The Same Monotonous Remarks
And with the usual side-stepping and speaking-in-code. Here I am, Substack Sasha. (The alliteration appeals, as it tends to.)
If I seem skittish, even evasive, to be referencing a book that is somehow about being kidnapped by fairies as an introduction to this space, please allow it. Certain images ring true for longer than even I would like; certain constants damnably point to a core and rhythmic brokenness I have had the great misfortune to possess. And so.
A red-and-white rose where her mouth ought to be, it was said of the incomprehensible Lady Pole. When Lady Pole—her dreaming self held captive by malevolent fae—tried to speak of an otherworldly prison of unceasing midnight dances and crooked trees and glittering thistledown and ever-flickering light and stars-threaded-in-one’s-hair, all her companions could hear were madness and hysteria. Which is to say: She wanted to talk of nightmares and pain and being lost and the creeping certainty that she would not be found; she wanted to let rise her fury and her hatred—but her own mouth forbade this. Which is to say: Lady Pole wanted only to speak, but the wrong words sprung from her lips. Which is to say: I wish only to be lucid.
Today, a session with my psychiatrist over Zoom. A psychiatrist I still somehow have despite having my income severely ripped to shreds by the pandemic—as, apparently, despite aggressively wanting to die too many times and making headway on that front some of the time in the red-letter year that is 2020, there remain dregs of self-preservation. (Exhibit B: My medication, in a lovely tin bearing Le Chat Noir on the lid.)
(Teletherapy appeals. No crossing this city. No trekking through the university that defined me for most of my stay there, no passing through the swimming pool that revealed neuroses I couldn’t yet explain, to reach a clearing down a hill, leaves on the ground. No long waits in the lobby of a seminary where my doctor spends part of her practice. No sneaking into the toilet to stand a head above the dividers for a panic attack. No chance of catching doctors crying, being human, me expending the emotional labor to ease them, me hating myself for not wanting to see them that way.)
A few points were made. I’d lost weight, she said, and I was noticeably drained of color. I joked about how not being able to afford meals can do that to you, plus the terror of The Outside. She nodded, her brow already forming concern and acknowledgement of severity. Other points: How unrelentingly horrible things have been, with me wondering which to blame—the assortment of ailments I carry or all the outside forces (faceless institutions) and circumstances (dire financial straits) and trauma (lost loves) I have no control over? And she told me it’s all of them, all of the above. I laughed at how quickly she responded, at how matter-of-fact her validation was. I was crying.
Other aliases: Anxiety, bipolar disorder, compulsions, executive dysfunction, dissociation, suicidal ideation. How was my mania? I said it’s hard to act on manic impulses when you’re broke, so I have to find other fixations, but the fact that certain fixations are out of my reach because of my financial state fucking chafes, and it all makes the rapid cycling between depression and mania harder and more bitter.
Other admonitions: She reasoned with me that I could ask for help, that asking for help is not another indication that I have lost control but is in fact an exercise of agency, that I need not feel small and pathetic and a burden. To ask for help is a solution. She reminded me that I am big on agency and solutions. It was a clever move, was masterfully sneaky of her to draw on our years of looking for palliatives. The logic of her argument was admirable. I told her I’d consider it.
Near the close of the session, Dr. K. made the practical suggestion, regarding the bleakness of the job search, that maybe I should look for jobs that don’t involve writing.
I made the mistake of telling people most of the above, in self-deprecating language that has become default, on Instagram Stories of all places. (Sorry.) There have been no other avenues for an admittedly unnecessary sharing of a confidence. See, I am hiding everywhere else, the usual haunts having become hostile territories. And so I have been sullying the compartmentalization: Instagram being strictly for art-making and for photos of the pets when they moonlight as paperweights. I don’t blame the people for being jarred. For their gazes turning and swiping away.
But, even I have to admit, I can’t blame myself for wanting to contextualize. And with longer sentences. A space to pause crossed wires and mixed signals, maybe even to stop invalidating myself. Clearer language. Point to an ache. Condemn it sans emojis.
And so. Here I am, Substack Sasha. The alliteration appeals, as it tends to.
Every year since I read this diary entry—there was a time that Nin’s private writing (her journals, her letters) was all that I consumed—I have pulled up that quote. It manages to be both droll and desperate, so utterly infused with feeling that it borders on shameful and trite excess. It’s stunning. It allows me, quite neatly, to wave at the miseries of the previous year, to assert a casualness I absolutely do not feel about the meaningless slide of time, and to feed my neglect in matters of Public Navel-gazing. Why bother when a better writer has taken a stab. Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick.
Perhaps a more pragmatic albeit brittle version, c/o the heroine of The Pisces—making one of the many New Year resolutions that she would eventually break, by nature or by circumstance: “You had to never get attached to any other person or expect anything to come to you, and that was how you fell in love with life and how maybe certain fun and good things could happen to you. They only happened as long as you didn’t need anything from anyone. As long as you didn’t take anything from anyone or give any part of yourself away to another person, but you just sort of met the other person in space, good things could happen. You had to fall in love with quiet first.”
A few hours ago, after reminding myself that I was solutions-oriented, I mangled Dr. K.’s advice and reached out to a friend. I referenced the conversation about asking for help. Note how I did not say: I asked for help. Despite layers of self-deprecation and a smattering of incongruent emojis for good measure, I distressed this friend with what I revealed. No, I assured them, I’m fine, it’s all good fun. I’m not asking for help, see, I’m just talking about how someone said that maybe I need to start asking for help way before I’m at breaking point yet again. I’m fine, it’s okay, I don’t need anything. I don’t need anything from anyone, and as long as I don’t take anything from anyone or give any part of myself away to another person—
And so on.
Anais so often hits the spot. Her raw artistry can feel uncomfortable but she wrote it down, got the feelings out of her head and into the world. So brave but necessary. Imagine what her Instagram account would have looked like! Take good care of yourself. You are strong.
Your words are beautiful. Thank you for your vulnerability.