What is depression and anxiety?

2019 – an undocumented year of escaping

I never wanted to throw back to 2019. Luckily but unluckily, there were only about 5 or 6 diary entries that year. I normally could write on and on, sometimes might be full of bullshit but I didn’t care. 2019, I couldn’t write. I opened the notebook and uncapped the pen, just hung there in midair, immobilized. I just couldn’t. The importance, perspective, and connections between events fluctuated. I was filled with complicated yet sentimental thoughts but when I actually sat down, wanting to do my utmost, as far as I could, I had nothing systematic or logical to pour out.

The question I asked myself the most during the winter 2019 was: why did you come to this place where you can’t even see the end of the winter? I kept doubting the decision I made because of some trivial factors that I regarded as important.

I wondered if it was seasonal affective disorder but I dismissed the idea immediately. What my household taught me growing up was that whenever I felt sad out of nowhere, I was looking for an excuse for escaping from a lack of motivation. I hated myself this way for being weak but this hatred not only wasn’t helping, but eventually leading to something more direful. I got no one to talk to, not even to the closest person I had at the time simply because I didn’t want to bring inconvenience to the others. I did consider about seeking help from school’s mental health services but “what’s the point? They’re only getting paid to listen to your little problems.”

From January to April, I was desperate. I couldn’t remember how I passed the semester nor could I find anything I did that was actually meaningful. My weight went down drastically during those four months; gradually, it worsened into eating disorders. I had no idea if it was a long period or a short period. Looking back on it later, it sometimes seemed as though it lasted forever, but then again it passed by in an instant.

When I was at the worst stage, gladly, school was over and I went back home. I started to pull myself together, trying to find a summer job and get myself busy. Not long after I got home, another thing hit on me, rupturing the last fragile layer I had and dragging me into a mysterious whirlpool. Under that state, I used my last bit of positivities trying to persuade both of us that the slimmest chance was still a chance. But I guess I wasn’t good at expressing words back then either. I was home for twenty days and I finally gave up on everything after twenty days straight of emotional abuse, not a single day missing.

I thought of the Just-World Hypothesis (good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people) and found it pretty accurate. “Maybe I really am a bad person.”

I felt relived for three days before the long-term anxiety wave landed. Two months in Shanghai was equivalent to a two-month anxiety. Not Beijing, not Shenzhen, not Chengdu, but Shanghai, the last city I would want to go at that moment. The summer was too much for me. I did an internship, I volunteered, and I travelled. Everything seemed healthy and perfect. The truth was that my heart never stopped aching and I would burst out in the middle of a walk or on a subway or a bus. But of course I didn’t. I had mascara on every day to remind myself that at least not to mess up your eye makeup too. I sometimes escaped to the fire exit on the highest floor, the quietest place in the building, sitting on the stairs and listening to the sound of escalators going up and down.

Still remember there was one time I found a girl crying on the staircase a floor or two below. I found it bitterly interesting. “I guess fire escapes are for emotional getaways during peaceful times.”

One summer of recovery, I went back to Montreal for my sophomore year. Yes, a sophomore but I was still trapped in that 17 year old me. I tried to regain my composure and it turned out looking pretty decent. People admired my positivity and self-discipline in school or just life in general. I have to be honest that I didn’t even know what I was doing myself. I went to the library every day, I worked out regularly, I sometimes went out when my friends called me out, but something was missing. Some part of my heart was unoccupied. I got so numb that all I did was repetition. I had no idea why I did all those, or what goals I wanted to achieve like a helpless swimmer who couldn’t find a scrap of wood to float my way. I was still anxious about not being productive, about not pleasing my friends, about not looking okay. It was a period of inexplicable chaos and confusion.

I avoided the whole year by denying things that actually had happened. I deleted the posts from social media and thought they would just automatically get deleted from my life too. I left the “good” ones so people really saw me having some good moments. That pressure of you-can’t-be-sad-because-people-won’t-like-it gave me an illusion that I was fine when I wasn’t. Previous year, I lost everything including my innate curiosities. I surrendered under an amorphous pressure from the reality. I let realities eaten my purest dreams up and convinced myself that reality is reality, just admit it. I stopped dreaming, I stopped caring about my future, I stopped being the girl who I used to be.

2020, I started to feel things. I started to like Montreal. I started to go back on track. Did I miss out a lot? I certainly did. I missed opportunities, I missed people’s affection, I lost myself. I had a deep fear of looking back so I chose not to at all. When people stop going back and change, they make mistakes. 2020, a year of COVID-19, I went back. 2020 is still my year just as what I was thinking on the last day of 2019. I can feel it.

It is okay to pause. Even the best train in the world needs stations to fill the fuel. Getting to know myself is never easy. It sometimes feels like I’m walking through a cavern with the slow whirl of a fog. I thought I saw the dim light ahead but when I reached there, there’s more of void. The fog is drifting uncertainly along the way, as if in search of lost memories. The transformation is beyond me sometimes, but at least I know, wherever, whenever, as long as I’m myself, I’m heading somewhere.

I fuck up. I fall behind. I fail. I’m on the way to the next problem. It is absolutely okay.