Socially Obsessed

Around March/April of this year, I vowed to myself that I was going to take a social media break for the summer. My main focus was deleting Snapchat and Instagram and I think for the month of July I’m going to get rid of TikTok too.

The reason I wanted to forgo any social media for the summer was mostly because I felt burnt out from it. It sounds stupid and for anyone who looks down on Gen Z as internet-obsessed nothing I’m about to say is going to help that, but I was addicted to my phone and the social version of myself that I curated online. Every day I felt FOMO when I didn’t check on everyone’s profile every few minutes or I based my days around waiting for people to respond to me and once I took a step back and processed that, I felt pathetic.

Why was I allowing the likes on a photo or the number of messages I got every day or how many people watched my story to dictate my happiness? And even further, why was I allowing other people’s internet presence to affect what I thought and what I did?

I wanted to take a step away from the constant flood of information and oversharing and happy faces to reconnect with myself and who I was. I know that I’ve become more secure in myself these past few years but I know there is more room to grow in my confidence so why would I stunt that opportunity for growth?

I will admit that the first week was rough. I felt like I needed to let everyone know what I was doing and thinking and I needed to make sure I was on top of everything going on, but now I don't really miss any of it at all. I don’t miss thinking about who was going to see my story or who was going to like my post first. I don’t miss trying to get the best angle on a photo to impress other people. I don’t miss the constant anxiety that came from thinking about what I was “missing.” Because at the end of the day, there is so much more to life than the digital persona you create.

I probably sound like a pretentious idiot who thinks they're “too good” for Instagram, but I know that once my hiatus is over I’m going to use it again. It’s not about getting rid of it all forever, it’s about creating a healthy relationship with it and allowing myself to feel confident because I feel confident and not because someone else allows me to be.

If you can take a social media break, try to do it for a month and I promise you’ll be better off for it. Especially if you were glued to your phone like I was.

Why I Fear Being Pregnant

tw: mental illness, abortion, suicide, eating disorders

“Treating pregnant women with bipolar disorder is among the most challenging clinical endeavors.”

I was doing some research to write this piece because I knew that if I were to get pregnant I would be facing 9 months of hell, but that statement, “Treating pregnant women with bipolar disorder is among the most challenging clinical endeavors,” cut like a knife into me.

I have been adamant about not wanting children since I was at least 14. Every time someone asked me about it or the topic was brought up in conversation—which is odd that topic would even be prompted to a minor—I gave one of various reasons I had. One of the first reasons I started to hate the idea of giving birth was that childbirth itself terrified me. I read somewhere when I was younger about the mortality rate of pregnant women and felt petrified with fear. That was merely the beginning of a long list of reasons why I do not want to be a mother.

I am mentally ill and I don’t want to give birth to a child knowing they could go through what I have gone through. And I don’t care about the argument around, “well if you went through it too then you can better help your child,” because I can barely keep myself together despite all of the progress I’ve made, so why would I willingly put someone into a position where I cannot sanely take care of them and provide them the proper support that doesn’t traumatize and scar them? Not to mention that women with bipolar—and women with other mental disorders as well—are often required to go off their meds during pregnancy. There have been weeks where I have gone off my meds and I have wanted nothing more than to kill myself so how does one expect me to go 9 months without them?

Women with bipolar face more risk in postpartum than women without it. I would be more at risk to fall into a psychotic episode or mania or have a more intense relapse. Even if I did fine during the 9 months I carried a child, I would not be able to be a competent mother to that child.

Not to mention the physical toll pregnancy takes on your body. As someone who has struggled with body image and eating disorders for the majority of my life, I cannot imagine how I would feel after giving birth to a child. I can’t imagine how any mother who has struggled with accepting themselves feels after giving birth.

These are just some of the reasons I do not want to get pregnant and have a chili and these are just a fraction of the reasons millions of other women do not want children. The overturning of Roe v Wade specifically hurts disabled women, poor women, minority women, and mentally ill women.

