Hey there! *Head Tilt* How are you?
When – in the span of five years – you have a very premature baby, your dad dies, and you get divorced, all while intermittently experiencing deep and worrying depression that enhances your normal anxiety, you learn a lot about the “head-tilt hello”.
You know, that sort of hello that comes with a modulated voice and tilt of the head that is meant to express concern, but frequently just means, “I am acknowledging my awareness of your situation without actually bringing it up.”
A lot of people resent the head-tilt hello.
I find it inviting. If you give me the head tilt, you’d better be ready for the answer.
Still, I tried not to saddle unsuspecting people with the full catastrophe of the wholeness of my life. I gave a slightly dismissive, “okay… shrug” A word and gesture that said a thousand other words. Or at least a dozen.
“I’m okay… in that I am alive and nobody has died or almost died since that last time not so long ago.”
The pitch of my voice rose slightly at the end of “okay,” which was definitely spelled with four letters and not two. It was my way of saying, “Actually, I’m falling apart at the seams and I don’t want to lie, but I think you probably aren’t really asking for the truth, exactly.”
When things were really bad – by which I mean, hurting myself and having OCD thoughts of suicide – I maybe gave an “I’m ok… things are just hard right now, but I’m surviving. How are you?!” Again, my voice rose an octave as I talked as if to prove that things were looking up, followed by a deep sigh to say, “even if everything sort of sucks right now.”. I always tried to imply optimism without giving the impression that I was even orbiting the world of “good.”
I wish that we, as a society, had a better way of differentiating water cooler greetings from those that are meant to invite actual vulnerability. Most of us want to be polite and come across as caring, but none of us have endless time to get “into it” with everyone else every single time.
But frequently, when I ask you how you’re doing, I want to know. I wish there was a way to know which invitation another person is presenting. I wish there was a better way for us to say, “everything really sucks right now, and here is why,” without being perceived as whiny or oversharing. I wish there was a better way for me to express my interest in your answer, without sounding like I’m prying.
Six months into the pandemic and still nobody seems to know exactly how to answer the “head-tilt how are you,” yet we keep asking it.
Saying, “Good! How are you?” Seems disingenuous.
I feel like I should be depressed. I don’t mean that as though I have some obligation to be depressed, or that it is a state of mind I wish to occupy. It’s just that I hold some amount of certainty that left up to its own chemical devices, I would be very, very depressed right now. Wellbutrin and Prozac feel like a pair of benevolent puppet masters.
It’s a weird feeling. Not unfamiliar at this point, but sharper and clearer than usual. It feels like a game of tug-of-war between my brain and the medications that are propping it up, Weekend at Bernie’s style.
It feels like there is nothing standing between me and the abyss other than these two pills, taken daily. It’s leaning against a railing on a cliff and knowing that if it failed, you’d fall. A feeling of anticipation of something that hopefully won’t happen. But the void hates that railing. It feels like it actively works against me. My brain feels like it is straining to lean just a bit too far over the railing. Or maybe like the abyss is trying to swallow us all a little.
It feels artificial, I guess. But at the same time, I am so grateful for the help.
We are six months in and I’ve not been sure how to write about it. I wonder if it’s the lack of depression or the Prozac or the Wellbutrin or just life in general that has made it difficult to write. This was happening even before the pandemic, so it’s not that. Or not just that, at least. Sometimes I wonder if the same things that calm my brain to make it through the day are also dulling that kinetic writing energy that I used to have. There’s no flow to it. I don’t feel funny anymore. I’m keeping you all interested with Schitts Creek gifs. It’s like I can’t wrap my brain around the right words to type, even if I can feel the feeling of the words swirling around my brain.
It is so frustrating
Writing from inside the moment, from a space squarely inside the trauma du jour has always been my stoneless glasshouse. I excel at writing from the inside, looking out.
But it’s different when everyone else is crammed in the house with me. Also, can you put on a mask while you’re in here?
The thing that other people tend to like about my writing is the feeling of connection to another person about something they either thought they were experiencing alone or could not put into words. And that’s one of the things I love about writing (when I stop and let that sort of feeling rise above the self-deprecation).
But maybe one of the reasons I like that is that it makes me feel special. Even if the content is difficult, and despite the fact that I truly love the idea of helping people, it also makes me feel special to be able to. Wanted. Needed. Important. That I matter. Etc.
But suddenly nobody is special and we all are. Which, is really the all-the-time truth. But now I’m having to deal with that within the confines of this dumpster fire of a year.
I want to write, but it all seems generic right now. It all feels so overly-experienced that I can’t possibly bring anything new into the conversation. And if I can’t do that, then why am I writing?
I think I’m supposed to love the “we are all in it together” aspect of this. It’s supposed to be the one soothing balm of this horrible year. And in a lot of ways, it is, yet I still find myself thinking nobody else understands. Then I berate myself because, of course, a lot of people understand. I worry that I’m trying to make myself somehow special in my pain. Not to say I think I’m aggressively self-centered or selfish — I am happy and willing to hold space for my friends or listen to their own special pain. But that’s a lot harder to do when we are all in the same storm, even if not in the same boat.
So, we’re all in this together.
And can we agree it fucking sucks? I think different parts suck differently depending on your life, but some of it sucks for everyone.
So. That’s how I am.
Head tilt
How are you?
