Cereal Goes On Top Of The Fridge
This is a deeply personal post. I talk about depression and thoughts that revolve around it. Please read at your discretion.
I lived in apartments until I was twelve years old.
The one I lived in the longest was fine until we got a hideous and uncomfortable living room set from Ashley’s Furniture Store, various items from HSN like a 70-inch television that blocked most of my mom’s bedroom window, and my little sister, who didn’t even have her own nursery. Brooke isn’t adopted by the way. I know the wording of that might’ve been misleading.
Anyways, there wasn’t even enough space for all our pots & pans, so we kept some of them in the oven. This definitely proved to be a problem when I accidentally preheated the oven for taquitos, and a glass pan shattered everywhere in the oven one time.
We didn’t have a pantry, so we put cereal boxes on top of the fridge. Since we did this for so many years, naturally, we kept doing this when we got our house, which has a relatively large pantry. It’s a habit that my family and I never questioned or strayed away from.
It wasn’t until sometime last year that I was informed that this wasn’t common for everyone. For all of my roommates and many friends of mine, this isn’t regular.
I never thought anything of putting my cereal boxes on top of the fridge, because I was under the impression that it was normal for everyone.
My room is really messy right now, and it’s stressing me out—so I don’t want anyone to come in. My room is a reflection of me. There’s everything, everywhere. This is the easiest visual of what insanity looks like that I’ve ever seen in real life—so how could anyone else be okay with that?
This is unacceptable. You need to get up and do something about it, Taylor.
I haven’t been to class for three days. I’ve missed so many assignments. I’m going to get a C in one of the easiest classes I’ve taken in my college career. My mom can’t find out. She’s going to kill me. I don’t know how to tell her that her daughter, who excelled and would wake up at 4 AM in high school for exams, can’t make herself do her work. She’s worked so hard for me to be here, and I can’t let her down. But I just can’t do it. Getting up to go to class is exhausting. I want to do everything I need to, but for whatever reason, I hate doing anything. The minute I start my work or do something I enjoy, I get so tired. I’m so incredibly tired. All I did today was sleep, but I’m still so tired.
What is wrong with you? You’re letting everyone down. Is that not enough to make you get up???? Pathetic.
I don’t even turn the lights off when I go to sleep sometimes because that’s too much. If I do turn them off, they’ll stay off until the end of time. My closet door is covering my only window since there are so many clothes on the floor blocking it from being closed. There’s a possibility that I can be in perpetual darkness. If sunshine is blocked by my closet door, let me fabricate light with my Bed, Bath, and Beyond lamps so that the darkness doesn’t make my shitty vision even shittier.
Jesus, you’re so f*cking lazy Taylor. All it takes is getting up and twisting the switch.
I don’t want to do anything. Let's sit and talk here in my bed forever because it’s the safest place in the world right now. I don’t have any responsibilities in my bed other than sleeping and talking to you, but the moment I step on the floor I have everything. Escaping the bed forces me to go on a road that can lead to failure. I don’t want to fail, again, so why even attempt to begin that journey?
Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses.
Let me make more obligations to people, with people. If I make these promises, I’ll want to keep my word. I’ll get up. Yet, I’m adding to a plate that is full, and I’m already stuffed.
Stupid. Why would you do that?
Why are so many people texting me? If I don’t text back, I don’t have to deal with it. God, I used to be good at responding and following through. What happened?
I’m just “in a rut”. It’ll pass once I lay in bed a little longer.
I’m in a rut because situation A happened a few months ago, and it took a real toll on me. I’ve been trying to get over A but now situation B is occurring. It’s really getting out of hand. I don’t know what I did to make B so much worse. I thought I learned my lesson from situation A. Failure. I’m about to walk down that road of failure, again.
Maybe I should get help, but not too much. My mom is strong, she doesn’t take anything. Every time she asks me about the new medication being upped, she sounds concerned. I don’t want to disappoint her. I know how she feels about being medicated.
Well, it’s been working for a few days. I feel better now. I can stop taking it.
It’s been a few days. I thought I didn’t need it anymore. I thought I was cured, but things are getting worse, again. Let me go lay down in my bed. Let me cry my eyes out. I’ll lay here until I’m okay. I’m not sure when that will be, but hopefully, when the time comes I can . . .
What if that time never comes?
Maybe I should go. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of…
I need a plan. I’ll clean my room first. Apologize to some people. I’ll say all of my goodbyes. I’ll write a few things down, and then I’ll go. It’ll be easier for everyone involved. I won’t disappoint anyone anymore.
“I am worried about you” texted my manager.
“Taylor I’m about to have a mental breakdown over my hair. I feel like you could answer the phone.” texted my best friend who’s nine hours away from me.
“TAYLORRR COME IN HERE” yells my roommates.
“I’m always so happy when you come home,” my mom tells me.
Missed a call from Brooke Gathings.
“Have you taken your medicine?”
Shit
You can’t do that to them. Go get some water, and take this little pill. You have to at least try.
The section above is my experience with depression. These are thoughts that kind of play over and over in my mind and have done so for a long time. For a while, I didn’t think anything of these thoughts; it was normal for everyone, I assumed. I was under the impression that others were just better at hiding it than I am.
However, the same person who made me realize that not everyone puts their cereal boxes on top of the fridge is the same person that made me realize that how I was acting and thinking isn’t normal. Sadness or spells of it shouldn’t be routine, and they definitely shouldn’t be debilitating. Thinking that things would be easier for yourself and others if you just ceased to exist . . . it isn’t normal. I hope if anyone reading this has any thoughts like this that are similar—it’s not normal, but you’re not alone in it. Let this be a sign to get help or to check in on people.
I would like this post to be an introductory one as to how normalcy is defined, and that through the unintentional condition of our own minds—we each deem normalcy differently—which perhaps denies the very existence of normalcy. I’m not sure if that even made sense. Furthermore, I don’t even know if I’m going to expand on this topic anymore. Life, if you can’t tell, has been hard to cope with sometimes. While I think I’ve been coming out of the state I’ve been in for a while, I don’t really want to make any more promises I can’t keep.
I don’t want a pity party. It’s just a few days ago when I was talking to a friend of mine, he was badgering me about writing something because I haven’t done so in a while. I told him blatantly that I had been depressed, and he told me to just write about that. I think I’ve been so averse to writing 1. because I just haven’t felt up to it, and 2. I’ve been afraid of doing the exact opposite of what my last post was about—oversharing & trauma dumping.
I started this website last year around this time with a rather vulnerable post, because I like writing. It’s something I love to do. Not every piece is going to be riveting, funny, or insightful. Not every piece is going to be relatable. I’m not even going to like every piece or agree with things I might’ve said months ago. The only commonality with each thing that I wrote is that it’s personal. Some surface level, some deeply. There’s no way around it. If I want to share something I love like writing, then I need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I realized that when my friend just said to write about it. Thank you TJ.
Thank you all for reading, and hopefully, I’ll be back soon.