I urge you to take action if you are able to and speak up. It shouldn’t be anyone else’s business what you do with your own body. It shouldn’t be up to anyone besides you what you do. Abortion restrictions don’t make abortion disappear, they simply make them less regulated and more dangerous for women.

If you can, use this link https://abortionfunds.org/funds/ to donate. We are watching our rights be stripped away as we speak so we need to take action now.

Catholic Guilt on the Road

Nothing sums up my religious experience more than when I was on a roadtrip with my parents to Flagstaff and I cried for half of the ride.

My dad introduced me to Broadway and all of the best songs and shows and we loved to sing along to our favorites on long car rides. Music was a way for us to connect and I loved it. But when I was around 8 or 9 I started to become more aware of my faith and I was becoming an “adult” in the church’s eyes. This meant more intense lessons on my religion and more gloom and doom teachings.

I started to become scared of ever thinking or saying a bad thought about God and my faith. Every time I had a doubtful thought or a negative one, it spiraled me into a panic attack filled with fear of going to hell. It didn’t help that my OCD symptoms, at the time, were growing in intensity and starting to drastically affect my life. But I took the premise of the gift of “fear of the Lord” a little too far.

On this road trip my dad and I were singing Les Mis and the line “Jesus doesn’t care” from the opening song sent me into a downward spiral. I started to cry and pray and beg God for forgiveness because somehow in my child mind I was convinced that my dad singing this lyric meant eternal damnation.

I can’t imagine what 8 year old me would think now about what I’ve heard or done or said, but I know that it would cause an unhealthy amount of fear within me. I spent so much of my childhood scared of my faith and thinking anything different than what I was exactly taught and that takes a toll on anyone, not to mention a child.

I think that one of my biggest issues with the church is this idea that you are not allowed to question and to doubt. Yes everyone preaches that doubt is okay and you should always question but at the end of the day they only accept the kind of questions that can be nodded off with a superficial answer and hope that you won’t pry for more.

The Good Side of Nihilism

I could have a solid retirement fund if I had a dollar for every time I questioned what I publish on this site. One of the things that I have increasingly become more aware of is how I am perceived by others. Before 2019 I was very reserved in talking about myself and what I did and who I was. I felt the need to construct the “ideal me” and only present that facade to everyone and anyone I met. However after the pandemic took its toll and I crawled my way through high school, I became a borderline nihilistic cynic—my mother’s words not mine.

And while there is certainly a negative side to always seeking the worst in the world and constantly contemplating whether life is even worth it at the end of the day, there is also a slight beauty to it. After a certain amount of time the terrifying idea of “nothing matters” turns into a freeing life motto. There are certainly better ways to come to this realization than sending yourself down a somewhat neverending downward spiral, but that is how I came to this place. A place of contentment and a kind of unsettling peace—but peace nonetheless.

Nothing matters UNLESS you fuck up so tremendously bad that you ruin the rest of your or someone else’s life (and newsflash this doesn’t mean failing a class or losing out on a job. I’m talking about like murder and stuff like that). At the end of the day, you are only one person and any mistakes you make or anything pitfalls you succumb to isn’t going to matter in the long run as long as you make a conscious effort to fix it, atone for it, move past it, or even just forget about it. This isn’t to say that you can’t make an impact as one person or that the good things you offer the world are meaningless—well for the most part yeah—it just means that overthinking is an unforgiving poison and it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself of that sometimes.

I will admit that at the beginning of this newfound—for me—idea, I found it a little discouraging. What do you mean nothing matters? I have always worked hard and constantly strive to do my best and create things that leave the world better off, and now I’m realizing that none of it matters? And yes, this is probably something you’re thinking about right now, whether or not you should even bother trying because what if nothing you do ever matters. And I’m here to say, in my “profound” not-professional about-to-be college-sophomore opinion, there is some truth to that but there is also so much more.

