Are We The Same

You should not be yourself. own daily despair and of the lives that others lead. I have heard before that there is a word for this: sonder. I wonder about the life that I could be living if my brain were not the same, or if the life I am living is normal. I like to imagine that it is not – that you are ‘out of this world’ content. You are a fuck up. It should be simple to wake up in the morning, make yourself breakfast, brush your teeth, and get dressed to continue on with living. But, somehow, it is shockingly hard. I stare at my face in the mirror. Willing myself to pick up the toothbrush. Instead, I turn away from the sink. I stare at the dirty plates and cups on the dirty coffee table. They’re all mine but I know that I won’t clean them. I know that Anthony will pick them up for me instead. He will look at me, sitting on the couch with unkempt hair and unwashed clothing and pity me enough to bring them to the sink. I see the pity in his eyes every time he looks at me. I see the pity in all of the eyes that pass over it at this point in my life. For a long time I didn’t know how to keep myself composed in front of others – or even alone. But as the years drew on, and the feelings deep within me that compelled much I struggle inside. People I do know well don’t know how much I struggle. I wonder if for you this feeling of hopelessness has forced you to make a mask for others. Just give up. By some miracle my clinical diagnosis of anxiety and depression is ‘high functioning’. I do not

I think what they meant was that I am not totally crippled by my mind to perform day-to-day tasks. Sometimes it does feel like the water levels surrounding me are getting too high to continue on. But, most days the awful feeling of impending failure pushes me to overachieve. I do not mean this to be a compliment to myself and I hope you don’t take it that way. My overachievement is brought on by a tendency to expect too much out of myself. My grandmother always said that I had a tendency to forget there weren’t 25 hours in a day. While this, from the outside, appears as a strong work ethic, high drive for success, and ambition, it is truly an ever growing fear of failure. I am constantly running away from my biggest fear. capitalism. It all feels like a waste and, yet, I can’t stop doing it. Do you push yourself too hard too? Nothing about you is good. As the lecture slowed and drew near its end the small pit in my stomach that always nagged at me grew and grew into a swirling, angry black hole – threatening to swallow me. This is not the certainly one of the worst times that it did. It was an opportunity that I could not refuse. It was who I would love to work for. Instead of hanging on the end of my seat to her words, I only thought about my plans for the end of the talk: to hand her my resume and discuss the advantages I could bring to her company. I do not remember what I said to her, the path I took home, or anything but the thoughts in my head that I ought to go and take a bottle of unknown pills and sit in a full bathtub. I hope that you have never felt like I did that night. It really is an awful feeling. Don’t be a burden. I often think to myself that I ought to reach out to someone and let them know how I am feeling. I never do though. I scroll through my contact list and not a single name appears that it feels appropriate to burden them. The way I feel is so heavy I would never want to weigh on them. So, I just stay silent instead. OCD is not something people know very much about. Usually when people think of OCD they think of cleaning. That isn’t what I go through. Instead, my brain concocts thoughts. Thoughts I can’t escape. About Anthony. About my mum. My dad, my friends, my acquaintances, my professors. The thoughts tell me that these people in my life do not want me. I am unworthy of their attention. Are they even good people? Am I a bad person? It is a constant onslaught. Hours. Every single day. In any spare moment of time that I allow myself silence I just think. Hours of thinking about these people and if the relationships I have with them are ‘good’. I have a therapist. But, even with her I cannot help but think if the dynamic is good. Do you feel like me? I hope that you can live in a world where the relationships you have are not constantly questioned. No-one loves you. I was told that feeling misunderstood would go away as I got older. The teenage angst would I still have a nagging within me that says I am not doing the right thing. I am not with the right friends, making the right steps toward my future, doing enough for my own happiness. I have hope that this feeling will fade one day. That as I continue on in growing as a person that all the pieces of my life that feel like they aren’t perfect will fall into place. But, only time will tell. For now I will stay in my discontented life continuing to struggle day-by-day with nothing but hope for tomorrow to be better. I hope we can both have a better tomorrow.

By Shauna Speakman who is a senior at Emmanuel College in Boston, MA with a passion for linguistics and writing. Having a love for reading all her life, she hopes to pursue a career in book editing and wants to work for the is real and deserves to be treated – stay well. Photograph by Anthony Tran