Tag: depression

I didn’t get to finish my interview today.

I was almost done, but I foolishly knocked my Webcam and mic out of the USB drive while I was talking with my hands. My interviewers inquired for a little, asking if I was still there. I kept trying to get back, I said “yes, I’m here!” but the mic didn’t reconnect. They agreed to end the meeting.

I get my connection back, and I emailed them saying I’m back and we can resume the meeting. But they are interviewing someone else, one responds, thanks me for my time, and they will be in touch if they have more questions. I am bewildered that we are putting this important meeting to an abrupt halt. I am stunned and step away from my email and vent to my family about what happened.

After regaining my composure, I respond to the email, saying thank you for talking with me, I enjoyed the discussion, and I apologize for the dropped connection. I still want to finish the interview, as I may have answered their questions, but I still had my own questions. I had hoped we could speak again tomorrow or next week to finish. But the response I got was discouraging.

“Unfortunately, we are no longer interested perusing your application.” I’d only interviewed a half hour ago, and didn’t get my conclusion. I’d appreciate it if they at least pretended to consider my candidacy.

I don’t know if it had something to do with my screw-up in that moment or a poor reputation I may have with my former coworkers and managers. This was an educational nonprofit I worked at for three years while in college. I withdrew from my duties somewhat during my final year, but this was due to a physical change in my appearance that the children I tutored noticed, and I did not want it to attract more attention. My boss noticed my performance issues, but I did not have a confiding enough relationship with him to explain my insecurity that caused them. I went through the academic year without much worry about the job, only to be shocked the following fall that my boss replied to my email that he was not rehiring me that year due to my “repeated issues,” which, though I don’t defend my distance, it was never indicated to me at all that these would cost me the position. Later the student employment specialist had emailed me saying she had been trying to get in touch with my boss several times throughout the summer about the paperwork needed to hire me for the coming academic year and he had not returned any of her messages.

I wonder if this incomplete interview was connected at all to my former job at this place. Does my reputation stink that much? I had been trusted in my job there for most of my college experience. I had thought I was well-liked. Was I just interviewed today for quota purposes? Because I doubt much time had been given envisioning me in the role. Why would an employer not allow a candidate to finish an interview?

I just want people to give me the chance I deserve.

You are never too fortunate to ask for emotional help.

I dedicate this to anyone who thinks their wealth, health, or success negates them from seeking counsel or psychotherapy.

Maybe you live or originate in developing land. Many areas are stricken with poverty or conflict. You, however, are wealthy. You come from wealthy elders, and are able to travel, maybe even outside your origins. You are educated, and see beyond dated tradition. You may still be faithful, but added nuances like procreation, diets, lifestyle, or appearance aren’t imperative to being such. Likewise, you are still aware of the strife that surrounds you, and while you haven’t experienced it, your friends and neighbors may have had to deal with it. You are sorry for them, and do sometimes worry about this. Maybe you even had a brush of misfortune. The family business almost had to be sold, you almost had to go into foster care, you were nearly hit by an explosive, you had a pregnancy scare, you were betrothed to a wealthy, untoward acquaintance, but you were lucky and got out of it.

Still, even though it didn’t happen to you, or even though it happened to someone else near you, it still hurts. You still deserve counselling, empathy, and solace. Please don’t think you’re too rich, too wealthy, too successful, too able, or too non-marginalized for therapy. You still deserve contentedness and love.

Clouded perspectives

Prompt 106 of the Isolation Journals.

This analogy of a cloud that surrounds you during a volatile time reminds me of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The semi-autobiographical novel recounts Plath’s time being treated for a psychiatric mental collapse after an attempted overdose. Towards the end of the novel, the protagonist Esther is released from the hospital after a consultation with her psychiatrist. She likens her negative emotions to a bell jar trapped around her, a decorative accent for a mantle clock or other centerpieces. The jar traps her anxiety and depression, swirling it around her enclosure. Without the assistance of treatment and support of family and friends, she would remain imprisoned in the bell jar and lose her luster and function. The same can be said for the metaphorical clouds that prohibit us. Plath’s novel remains true today and is still insightful despite Plath’s own mental shortcomings at the end of her life.

But lord, the clouds have shifted since then. At the start of The Bell Jar, Esther is participating in a summer program in New York City as part of a fellowship for a young women’s magazine, where her poem was accepted. Esther is from Massachusetts, stays in Northampton at school and Winthrop with family, then admitted to Belmont during her hospital stay (note that some of these details are not given in the novel but inferred based on details and parallels to Plath’s own life). While much of the book is during the summer, and a typical summer would involve a lot of travel like this, this lifestyle is unachievable now. So many artist and writer residencies in elite locations like Manhattan have been cancelled, delayed, or attempted to be held remotely.

