Dude, January sucked. 

When I came back to school, I was terrified that I’d get the stomach flu, washing my hands till they cracked and bled and waking up in the middle of the night shaking, convinced I was about to be sick. Then, just as I started to calm down a little, my grandma died, changing my life irreparably. Two days after the funeral, Trump took office and immediately started stripping away the rights of people I love. Then, to top it off, I caught a cold that’s had me blowing my nose every 10 minutes for days. Of course, the cold is the least of my worries, and I’d much prefer it to some more serious illness. But it still sucks. 

My nervous system has been out of whack for weeks, and I’ll go from being perfectly happy and laughing with friends to sobbing in my boyfriend’s arms because I’ll never again see my grandma’s delighted reaction as we correctly guess the word she’s struggling to remember. I’ll find myself spending a whole day just feeling generally awful for no reason, and it’ll take me until that evening to remember, “Oh yeah, there are things you’re feeling that you’re not letting yourself think about.” Because if I walked around every second thinking about the fact that Trump signed more executive orders his first day in office than any other president or the fact that I had to leave my grandmother behind in a smooth wooden box in a gray cemetery, I’d go insane. 

But I still feel insane. 

I feel angry over little things that don’t matter, and I feel so exhausted and I feel terrified and I feel hateful. Shoes litter my bedroom floor like an obstacle course and my chair is piled high with half-dirty clothes. The thought of needing to go up a flight of stairs makes me dizzy. I can’t fall asleep till 2 a.m., and then I wake up in a panic from dreams where the sky is exploding. I’m perpetually behind on assignments, showering feels like a chore and every time the people in the apartment above mine are shouting and stomping on a Thursday evening I consider throwing my shoe at the ceiling so hard it cracks the plaster. If I get one more reminder that I’m behind on internship applications, I’m going to walk into the woods and never look back, which I almost did last week when I was two minutes late to my religions class and got so frustrated waiting for the elevator that I walked out of Posvar and all the way to Schenley. 

My therapist tells me to be careful that I’m not letting my mood affect others, and instead of seeing her advice as a helpful reminder, it just feels like more proof that I’m a burden on those around me. I wish that, instead, she’d tell me how to fix it. Give me a secret key to a flap on the back of my head that I can open and mess around with until I’m better. Tell me how to free myself of grief and fear. It doesn’t seem fair that I feel so constantly overwhelmed, so on edge, so stuck in my head. Am I really doing this right? Why can’t I just have one graceful crying session soothed by a pint of ice cream and a chat with friends? Why can’t I force myself to a workout class and let the power of exercise endorphins cure me? I’m drinking kombucha, so why do I still feel like garbage? 

I know I’m not the only person going through this, which is why I feel more compelled to write about it. I’m hoping that people can read this miserable rant and feel at least comforted that we’re not all as happy-go-lucky as we seem on Instagram. And I want to reiterate that it’s not a constant misery. I have moments of joy — moments of laughter and moments of gratitude. I have things to look forward to, and in the grand scheme of things, I’m extremely lucky and privileged. But lately, I’ve been carrying this heaviness that seems to be waiting for the perfect moment to strike, to flash behind my eyes and bring on a panic attack, crying fit or angry outburst. 

This terrifies me because the last time I spoke to my grandma, in the visiting area of Asbury Heights’ rehab center, she started trying to explain to us how her heart was heavy. At this point, she was in the throes of dementia, so it was a little hard to follow but disconcertingly easy to understand. She knew, as her life came to a close, that the grief, anxiety and resentment she never worked through was weighing on her. I’m terrified that I might feel the same if I’m lucky enough to make it to 92. That I’m doing all this emotional crap wrong. I don’t want to waste my life being miserable. 

But there is a difference. The difference is that I am seeking help — I’ve been going to therapy for a year and a half now. I’m trying to learn to make myself better, to love myself better. To let myself feel without judgment. To let myself be unhappy or stressed without piling on expectations to fix it. Some things can’t be fixed. I can’t just get over losing my grandmother, despite our complex relationship. I can’t just not feel anything about the state of American politics. But I must remember that this too shall pass.

As impossible as it sounds, one day I will wake up without a burst of panicky adrenaline. I will feel motivated to clean the clothes off my chair, or I will see something that bothers me without also feeling like I need to rip my skin off. I know this because I’ve been up before, just like I’ve been down before that. Such is life. But when I berate myself with constant frustration that I’m not feeling happier or more productive, I only prolong the suffering.
So no, I’m not doing this right or wrong, because neither of those terms apply here. Processing emotion, within the reasonable confines of not torturing the people around you, is not something that exists within the parameters of “good” or “bad.” Every person is different and needs different things. The beauty of living is that slowly but surely we figure out who we are and what we want, and although it’s absolutely infuriating to not be born with the natural ability to just know, we must allow ourselves to make mistakes. To take four weeks to wash our sheets, to forget an assignment, to spend too much money on takeout, to skip class and walk until you can’t feel your fingers. Because the other option is to drive ourselves insane with anger and despair, and as long as we are kind and forgiving to ourselves, we are not doomed to that fate.