notes from above ground

xxvii

What’s going on? I feel like I’m in a daze. I’m letting myself get hypnotized by the above ground. I need to snap out of it before I convince myself that any of this is good for me.

I won’t be able to help anyone else before I help myself. I need to put on my oxygen mask before I can help others with theirs. I can’t breathe yet. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that I’ll need to leave this world of putting literal oxygen masks on people in order to put on my own metaphorical one.

Will I be able to return to this above ground world once my mask is on? Will I want to? If I really wanted to, I could go back. I could make it work. And if I don’t want to, then my question is moot.

Why would I want to go back to the above ground? The fact that I asked proves that I’m being hypnotized. I need to get out, so I can be out for good.

What the hell am I doing? Why am I sitting around, looking at words, letting the world get changed by other people who also can’t breathe?

Am I going to be able to look back at this year and see it as anything other than neverending and pointless? A waste of time? The fact that it will end doesn’t take away from the fact that it felt neverending the whole time. Really, there’s no respite to be found. I wish I could figure out how to find some, but I know I won’t. And then it’s just going to end.

I was freaking myself out in class today for reasons that don’t matter. My mind started spiraling out of control out of nowhere. I didn’t feel the anxiety in my head, where you’d expect it to be, but there was a ball in my chest from which bad feelings were emanating. I could feel the stress hormones weathering my insides away.

I tried to meditate my way out of it as class went on in the background. I felt some relief as my mind took itself somewhere else, but then I felt myself start to dissociate. A fine line. I wondered if the teacher would look over and notice that my mind had traveled somewhere far away.

My classmate had brought popcorn to class, which I used to distract myself. Something to do with my hands and mouth and insides. I figured there might be some parasympathetic nervous system activation to help digest the food, presumably counterbalancing the sympathetic nerves telling my body to release the stress hormones.

Nothing really make me feel better, even though on paper it should’ve. The bad feelings continued for the rest of class, insides weathering. The lecture wasn’t going down as easily as it normally would, which caused even more bad feelings: I’m not paying attention, I’m a bad student, I’m gonna fail because I didn’t pay attention.

When class ended and we all went outside, I started to feel better. But then I remembered everything I’ll have to endure over the next few weeks and felt worse again.

I thought about the version of myself who got pushed to the brink of dropping out by nothing in particular. Dropping out makes less sense now that I’m closer to the end, but I relate to that version of me. Maybe I should’ve just dropped out then and avoided all the extra weathering.

I wonder if I’ll look back at the weird year in anger. It’s hard to imagine not being angry at all of this forever. I hope I look back in satisfaction at my perseverance, and maybe even nostalgia for the good times. All I need is a handful of nice memories that I can use to remember this year. Let the bad memories get lost and hold on to the nice ones.

It’s sinking in that the weird year will soon be a bygone era. As much as I wish every day for it to end, there may come a day when I look back on these days and feel envious of my present self.

My mentor texted me to check in on how I’m doing. “Oh, I’m fine,” I said aloud, reading his text. “I’m not mentally ill anymore. Don’t worry about me.”

You know what, wait, maybe I am mentally ill. My mini-breakdown in class today was a little mentally ill, was it not? But it’s not my fault! It’s because I’m still in this psychotic world of doctors hunched over in cubicles staring at computer screens, whispering words about strangers into a microphone. Are we really going to keep allowing “it’s their job” to excuse that kind of insane behavior?

Maybe after the weird year is over, I won’t be mentally ill anymore. Or maybe the weird year will never fully release me from its clutches. Maybe there’s permanent damage being done to my psyche as we speak.

I need to get out, but I know I have to wait. The best way out is always through. I think I saw that on a t-shirt once.