I never expected to live this long.
Though memories of childhood and adolescence are hazy at best and gone at worst, I know that I did not envision a life for myself past college. I could not fathom it. What it might look like. Who I might be, what I might do. My biggest heroes were dead artists, and most of them had gone gentle into that good night before people noticed their work. I used to joke that the best career move would be to die. I don’t make that joke much anymore.
A few days ago, I cried into my fiancé’s chest at 3am, clutching his shirt with panicked hands. Caught breath, ugly-sobbing, asking if I was a bad person, that’s my secret isn’t it, I do my best but really I’m no good at all, right? It doesn’t matter that I try because it isn’t enough to try. I am a bad person, right? right? He reassured me that I am good in my heart. That I will be okay.
That the demons in my chaotic, chemically fucked brain will not always win.
Hard words like “always” and “never” as they relate to mental health are cause for pause. But I struggle with that. When I’m still awake at 4am, riddled with thoughts of my past, traumatic memories and imagined horrors flooding my brain, it is so hard to remember that moments, days, weeks, months like that do not last forever.
I have thoughts which are considered suicidal ideation. No fixed plan, but a feeling in my chest that is both painfully tight and hollow that I would be better off dead. But when I interrogate that thought, all I want is relief. Peace. A quieting of my storm-tossed ocean. If I die by my own hand, I will not know the taste of peace.
We romanticize mental illness in the world of artists. Hurting people create beautiful things. That romanticization tells us artists are like little birds: free but fragile. Lovely but not long for this world. There and gone again.
But mental illness is not romantic. It does not have a soft, muted filter. It is raw and ugly and painful and yes, good art does come from these things, but we must not gloss over the very real lives of our artists. I am exhausted by posts on social media with well-meaning links to suicide hotlines. I am tired of a tossed aside “I’m here if you need to talk. No matter who you are.” Are you? Are you really? Because some days, I don’t “got this” and that’s how it is. See my broken days. See my bad days. They are part of me. And so too they are part of my art.
Mental illness is fucking hard. I haven’t written anything new for months. Whenever I pick up my pen and notebook or laptop — I freeze. My stomach falls. Thoughts that I thought I’d buried crawl up my spine, up my neck, down my throat. I am suffocated and stalled with abject terror. I am not good enough, these thoughts say. Worse: I will never be good enough. If I was good enough, wouldn’t I have written something worth writing by now? These thoughts ring like a tinny bell in my ears: I am not good enough and it is foolish to try.
But that’s not true.
I am here to remind you that healing is non-linear. It follows no path. There is try. Fail and fail again until you fail up. Fail your best.
Creating is the same. I know that some can easily exorcise their demons onto the page with no problem. Some others can do it but have to force themselves to find that rhythm. But sometimes those people are not you. Just like healing, creation is non-linear. A year of solid creating of art followed by an empty lull you don’t understand and hate so desperately will be followed by a day you find yourself in the right place again.
This is a reminder for my self and for you to keep on trying and failing and trying again because you have gotten through every day of your life so far.
Be gentle with your spirit. I’ll try if you will.
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