Ep. 6 Both Sisyphus and Zeus can fuck right off

Dear Ana,

I feel as empty as a prostitute after her third abortion. You run from people while I chase them, yet we still feel the same nothingness as it rests in a cage of anxiety. A blue sky shifts a breath on the horizon and for a quick second, the fog is lifted: I want to live, not just survive.

There’s no easy way to do this, Ana. You build it up and then it gets torn down. That’s how it works. I’ve been falling and picking myself back up, again and again, since 2018. It’s been forever since I’ve had a day of guilt free fun or a day without a self hating motivation which feels like on the edge of burnout. I’ve been coercing myself into doing fewer lines and having pints of water between shots of vodka. I’ve been bashing my head against the absurdity of chasing my dreams, doing mental fuckin’ acrobatics to frame them in a way which might make ’em feasible. I’ve spent months barely having any fun and hating myself for the little respite I had from hating myself…. Aaaaaaand I’ve spent months in which all I did was have fun so I could drown out the voices that kept reminding me that I hate myself.

It’s a mess. You’re a mess. I’m a mess. We build it back up and it gets torn down again. A Sisyphean loop that has it’s existence known only to a true connoisseur of misery. Call it depression or general anxiety disorder, call it a traumatic childhood or BPD. Label it whichever way you fuckin’ want but the truth of the matter is that we run scared whenever a burst of motivation shows itself. It’s just another opportunity to be squandered, just another chance to build something and watch it be dismantled by whatever the fuck is wrong with us.

But I’ve come to realize that it’s not as simple as a false start or a day when you feel better and get some shit done. I’ve built habits which look more like life-rafts, something to hold onto whenever it seems like I might sink in this sea of shit. Gi’me a moment so I can gather my thoughts and put this thing into words which get through to you .

It feels like we’ve been having the same conversations for a lifetime, Ana. Running the same circles and narrating them to the same conclusion: We somehow trudge through these episodes of pain, completely disconnected from reality, until one day we suddenly feel better. We start building, making some order from the chaos, brick by fuckin brick, so there’s some sense of stability in our lives. A few days pass and we feel better and better. Plans are made and things are cleaned. Showers are taken and dumbbells are lifted. Messages are answered and the present becomes less and less terrible.

But then something triggers us or we just run out of fuel. Whichever it might be, the conclusion is the same: The bricks shatter under the weight of stability and the gods laugh at us as we jump from one fire to the next doing our best to put them out. But our bucket holds only anxiety, and regrets, and though I ain’t a pragmatic guy, even I know that you sure as shit won’t put out the flames by pouring shame and fear over ‘em.

Back to bed again, back to the confines of our depraved mind again… But this time we have an added bonus of self-hate and shame, compliments of having watched ourselves fuck everything up once more. So all the good that was done, in that short time, is gone once more. Back to basics until the next burst of motivation. Back to living this muffled world of depression and hopelessness.

You don’t need to isolate yourself from the world, Ana. You don’t need to resign yourself to this affliction. I know that words don’t help right now, I know that there’s nothing anybody can do to ease the pain…

But when the next few days of clarity show themselves, and they will, you can build something that can keep you alive, something that keeps you going in this, seemingly, perpetual war. I’ve built habits which look more like life-rafts, something to hold onto whenever it seems like I might sink in this sea of shit. That’s what I’ve been doing with my days of clarity. Habits that might seem ridiculous to normal people but they are reminders, symbols even, that I’M NOT FUCKING GIVING UP. Habits so small that I can keep at them even when crippled by what I am.

Whether it’s reading a page every day, asking my folks how they’re doing daily, taking a cold shower as soon as I wake up, they work. I don’t take an ice shower every day, soon as I open my eyes, because some meathead in a black shirt said it’s good for my health. I’m doing it because it’s something hard to do yet relatively simple. It’s something that makes me feel like less of a flaky bitch and more like somebody who can do something difficult every day. It’s such a small habit but for me it’s a symbol of fighting, of not giving up. So even when I have these weeks, during which I walk my existence in a haze of sadness, there’s one thing, in the back of my mind, that’s like: “I’m not done yet. I’m not completely defeated by this thing.”

That’s what I want you to find, Ana. Find the one, small thing that you can do daily. The thing that reminds you, no matter how ridiculous, that you are a warrior. That you’re still in this fight. Something that can survive the weeks of despair and whispers in your head: “I am a fighter.”