There is so much more to doing good work and working hard and trying to do your best than just what you produce. By relieving a bit of the materialistic and existential pressure that we all put on ourselves to one degree or another, then we can in turn make better stuff. I can’t even count how many times my own head has prevented me from jumping into something I am interested in or want to try and all of those times are missed opportunities for change and for growth. If I had just taken a moment to remind myself that it’s perfectly fine if I mess up because there are more days and more opportunities and more people and whatever, then I probably have a lot more things to show off.

So back to me, overthinking nine out of ten things I publish here. I have spent so much time afraid of being vulnerable and open and honest because I was scared that people would judge me and laugh and criticize me for it, but the more I write and tell stories and meet people I realize that the only real reason I was afraid was that no one else around me was doing it. Coming to that conclusion made me promise myself that I would be that voice in every space I enter in order to make anyone and everyone else feel a little more welcome and a little more comfortable.

Am I still worried about how spilling every little detail of my life and how I think and feel will affect the way people view me? Yes, but I know that there is at least one other person somewhere who might come across something I’ve written one day and gain a little more confidence in themselves and that is all I hope for.

No I Didn't Want to Stay In-State

If you’ve known me for a while then you know that one of my main goals for life is to leave Arizona and plant roots on the East Coast. As much as I love my hometown, I want to leave its confines and let it be “my hometown.” So, when college admissions season ran me over and left me for dead, there was an atmosphere of disappointment and apathy that covered the excitement and anticipation of college.

To be completely honest, I hated the fact that I was staying in state. I felt dejected and like I had failed myself in a way. I told everyone around me for years and years that I was going to the East Coast, that I was going to get out of Arizona and yet here I was attending a state school roughly 20 minutes away from home. It was the lesser of the three evils, my options at the end of the day were: Tucson, Phoenix, or Tempe, and only one of those places didn't make me want to cry.

I know it sounds like I’m being dramatic and I am, but there’s something sobering about settling for staying in-state that makes you feel kind of sad when you think about it too much. Most people assume I wanted to stay in-state, because if I didn’t then why was I here. I hate having to tell them that Arizona was the last place I wanted to be and I held a bit of resentment towards it. I hate the fact that I don’t get to have the same kind of “first time” experience that everyone else gets to have in college. Yes it’s all new but at the same time it’s all the same.

The restaurants, the weather, the scenery, the people, it’s all the same, even being in a different city, it’s only 30 minutes away. This is such a champagne problem and I’m aware of that, the fact that I even get to experience college and a higher education in any capacity should be enough for me. And I feel guilty that it isn’t.

I feel guilty for the fact that I wish I could transfer to somewhere new, but the thought of having to do the first year all over again makes me cringe. I don’t want to have to experience all of the lonliness and isolation that came with my first year no matter how much fun I’ve had. I hate that I want to leave because no matter how shitty I feel at times, I am also living my best life.

But I can’t look back now and start to feel regret for a time I’m living through now. I am making the best of my situation and I am doing well considering everything at hand, so while no, I didn’t want to stay in-state, I am okay that I am in-state.

My Dear Old Friend: Burnout

My new favorite item on my to-do list is simply: “ALL OF THE EXTRA CREDIT BECAUSE FOR SOME GOD FORSAKEN REASON YOU DECIDED THAT “just passing” WAS ENOUGH…NEWS FLASH IT’S NOT”

It speaks for itself and doesn’t really need any additional context but I’m gonna provide it anyways. I constantly joked before coming to college that “C’s get degrees” and that was the bar I was going to hold myself to instead of the absurdly high one I had set previously. Then I realized that I rely way too much on academic validation to ever do that. And then I ignored the well-thought advice of my peers, family, and therapist and have dug myself into a burnout cave where I simply am hanging on by a hair.

It’s funny how little I understand when it comes to time management. I don’t think I’ve ever said “wow I’m balancing really well” and was executing a time management schedule that wasn't unhealthy. Sure I thought I was the peak of balance, but in reality I was just too sleep-deprived and caffeine ridden to realize I was crashing and burning at a rate that cannot be viable.