Unfortunately, the literary magazine where Plath interned, Mademoiselle, became defunct in 2001, so it’s impossible to know how they would have continued this fellowship program had they lived to see the peak of the novel coronavirus. Many Mademoiselle staff transferred to another Conde Nast imprint, Glamour, after the shutdown, but it is not as focused in literary arts like Mademoiselle was. Conde Nast hosts a few college programs, but none quite the same as Esther’s. I imagine some of their internships and fellowships are being done remotely, and it’s a good thing that a pandemic has happened at a time when remote work is more achievable. The Bell Jar is set in the 1950s, when computers, if they existed, were massive, unaffordable, and had to be shared between several business or intelligence agencies. What would the world have been like if a pandemic hit in the 1950s? I guess we could have conducted work through television, radio, newspapers, letters, phone conference calls, or fax messages (if they were around at the time). Today we have much more options.

Then there’s a buffet. Esther relishes these crabmeat stuffed avocado halves. Buffets are a great way to spread coronavirus, but I do miss them so. On vacation my family and I would eat at a few, often breakfast buffets but sometimes dinner. I can’t wait until we can attend a buffet again.

Then there is the romance. Esther goes to a bar and drinks vodka in New York, and assumes an alias of Betty Higginbotham from Chicago to annoying boys. The bars can’t operate the same way, nor can attempted flirtation.

Finally, maybe the most important aspect of the book, is the hospital stay. Plath stayed at McLean Hospital after her suicide attempt at twenty years old, but yet again, residential opportunities outside of the permanent house is risky for disease. The hospital however, does have several remote programs and research studies, but the question remains… Would they be suitable for patients in a severe collapse such as Esther’s? I guess provided clinicians check in frequently, but how would they monitor patients who may attempt to harm themselves? Esther watches an acquaintance relapse into poor psyche, and I worry for someone like that. I guess they could operate at reduced capacity since we are in Phase 3 in Massachusetts, but how can we be certain patients of the highest need are staying? Mental illness fluctuates intensely.

Evidently, the Covid-19 pandemic and the recession that has preceded it is the cloud that shrouds not just me, but the world. I pray and wish that we can have some sort of semblance of coming-of-age and reconciliation that happens in The Bell Jar. Lately, even the most mundane of vignettes in the book and others in the theme and genre of it seem like fantasies. It is very concerning that we are uncertain when they can become attainable again. How will we ever love romantically again? How will we ever progress our professional accomplishments again, and how will we celebrate them? How will we protect ourselves from our id? We can’t answer these right away. We must wait, and this is agonizing, or at least can be. We are fatigued, but we still must protect ourselves.

We must keep our minds busy and seek to find opportunities wherever and however they may appear. We must use whatever resources possible to stay connected. We must keep the faith.

With perseverance, we can fight and overcome. We will not stay clouded and jarred.

Talking in circles

Part of the Isolation Journals, Day 91.

Around and around. I think we’re in good graces again. I explain my rationale, you accept it and realize that we reason differently. Neither of us meant harm. We apologize to one another. We go on again as normal for a while, then it creeps up again. My mistake enters your conscience once more and you lash at me for it. I say sorry again, but I’m unsure if you’ve absorbed it. You still scold me. I explain again why I sinned, but you can’t grasp it. You give up, or you press me to forget you. I don’t want to. I didn’t think you did either. But this time, you blocked me.

Is this on two different social media? You viewed one profile recently, but I’m unsure if I would even know you did if I were blocked. I am too nervous to make amends. I’m too nervous to visit any of your profiles. Why would you do this when we are so far apart? You told me we would stay in touch while you moved away, but for the past month, we haven’t. You told me we’d still be in frequent contact. You told me you weren’t done with me and never would be. Why does that always change? Why do you give up so easily? Friendships are about growing, arguing and changing. But you are scared every time that happens. Debate and strife is bound to happen. Stop disowning everyone at any small vignette. Take it in stride.

I was supportive, attentive, charming, thoughtful, funny…a superstar. Now I’m terrible. I’m rude, selfish, and I let you down. I’m so tired of being one or the other and your attitude being so hot-and-cold. It’s so polar and there are too many extremes and too many mood swings. I was so relieved when I heard this criticism from a mutual friend, but really…should I have been? If you were married, you’d just get divorced. If you were an identity thief, you’d become an informant. If you were in a cult, you could quit. In so many of my other fantastical anxieties I have of new people, there was a simpler path to improvement. But your actual dark side fluctuates, and isn’t as simple as being divorced, testified, or shunned.

But I empathize. I’m no emotional extremist, but I am depressed and anxious, clinically, but not all-encompassingly so. My dark side fluctuates as well. Marilyn Monroe supposedly philosophized “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” I don’t believe you’ve seen my worst, and maybe that’s because I’m such a centrist, unlike the bipolar Marilyn. My nuanced take is, “If you can’t handle me at my worse times, you don’t deserve me at my better times.” And it’s fine if you want to retreat away from me after my worse times until you can regain the energy to see my better times. I’d love to see you again, and I know I can get even better, and you can, too. We can’t completely rid our worse selves, but we can work to weaken them. “For better or worse” is not applied to marriage vows because it’s an exclusive concept towards matrimony, but because this is often a new chapter of life for people and it must be reiterated in all we do. Please don’t give up. I dearly hope you see this.