Trigger warning: This article discusses depression and suicide. If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Re-enrolling at Southwestern this spring was supposed to jump-start my life.
I spent the last couple years barely leaving my room after a long and emotionally complicated Fall 2017 left my spirit broken, and for the first time in a long time I was moving forward.
I rejoined The Sun because it was the place that helped me find myself years ago when I was coming out of another major depression. I was doing well in Spanish. I loved every second of my drone piloting class, both because it was fun and because it seemed like the best path to a job that would pay me enough to move out of my parents’ house and start paying off medical debts.
Now campus is closed, the governor issued a stay-at-home order and I’m stuck again.
Social distancing and self-isolation are supposed to be for the best. People can be infected for up to two weeks before showing symptoms, and asymptomatic carriers can transmit the virus. We have to “flatten the curve” to prevent our healthcare system from being overwhelmed. I’m young enough that I’m not terribly worried about catching it, but I live with my 60-something-year-old parents so I don’t want to bring it home to them. I get it.
But none of that changes the fact that I signed up for class at 8:35 a.m. every day, even Fridays, in a radical shift designed to end my self-imposed exile.
So when Southwestern closed its campuses and switched instruction to the online classes I actively avoided, I was in despair.
I know I’m not the only one feeling rudderless.
I have friends who also have depression. I have friends who have bipolar disorder. Friends with anxiety. Friends who are worried sick about immuno-compromised family members. Friends who share self-deprecating memes about how social distancing hasn’t affected their lonely lifestyle. Some of them aren’t really joking.
But the truth is, the only thing keeping me at home these last couple years was myself. And even if I am stuck for the next month or two, I don’t have to keep repeating the same mistakes. I can change.
Time management
The lists of mental health tips available online have some common threads, and they mirror the lessons I’ve learned bouncing in and out of therapy for most of my life.
My main focus is going to be on keeping a consistent schedule. Not only does that tip appear in almost every article I’ve found about mental health and isolation, I know from my own experience that it works. When I get up early enough to make eggs for breakfast, my whole day is better. I eat a healthier lunch. I snack less because I started off the day right and I don’t want to cancel out that progress.
Keeping a schedule could also have long-term benefits, according to Dr. Aarti Gupta of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
“Not only will sticking to your normal routine keep you active and less likely to spiral, it will be easier to readjust to the outside world when it’s time to get back to work,” she wrote in an article for the ADAA.
Figuring out how to spend my time is going to be difficult. I don’t know how any of my classes are going to be handled moving forward. I don’t know if we’re going to be given assignments to be turned in by the end of the week or if we’re going to use Zoom during regular class time.
But if my alarm is set for 7 a.m. every weekday like it was before campus closed, I’ll know what time I have to wake up. If I decide Mondays are my homework day and I stick to that, I don’t have to worry about whether I have enough time to finish my assignments at 11:32 p.m. on Saturday.
Time management has always been my struggle with online classes. There’s always time to do it later – until there isn’t.
And that’s something only I can control.
Staying connected
The biggest difference between being home the last two weeks and the last two years has been how hard I’ve tried to stay connected with people.
Before I went back to school, I felt like a burden. I didn’t want to talk to anyone because I didn’t have anything to add to the conversation. I stopped giving my opinion. I didn’t crack jokes. I only talked to a couple of people, and even then we rarely talked about anything of substance.
I even hid myself from my family. I’d go weeks without talking to my parents and brothers, aside from a quick “thanks for dinner” when I grab my plate and head back to my room. I still rarely talk to my aunts or my grandma.
So I’ve tried doing it differently. I’ve been making an effort to have lunch with my mom, who’s been working from home. I make plans to play video games with friends, and instead of getting competitive and sucked into the game like I used to, I try to talk about the virus, sports, women or whatever else is on my mind.
And that’s exactly what The American Psychological Association suggests.
“If you’re feeling sad or anxious, use these conversations as an opportunity to discuss your experience and associated emotions. Reach out to those you know who are in a similar situation,” says the APA’s social distancing page.
I’ve reached out to a few friends I haven’t talked to in a while, too. Even though the conversations are usually short, they help me feel less isolated. When they ask me how I’m doing, I try to be honest instead of just saying, “I’m fine.”
Because I’m not fine. I haven’t been in a long time.
I’m getting there, though.
I know I can do it
I’ve made significant lifestyle changes in the last few years, and all I have to do to be successful while social distancing is make a few more.
I haven’t drank alcohol in more than two years, and before that rough night it had been a year and a half. Of course, it’s easier to avoid drinking when all I have to do is look at the constant reminder of wasted opportunities etched into my left hand by a Brazillian surgeon after I broke it punching a brick wall in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
I weighed in at 249 lbs. on Monday, almost two years to the day after the police weighed me at 322 lbs. the night I was arrested for taking a swing at them. The night they tazed me after they were called to save me from myself. The night my brother used everything he learned as a former collegiate wrestler to pin me to the floor and stop me from slashing my own throat.
I spent a week in jail after that, most of it on suicide watch.
I still remember vivid details like how the arresting officer bumped Backstreet Boys in the squad car. I remember how itchy the smocks were, and how degrading it was to not be trusted with clocks or clothes because we might break the glass or fashion an orange noose. I remember trying to calculate the time by counting every time the CSI:Miami theme carried across the hall from what I assume was the guards’ office, trying to remember if episodes were 30 minutes or an hour and how many episodes ago they brought dinner.
But most of all, I remember being ready for life behind bars. It really wasn’t all that different from my depressed life at home. My room isn’t much bigger than a cell, I just had to share it like I did as a kid. We would’ve had limited time outside, but I rarely went outside at home anyway. I wasn’t scared of any potential violence because I’m a big, angry man who knows how to fight. If anything, I was relieved to finally be in a situation where my intermittent explosive disorder could be useful.
I am lucky. I have resources most people don’t. I have a family who paid for a good lawyer I didn’t ask for or want. A family who could afford the therapy that led to dropped charges. A family who could afford to house me and feed me when they were unsure if I would do it myself.
Going back to school this spring helped me feel worthwhile again. I had a place to be and things to do. I wasn’t wasting these resources anymore, I was using them to improve my life so eventually I can help others.
So I won’t waste them now.
When campus closed, I basically shut down for a week-and-a-half — briefly resurfacing every now and then to work for The Sun. I missed some assignments for my Spanish class, but I’ve recovered from worse.
I know what I have to do. I’ve been trying. I’ve been making myself busy fixing my drywall, bleeding the brakes on my motorcycle and cooking dinner for the family. Every chore I do makes me feel accomplished, and when I feel accomplished I remember what hope feels like.
So even though I can’t go to campus, I still have class. I still have homework. I still get to learn.
I just have to remember the semester isn’t over.
Life isn’t over, either.
