Preface: I wrote this poem for my best friend after seeing her fall into a toxic relationship with someone utterly below her station, intellectually and physically. It reminded me of the love we crave even if it hurts us in the process. Almost like a drug -- no matter how harmful or sporadic, this dosage of affirmation overrides all rationality.
I was in the midst of taking game day pictures when I noticed a trend. No matter how beautiful and picturesque I have trained myself to be, these techniques never carry over to pictures I’ve taken with my best friend. It should be second nature to me at this point, yet whenever I assume a pose next to her every preoccupation goes out the window. I can’t imagine myself in a preemptive post whenever I’m caught in the joy of sharing the moment with my best friend.
Having being saddled by constant existential anxiety since sentience, I have found ways to adapt. My two main methods include: actively be creating meaningful memories or manipulate every waking moment into a poetic payoff.
You're chained to bed because of a depressive episode? Euphoria depression arc.
So obsessed with food intake that the majority of your waking moments are dedicated to your next meal? Introspection is always a good thing.
Coming home for fall break and feeling indescribably unhinged? Write a post categorizing an irrelevant theme you've captured previously.
This method is fine and well except when it's not and it's crippling your ability to relish in the moment or just like literally fucking live like a normal person. I cannot enjoy music without it pandering to my constant soul-searching. If I don't immediately gain either undeniable enjoyment or thought-provoking messaging then that time is wasted and I'll never get it back and why did I even choose that movie anyway? I wanted something along the lines of cosmic horror this is just cheap jump scares and now my friends don't like it but they won't tell me and it's not even funny enough to be an enjoyable experience and why do I care anyway? Why am I sabotaging myself into doing exactly what I set out to avoid? Why am I wasting my time second-guessing myself and most importantly why can't I stop?
I had an advising appointment earlier about writing a personal statement. Unsatisfied with my rambling about my dissatisfaction with academia and its distance from reality, the TA began prodding me to extract a sense of personhood. I was unfocused, he said -- my stories too general, my theme too indefinite. What was the most significant event that happened to you, he asked. What makes you you?
He was expecting insight into my passions in life; ostensibly, a character study on my environmental activist political academic ambitions. Feeling frustrated and self-conscious at my lack of compelling anecdotes, I said that if I really revealed the most important events in my life they probably wouldn't give me medical clearance. No need, he said. We don't need to go into detail on your mental health. Just give me your goals in life, your image of a desired career. What do you want to convey to others about your identity?
What I didn't have the ability to say is that I have been living in a self-imposed panopticon for my entire life. I have been observing my life from above, carefully crafting my personhood to present to the world. The desires and ambitions I present to others are nothing more than a vehicle I use to conventionally fulfill my need for exceptionalism. Sure, I love the environment, sure I love to research, sure I love to read, sure I love to impress my professors and make my parents proud. But these characteristics have always been fundamentally insufficient to encapsulate my identity.
What I really want to say in my personal statement is that the most consequential moment in my life is when a loved one tried to kill themselves, when my mom told me she was proud of me, when my mania drove me to an unknown city, when I read that really good book, when I was in inpatient for months, when my best friend wrote me a poem, when I posted my first blog. How could I ever pretend to be a dedicated student when I am constantly dogged by a persistent feeling of omniscient ennui? I don't know who I am or what I want. That's my identity. That's what makes me me. I am me because I can't stop analyzing myself and the world around me.
When I was little, I used to always feel a sense of dread on Sundays. The conclusion of the week somehow always managed to lodge a boulder in my chest, physically weighing down my body with its indescribable mass. I never had the words to explain to my mother this affliction, something which I always (and sometimes still do) ascribed to my fundamentally flawed existence.
I understand now after years of therapy and unregulated access to the internet that this perpetual sentiment is the fault of Generalized Anxiety Disorder -- the illness needs no introduction. My interpretation of this dogged anxiety is something more sinister, though. I have always had a constant recognition of my own existence; like viewing my perceptions, experiences, placement in life from a bird's eye view. I am perpetually aware of my existence, even more so as a child.
The finality of week's end, the beginning of the same routine, always filled me with a muffled terror. I would be completing the same existence, pushing up the same boulder week after week. No more excitement and the opportunity the weekend had to offer. No more deviation from the same routine. The Sunday Scaries wasn't just anticipation for school, it was the terror of the mundane. What's worse, it was impossible to define. How can you face your fears if you don't even know what your fears are?
As a child, everything is big, unidentifiable, novel. Nothing felt bigger than the boulder dislodged in my chest, immovable and constant. On Sundays especially this boulder dramatically increased in size, moving up to my throat and preventing speech.
Did I get your attention? Which one was it -- the current state of our crumbling democracies or the self indulgence of suffering? I know what I focused on, and it was nothing if not trite in comparison.
Don't interpret this as a righteous criticism; these perspectives come from my past and current state of mind. I used to be completely invested in the happenings of the world, wired in to the mainframe of internet activism. I completely centered my life outlook around my future in social sciences, politics, law, or any of the multiple fields that provided me with a fulfilling education. I don't really know what happened, except that I suddenly felt wholly inadequate in participating anymore. What used to pique my interest and subside my soul now only felt like warning signs passing in my rearview mirror.
