Alone

January 11th, 2023

Dear Nandini, 

I have never felt more alone than I do these days.  And I don't think I mean lonely.  I feel surrounded by people but I just don't seem to be connecting with them the way I usually do.  The hang-outs feel forced or I feel detached -- or I just feel like I'm pretending to be happy.  Everything feels like effort.  To get off the couch, out of bed, to the gym, into the shower -- it's all more effort than it's ever been.  Sleeping for at least 10 hours -- and I still wake up exhausted. Not always -- but often.

The last time I felt this way, I was 17 or 18.  I remember that being a particularly difficult time as high school was ending and we were all going off to college and the uncertainty that brought was significant.  I remember having days where I would just burst into tears at the most innocuous statement.  It's one of those things where you're feeling so much but have no idea how to articulate any of it.  You try, but you can't and then it just becomes so overwhelming.  I remember you were having a hard time back then, too, but I can't remember exactly what was going on.  I think I was too wrapped up in my own things which feels like maybe that was the first time that was true.

I remember having a hard time at school -- a hard time concentrating, sleeping, I lost my appetite.  I remember leaning on my friends but just as always that's not what I truly needed.  I mean I needed it in supplement, obviously, but what I think really helped was treatment.  The summer of 2007 rolled around and already things just started getting better and I brushed it aside.

Depression is funny in that way -- where it's one of those things you forget about when you're not.  When you're in it -- it's all you think about and the only thing that seems to matter, the thing that's heaviest.  But when you're better, you forget that it even existed somehow. So when it comes back, you're always surprised.  

So many times I had wanted to talk to you about that year because the more I think about it, the more I realize you'd probably understand.  At times, then, it's clear to me that the only person who might actually get what's going on with me -- is the one person I can never actually talk to.  I think there was a span of time when you were doing reasonably well and maybe that was my window.  I'm not sure.  Because I do remember, when we did talk, you just treated me like a kid.  And I don't think that's what I needed.

But I do remember the days when you were slow-moving.  Would say very little at the kitchen table.  Would be hard to wake from your bed. I normally could make you smile and I remember not being able to in those moments.  You cried all the time and I think I understand why -- now.  You seemed disinterested in everything -- aloof.  You seemed aimless, purposeless, hopeless maybe.  I think I get it and I wish you were still around for me to ask about these things. Or even just to say -- I get it.  I think we're more alike than I ever realized and I'm sorry I'm figuring that out now.  But it also scares me to think that we might be so similar.  It scares me to tell our parents that I might even be feeling this way.  I think this resistance to asking for help, to "making a fuss", the desire to just be an "easy kid" -- I think a lot of that came from watching you.

And the scope has changed now but I think the same things are true -- in my friendships, at work.  I never complain.  I always show up -- though that's been hard lately.  I never really ask for the things I want -- because it doesn't seem like I'm allowed to or because it seems like there are more important things for others to worry about.  No one asked me to but when I prioritize all the myriad of things going on in the world, how could I put my own above anyone else's, you know? Our focus was almost constantly on you so I never really felt like I had the space to request otherwise.  So that made me independent, self-sufficient, able to self soothe, right? But I think we can say that the way I got there maybe wasn't the healthiest.  

I wait too long to let anyone know I'm having a hard time.  I push people away who offer their concern and their help.  Why? I think I've gotten accustomed to just "handling it" but quite bad at recognizing when that's not enough. These qualities -- being patient, yielding, easy-going, maybe even passive -- might make me a good co-worker, employee, and friend but I wonder if in the long run these might actually be a detriment to me.  At times.

I wish I could've asked you before it all fell apart -- what didn't help, what did, what could've helped more.  But I guess that's for me to figure out now on my own journey.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Love, 
Nilima

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