I’ve convinced myself that being able to put everything into a calendar and show up to things on time are the only two qualifications one needs in order to be good at a work/life balance. Who cares if all I’ve consumed today is one can of RedBull and the lukewarm remnants of yesterday’s iced coffee, I successfully made the 20 minute drive between meeting #1 and meeting #2 of the day in under 15 minutes. Gold star.

As I typed that out I now realize how I sound to all of my friends and all of the dots are now connecting. They are all justified in their criticisms and I am simply incapable of being self-aware.

Anyways, I have finally come to the light realization of this fact and am now struggling to recover from the absolute dumpster fire I have created for myself. Since the beginning of this semester I have been completely blacked out, not in an alcoholic sense, in a I have no idea what I‘ve been doing with my time sense. In years prior, when I would feel the creep of burnout coming I would simply go into autopilot mode and just vibe on cruise control until I was able to stop crying and think my version of rationally. This time I reverted back to default mode, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Something hit my ‘reset’ button and now I’m aimlessly doing stuff in hopes something will activate me.

And something did.

Instead of the regular amount of stress and fear of failure that used to jolt me back to reality, a wave 10x that has washed upon the shores of my consciousness and now I am trying not to drown in my own whirlpool of anxiety. I am so looking forward to the summer and next year as I have adequately (I hope at least) planned out my schedule to allow me to breathe and properly function in society without breaking down. Until then, I will just run on the fumes of burnouts past and pray that I can at least go home with a fraction of my sanity.

Catholic Guilt

I promised my parents that I wouldn’t allow the chaos of college to prohibit me from going to mass regularly. I wish that I had kept that promise but I have gone to a service once on my own since coming to ASU. I can make excuses for this all day:

“I forgot it was Sunday”

“I overslept”

“I didn’t have the proper clothes to go”

And whatever else I have convinced myself is a valid reason for not going. But in all honesty, the only reason that I haven’t gone to mass on my own is that I have no desire to and that feels horrible to say. I feel like a shitty Catholic admitting that I do not want to participate in a service and with no one holding me accountable but myself, I haven’t.

I still believe and I still hold my faith close to my heart, but the more I reflect on my membership in the Catholic Church, the more I realize I have a lot of unresolved issues and traumas that have come out of my religion. I don’t want to bash Catholicism because, at the end of the day, I am a Catholic, and no matter what negative experiences I have encountered within the church, I will always be a Catholic. But that also means that I have work to do in confronting my religious relationship and it is my self-imposed responsibility to challenge the ideals that created those negative experiences in the first place.

The church has been an integral part of who I am for my entire life and coming to terms with the fact that it isn’t the greatest thing to happen to me is hard. It makes me feel like a disappointment in my faith and ashamed for questioning and doubting.

For the next year, I am challenging myself to work on repairing my religious life and hopefully helping to continue and uplift the conversation around things like religious trauma and Catholic guilt. And I hope that as I embark on this journey I can find some peace in where I am.

And Again And Again And Again

If someone told me where I would be right now, last semester, I would like to say that I would laugh in their face and tell them “No way,” but I know myself better than that. I would probably just look them in the eyes and sigh a sigh of acceptance and disappointment: a combination of emotions that are too close for comfort.

I am sitting in my room, starting a project that is due in two and a half hours that I have had two weeks to work on. I haven’t done laundry in who knows how long and there are more plastic bottles and paper dishes littering my desk and floor than contact lenses in my medicine drawer. In the last few months I have allowed myself to succumb to the painfully numb feeling of nothing. I though that my usual routine depressive episodes were bad but they are pitiful against this one.

I am plagued with apathy and disassociation. There is no motive in my actions and I aimlessly wander around doing mundane things that I don’t think I am fully aware or conscious of. I walked into a gas station the other day and bought peanut butter filled pretzels and didn’t realize that I was eating them until I was back in my car with the doors locked.

