“Just do it” fucking sucks as a statement. It is one of those things only I am allowed to tell myself, maybe the one or two people closest to me as well. Others; fuck off. …unless you actually know what I’m going through.
Here are the things I cannot “just do”:
-answer your message
-open a random door
-attend your whatever event
-meet you and your friend
-answer your call
-try a new meal
-clean my apartment
-go to the store
-care about my physical well-being
-make my bed
-have a shower
-take out my trash
-not have a drink
-not have sex with random strangers
-get my shit together
…
Want to know why? Here’s why:
-answer your message; my anxiety cannot deal with the potential requirements your message comes with; needing to call you, answer you, meet you. If I don’t answer you, will you hate me forever? I do not have the mental capacity for these questions
-open a random door; I have control issues, new doors with unknown things behind them freak me out; how and which way does this door open? What’s behind it? What happens next? People will laugh
-attend your whatever event; what should my social anxiety wear for it? The shirts of me cannot have these people looking at me like they hate me and judge me? They will laugh at me
-meet you and your friend; I might love you and trust you, but now you want to force another person on me? How could you do this to me? I thought we were friends…you having another person with you is you putting me on the “need to pretend I’m great” zone even if you know I’m not. Are you betraying my trust in you by having your “friend” see my mental breakdown you know will happen? Do you hate me?
-answer your call: fuck off. Let me have my peace and time to collect myself and my thoughts. Don’t force me to quick pretend to be happy
-try a new meal; you know I don’t like new things. If I try a new meal I know you will be looking at me, watching me as I taste it. You are looking at me to hate it so that you can laugh at me
-clean my apartment: Just clean my apartment? Yes it is a mess. There are pizza boxes, dirty underwear and dust all around. I have long hair so yes, my shower drain is full, you can see the bundles of hair on my floor. Have not done the dishes in a week or two, these disposable ones work fine. And the bottles of wine? Yup, all around. I’m sure your apartment is great.
-go to the store: There are days when I cannot even get out of my bed except to go to the bathroom and receive the take out I just ordered. There are days when all I want is to stay in my bed in the darkness. I might watch Netflix, I might order food in. Glad you can walk around as you want
-care about my physical well-being: Not. Not at the top of my list. My head is not right, the heart even less. My body? Would I give a shit? No. I can’t even get out of my bed.
-make my bed – I will sleep in it, now, and next day night and day. I can barely get to the bathroom. Why would i make my bed? Who is going to see it?
-have a shower – I think my best is around 8-9 days without shower. I will lie in my bed thinking I’m fine until I start thinking I smell, after a few days of that I will shower, if I really really smell
-take out my trash – The pizza boxes, or quick food, or anything really. They will pile up. As long as I can step over or around them I am fine.
-not have a drink – Should I not drink? I want to forget the world, I want to forget me. I will drink, I will drink now and I will drink tomorrow
-not have sex with random strangers – I go to bar and grab a stranger, or even better yet, use Tinder for it; sex delivered at home. Do I necessarily remember it the next day? No. I just needed to be close to someone, I needed the sex.
-get my shit together- On it. Dickhead.
…
Let’s get this straight. Living with mental illness is messy. It comes with concrete messy things of dirty underwear on the floor, messy actions of getting black out drunk at office events, and messy aftermath of messages on your phone you have no recollection of. It comes with days and weeks of disappearing, calling sick for work, not replying to your friends. It comes with being unable to complete the simplest of things of taking out the trash or making your bed.
I’ve been there, done that, living there. I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, general anxiety disorder and social anxiety – that I know of. I am in therapy and my therapist might have a diagnosis or two to add to this. I’m not new to this though, this has been years of me. I’m living with it, making progress I hope, while having my ups and the sure deep downs.
The more I have worked on my problems, the more I speak to others about them, I realize I am not alone. And if I’m not alone, it means you are not either.
