by Samuel Kirk
Every time it happens I’m conflicted. The situation is always the same, say for a few minor details, but the overarching story is one that gets repeated time and time again. Sitting in class, eating at a restaurant, overhearing a conversation on the bus, each and every time the same dialogue goes through my mind. Do I speak up? Is it really worth it to share my view? How much of an impact can one conversation make? Each and every time, it ends the same way.
Every time, it’s just a passing comment. Casual uses of increasingly common words and phrases. There’s no malintent in any of it, at least none that I can pick up on. To call them naïve would be untrue, they aren’t inexperienced or lacking judgment, simply using a language the way they were taught to use it. There’s simply a gap between what they’ve gone through and what I myself have experienced. I never hold it against them. After all, no one should be held accountable for something they themselves don’t know.
Every time, I find myself contemplating the validity of my feelings. Do I have the right to feel this upset? Maybe I am just being too soft. Words can’t hurt me. Words shouldn’t hurt me. Yet it never fails to make me relive the pain I went through. But everyone else has gone through something similar, it’s just life, right? Part of being human is having those shared emotions, those shared feelings. It’s what allows us to connect with each other and is part of the reason we are social beings.
Every time, I relive the pain. My brain creates a slide projector filled with my worst experiences and projects them on to my consciousness. Snapshots of my life, whirring around my mind, relentlessly forcing me to recall all the stress, all the aches, all the unpleasant memories I shoved deep into my psyche. Memories of days where I was paralyzed because of my own thoughts. Days where I didn’t leave bed, too afraid to face the world outside and the horrors I had dreamed up. Days where being asleep was the only time I felt alive. Times where talking to those I love became a chore. Times where seeing another person meant another round of faking a smile.
I’m reminded of the look on my mom’s face when she asks why I look so exhausted. The look on my dad’s face when he has to come home from work early because my brothers aren’t able to calm me down. I feel that endless void in my gut again, eating away at any joy I had left in my life. I feel the same darkness I felt all those years ago, reemerging to haunt me wherever I go.
Every time it happens, it’s the same scenario.
“I have really bad anxiety, I get nervous before tests.”
Every time it happens, it’s the same set of phrases.
“I’m super depressed, some days I just need my coffee or I know it’s gonna be a bad day.”
Every time it happens, I’m conflicted. “I’m so OCD, I check my phone every five minutes to see if there’s a new notification.”
Because every time it happens, I know that in a way this is what I wanted all along. When I was curled up in my bed, fighting off the demons in my mind, the only thing I wanted was someone to talk to. I didn’t want it to be abnormal to talk about. I didn’t want my life experiences to be a taboo topic. Now I don’t know what I find more infuriating, not being able to use the words I need, or having those words used so much they’ve lost meaning.
Because every time it happens, I want to make the distinction. I know what they mean, that they feel anxious before tests. That they’ve been feeling depressed recently. That they compulsively check their phone. All of these are universal feelings, and I know that. Having anxiety, having depression, and having OCD are not. It’s a small detail, but it’s one that always sends me down this same thought cycle every time.
Because every time they use the mental illness in place of the emotion, it invalidates my experiences more. The words few words I have to accurately describe what I went through slowly have their connotation changed to something with less power and is ultimately removed from what I experienced. These words no longer carry the same weight I need them to. The same tension that they should. Slowly they become synonyms for worried, sad, and excessive, rather than the words I needed when I was in my darkest place.
Every time it happens, the outcome is the same. The slide projector runs out of pictures to show, and I’m snapped back into reality.
Every time it happens, I say the same thing: nothing. Because those same thoughts that tortured me have come back, and this time they convince me not to speak my mind. Who wants to hear what I have to say anyways.