At least when I have gone into autopilot mode I have purpose in what I’m doing and I am doing things that I need to do. This is something drastically different. They are uncharacteristic things and random things and things that don’t invoke any sort of reaction or emotion. It’s like when you leave your Sims alone for too long and they start doing pointless things for no reason and for no one to see.

I was so excited last semester that I had avoided any big dips in my day to day life and I was actually finding balance and adjusting to my “normal”. Maybe it’s karma for not attending any church services since getting to ASU (minus the two time I went with my parents over winter break). Maybe this is just the universe telling me that I shouldn’t get too cocky and full of myself, I apparently needed a kick to the ego.

Whatever the reasoning is, I am determined to fight it because nothing is more motivating than spite. And I intend to prove myself wrong and break out of this insufferable cycle.

Eyes Bigger Than A Schedule

Last semester I boasted about my newfound ability to say “no.” Now I am searching for where that common sense went in the last few months.

One of my fatal flaws is that I am incapable of understanding what "too busy” looks like. I have always been someone who sees an hour of free time and feels guilty for not filling it with any kind of activity. My main goal for freshman year was to break that pattern of time management and learn to create a healthy work/life balance. It got there, for a short moment in time, and yet here I am looking at a calendar with spaces of nothing and all I can think is “I’m not doing enough.”

And in my heart I know that’s not true. I know that just because I have one free afternoon doesn’t mean I am lazy or inferior to others who are out and about, it just means I have free time and that’s a good thing.

I don’t long for the days where I was running myself into the ground to the point of physical sickness and yet I keep coming back to that mindset.

The reason I feel so inclined to reflect on this unhealthy habit is that I am currently on hiatus for two of the projects I am a part of. We are using the month of March to focus on independent study and research so our regular meetings during the week aren’t happening. As I sit in my room with nothing to do on a Monday night for the first time in months, I am stricken with guilt and convince myself that I am a waste of space that contributes nothing meaningful to society. Which doesn't hold any actual merit outside of my own mind but I haven’t been able to convince myself of that yet.

A Year Ago Today...

If there is anyone who doesn't know how to read a room, it’s Snapchat. Nothing says “good morning” like a good old reminder that I was getting rejected right and left a year ago this month.

It’s funny to see where I am now compared to where I was imagining myself last year. If you had told me that I was gonna be at ASU and not completely hating it, I would’ve laughed in your face and then proceeded to refresh my email waiting for my college decisions. And I then would’ve choked on my ego after a target school waitlisted me.

I recently went home this past weekend (I say that like it was an excursion versus a 30-minute drive away) and my dad prompted a discussion on what I thought about how it all played out. And as much as I want to say I have regrets and I wish I had just done one more thing, I know in my heart that’s not true. To quote my dad, “You did your best for the time you did it.” And that is the only real thing that stops me from wishing I had done anything more, because for everything that I was battling, I did what I could and gave it my all.

But hindsight is always 20/20 and looking back on it, I can kind of see where I “went wrong.” For years I have had a strong sense of self, and I think I stuck a little too close to that idea of me and got lost in what it meant. I convinced myself that everything needed to have meaning and that meaning needed to be profound and I needed to be thought-provoking. In reality some things mean nothing and even if they do mean something it’s okay if it’s at a first grade level of depth.

I was under the impression that I was ahead of the game and was more “developed” than my peers. Call it a superiority complex or whatever, but I felt like I had to be more than what I was sometimes. And a year ago if you had told me this, it would’ve shattered the small amount of self-esteem I had left, but today it’s just a truth. Because there is such thing as too high a standard and that happens when you expect flawlessness in every movement and every word.

I’m grateful I didn't get into some of those schools and had to face the fact that I was pushing myself too hard because I have grown from it and am able to actually appreciate and see that growth now.

So whether you’re also stuck in your hometown for college or just got news that your dream school denied your application (because they don’t actually know you as a person), I promise there’s a silver lining somewhere.