like a superhuman, and be able to focus incredibly well; but in practice I still had to put in effort to focus onto things. The difference was I had a bit more control over my brain, as I noticed I was able to listen to a lecture without having to constantly remind myself to catch back up due to zoning out.

The biggest change however was the mental block feels lifted for doing tasks. I had a box of hangers on the floor that have been sitting for two weeks, I was able to just go open it and hang my clothes. I took a water bottle from the sink and threw it away. I replaced my screen protector. ALL WITHOUT HAVING TO STRUGGLE FOR WEEKS!

These things seem so simple, but things like that have haunted me for weeks at a time, and while I know that they are incredibly easy and trivial, I had a mental block from doing those things. I can’t describe how impossible it was to get myself to do those things, it was completely irrational; yet real. But suddenly, I can just do them! I was able to start some work I’ve been afraid of and putting off for weeks, and when I hit a block, I didn’t immediately get overwhelmed? I was able to learn and continue? Jesus christ this is how life should be. Thank you 10mg of Ritalin!

So to whoever reported me to a student suicide watch, thank you. I am going to be honest, I really don’t think anyone reads this anymore; especially now that I’ve removed it from my accounts. But I really do appreciate it, it feels nice to know that someone is concerned for me.

That out of the way, I partially just wanted to write something down so that I am not faced with the shame of my low points when I open up google chrome; this last week has honestly been really bad. I’ve been pretty sick, so haven’t been able to go to classes or hang out with friends, my SSD got corrupted, so I lost my computer + all of my personal files along with photos I cannot recover, losing SB hacks, and a couple other things.

The thing that surprises me is I’m doing ok. Yeah I feel sad, but I don’t feel overwhelmed or any suicidal ideation. I guess I’m proud of myself for passively being able to handle this week.