Sonder: Youth Mental Health Stories of Struggle & Strength | Page 90

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
A Mental Health Manifesto
by Ty
When I’m depressed, Tumblr likes to tell me that I’m not my
mental illness. When I’m dysphoric, my best friend reminds me
that I’m not my body. When I’m overwhelmed by anxiety, my
therapist assures me that I’m not my thoughts or feelings.
But if you strip all of that away, what’s left?
I’d like to say that I’m not my depression or dysphoria or
anxiety. I’d like to say that I’m not my disassociation or my
abandonment. I’d like to say that I don’t flinch when people tap
me or have panic attacks for no reason.
But I do. And I am.
I am also so so many other things. I make art. I put hot sauce in
my mac and cheese and listen to ‘60s French Pop. I like climbing
fourteeners and have a wicked affinity for button ups. I know
how to play the ukulele, and I love podcasts. I am many colors of
fucked up; I am the sun and all its fire; I am a living dichotomy.
“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and
the same time,” Sylvia Plath famously wrote in The Bell Jar,
“then I’m neurotic as hell.”
I’ll one up you, Plath. Not only do I often want two mutually
exclusive things, but I am them.
I am both happy and sad. Sometimes, I want to see my friends
but can’t make the effort to communicate. My anxiety makes
me care too much and my depression makes me apathetic. I
am a perfectionist, but I also constantly want to give up. I stay
awake worrying about school and then am too tired to do any
classwork. I want to do everything. I want to do nothing. I am
the good, the bad, and the ugly all in one human being.
88  Resilience