my week of earthquakes and eclipses

life's a mess and so am i

i don’t remember much of the last few months. it’s no secret that i struggle with depression, and i’ve been feeling it so intensely over the last month or so. depression is so often glamorized, with the image of a beautiful woman falling into a deep sadness, usually reminding us all how depressed she is by starving herself or wallowing in a dramatic yet still beautiful manner. she refuses to eat but routinely drinks her black coffee, it’s a metaphor for how empty she’s become and she’s full of dark thoughts. i blame ottessa moshfegh’s my year of rest and relaxation and the coquette girl aesthetic on tiktok for making depression trendy, but of course, women in literature have been depressed forever.

like any form of media, this has been commodified and turned into an aesthetic, with products inspired by these works selling everywhere. stickers, tote bags, and t-shirts with the phrase “this barbie takes lexapro” popping up, marketing campaigns focused on the “sad girl” aesthetic, all relying on this glamorous, safe, socially acceptable version of mental health struggles to make a profit. society tells us that it's okay to talk about your mental health, but it has to fit into a very specific mold of what is okay and what’s not. you can be depressed when you’re sad and just don’t feel like doing anything today, but it’s gross to be depressed when you can’t get out of bed for weeks and are so disconnected from the world. there’s a reason that mental health issues were so often called “women’s issues” in the past because they were meant to be quiet, neat, and still pretty to look at. consumerism is sneaking into all elements of our lives though, finding ways to profit off of the parts of ourselves we struggle with, or the things we don’t want to talk about.

i for one, do not want anything to do with this, in fact, i’m a little embarrassed to have something that i struggle with associated with these commodified personality traits and aesthetics drawn from overly caricatured versions of what real people experience. yes, i read my year of rest and relaxation, and i found it interesting, but the book did irreparable damage to the brains of the young girls who think depression is being rich and gorgeous and taking medication cocktails to dull your emotions and being bitchy without any consequence. just because so many of these “depressed women” in media are skinny, rich, white, and beautiful, all traits commonly desired and praised by society, depression shouldn’t be desirable. how could anyone wish to have it?

every single day, i fight so hard to do everything. i wish i could say i’m being dramatic by writing that, but it’s unfortunately true. i take my lexapro and tell myself that the day will be different, that i have something to look forward to. there’s a piece of my mind that never shuts up and it tells me that nothing matters, that no one likes me; it keeps spinning and it never shuts up and it goes in circles, getting more and more haphazard until this horrible feeling consumes me that i can only describe as a profound emptiness. it hits so aggressively sometimes and i try to fight through it and remind myself of my worth, of everything good in my life, but it doesn’t matter, i’m still sucked into this black hole of nothingness. that’s actually how i describe depression: just a whole bunch of nothingness. i don’t remember most of the days that pass. i can’t tell you what i did most of last week. i tried to do physical activity so my body would at least feel like something was happening but i ended up just coupled with sobs when i was on the treadmill. it doesn’t make me feel better to lay silently or to watch movie after movie, half of the time i don’t even know what is happening, i’m just existing while the world is bright and alive all around me.

i hate when people ask me why i’m depressed. there isn’t a why, i just am. of course, things make me feel worse, like being away from my friends, or the tumultuous nature of my parents’ divorce, but deep down, those aren’t the reasons for my depression. it’s something that exists inside me, like a ghost haunting an attic, that constantly wants control of my body and mind. it isn’t even close to being pretty, or delicate, or neat. some of the menial tasks that i wouldn’t otherwise think about cause me to retreat, putting away my clothes reminds me that some of them don’t fit the same way so i can’t touch those right now. when i lay in my bed time passes, but when i try to read a book or watch something that just doesn’t even sink in because nothing is processing it in my brain. time just passes and i am there. i hate living like that, i can’t understand why anyone could ever want that to be their life and i actively try to fight it.

recently i’ve been thinking a lot about how sylvia plath wrote about the fig tree in the bell jar:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

this is one of the most referenced literary metaphors, but i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how often it’s taken out of context. this passage beautifully depicts how life is a mess, and indecision leads to frustration, lost dreams, and deep sadness. it’s overwhelming and scary and sometimes your thoughts spiral into even more thoughts that leave you feeling more hopeless or confused. that’s how i feel right now, that i’ve made horrible life choices, and nothing is going my way, but then i remember what plath wrote on the next page:

"I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach."

when plath’s protagonist (a few pages after initially having the fig tree thought) has something to eat, she reconsiders the feeling of emptiness. eating reminds her that she’s not as hopeless as she initially thought. even if its not through eating, i’ve been taking the time to think about what plath wrote to remind myself that there’s a way get out of the feelings of desolation and confusion. those feelings are never going to disappear permanently, i’ll always have them, but there are little ways to pull yourself out of that cycle of self-loathing, and constant emotional turmoil. people always talk about the bell jar as a story about the grim parts of depression, especially referencing plath’s own life, but at the end of the book, she explicitly makes clear the idea that esther, her protagonist, is slowly doing better and has hope for her future. i think that’s why it resonates with me so much, things can be awful, you can hit rock bottom, but it’s not ever going to be as simple as snapping your fingers and curing the depression. it’s always going to live within me, but it’s up to me to continue to fight for my own future.

right now, it’s monday, a new week is starting and there’s an eclipse in a half-hour. my weekend was awful, i felt like i was sitting underneath the fig tree, like i was in a deep dark pit, but it’s a new week. i ate an almond croissant while i was walking to work. the sun has been out and it is 60 degrees. spring is coming soon, and even though my pollen allergies hate it, i’m so excited for the weather. and i’m slowly taking a bite of what life has to offer.

Plath, Sylvia., et al. The Bell Jar. 1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed. New York, HarperPerrenial, 2005.