Speed limit: 70
Caution: landslides
Wildfires, flooding, drought now more common. Contact higher power if govt. authority were to collapse.
I used to be so good, so smart, so earnest in my ambitions. I relished in my studies of sustainability, politics, climate change, latin american affairs, foreign direct investment, constructivism, the statistical value of a life, the effects of modern-day colonialism, how to effect change, how to get a 170 on the LSAT, how to get into the best schools, how to be successful, how to make your parents proud. Now I sit in my room lamenting my woes and trying desperately to articulate my thoughts before they suffocate me.
I'm privileged in my sadness, unjustified in my suffering. I've had nothing bad happen to me -- the only traumatic events in my life have been of my own doing. I sit with my melancholy, wallow in my blue-stained vignette just to escape
what? escape what?
The world offers so much, presents so many opportunities. So many. Too many. I am not equipped to deal with these opportunities. My mind is fundamentally defective, crippled by excess. Excess thoughts. Excess feelings. Excess guilt.
Excess, excess, excess. I've had the world handed to me on a silver platter and all I've done is vomit up the remains. How can I be so hedonistic in my own misery when there are millions, billions, who would take my place? Do I owe the world happiness? Do I owe my parents?
All I know right now is that I owe myself nothing.
The only personality test I religiously adhere to is the enneagram, mostly because I have a greater personal affinity for attributes of being a "romantic" or "individualist". To me, these signifiers extol my previously problematic traits of being "mentally ill" or "worrisome" or:
"Stop romanticizing your self-destructive tendencies you have people who care for you and personal well-being. Engaging in reckless behaviors doesn't just affect you, it affects all of those who love you and suffer when they see you suffer".
Instead of being a self-imposed outcast, I can now feel appreciated by a test that perfectly describes and uplifts characteristics I hadn't previously seen represented. Being a type four means being introspective, sensitive, creative, all qualities that feed into my own need to be individual. It means that I was right all along -- this chronic sense of eccentricity that has dogged me ever since childhood is supported by a scientific standard.
so... what now?
When you plug in enneagram type four into a search engine, it'll pull up famous individuals like:
Billie Eilish
Edgar Allen Poe
Sylvia Plath
Amy Winehouse
Kurt Cobain
Bob Dylan
"See?" They say, "Look how many talented people are 4's! There's possibilities for you yet." And yet, what do all these people have in common, aside from the fact that they were all famously tortured individuals, many dying young?
They utilized their unique (to be reductionist) perspective to use, creating pieces of media for everyone to enjoy and consume. They were also dogged by an inherent sense of foundational abnormality, yet they had the skill set to employ these sentiments and be successful.
But what about me? I'm a four, I feel things everything everywhere all at once, I'm never happy, I'm always melancholic, I'm only at peace when I know I'm experiencing distinguishable memories, I'm always worrying my friends, worrying my family, worried I'm not living life to its fullest, worried I'm not worth it, worried I'm not actually unique and that my life has been full of worry to no avail.
And unlike all the other successful 4's that many are quick to point out, I have no where to put everything. I have no talents that could relieve me of my perpetual existential dread and ennui. I'm not a singer. I can't write a song. I've never sat down and written prose. So I'll just keep these feelings in a jar, sat down on my nightstand, only to be opened in case of emergencies.
"It may, after all, be the bad habit of creative talents to invest themselves in pathological extremes that yield remarkable insights but no durable way of life for those who cannot translate their psychic wounds into significant art or thought."
I need to be exceptional. It’s a fundamental flaw. And I think it’s terminal.
I’m only truly content (content in this context is meant to be attributed to a state of being not constantly preoccupied with my current status of existence) whenever I’m fulfilling this itch to excel. Excelling, or being exceptional, has manifested in my life through:
graduating, being engrossed in the idea of change
starting anew, being involved in everything college life has to offer
being loved, feeling actualized by receiving romantic validation
And, inevitably, when these phenomena lose their novelty:
collapsing into mental illness, fulfilling an individuality complex
focusing on self-destruction through societally-accepted methods of self harm (read: starving yourself)
Lately, recovering from mental illness and going on study abroad has gone above and beyond in my self-perception of leading an exceptional life. But now reality is staring me down, and reality is seeming a lot less palatable than the self-engrossed world of gratuitous self-inflicted pain.
It’s the beginning of my last year college but I don’t think I’m doing it right. I’m too scared to look forward, so instead I’m looking back. Back at all the decisions I made, back at all the experiences I had, back at every missed opportunity. I should be happy -- I’m an ambitious girl and I’m on track to meet all the goals I’ve had since youth. I like what I’m studying I like what I’m doing I like my friends I like my prospects I mourn what I’ve lost.
What am I going to do with me? Where am I going to put all of myself? I thought I wanted to be Smart, learning and teaching along the way. Reading, writing about Important Things that weren’t just relevant to my interests, but to the interests of the world’s well-being. I fought so much for this. But I mostly fought myself. Now where am I going to go when the rest of me has to be someone?
This isn’t a novel concept; facing the reality of fitting in a corporatized box is enough to make anyone question their priorities. But now I’m questioning what my future even looks like anymore.
I hope no one reads this!! Time to put some tags!!
