“You can write yourself out of anything,” I tell myself as a sort of mantra while I struggle to type up a simple, short lab report for my graduation-requirement science class, one that’s clearly designed for humanities majors but still manages to leave me with a backpack full of returned tests covered in inky red X’s.
I use “write yourself out of anything” less as a philosophy of being conniving or tricky and more as a confirmation that my academic strong suit, literature, has value in problem-solving. If I can turn over words in my head, examining each carefully, until I craft a phrase that’s able to lead me to a solution I hadn’t thought of before, or if I’m able to connect a feeling or frustration to its root by writing it or speaking it, I’ve succeeded.
A unique phenomenon that’s part of life in the Internet age is the rapid online dissemination of people’s writing, often people’s voices you wouldn’t typically expect to hear. In accordance with this greater worldwide inclination, The Crimson has recently run ample personal pieces with nuanced descriptions of student-writers’ experiences with discrimination issues, mental health disorders, sexual assault cases, and numerous other deeply personal life aspects that I truly consider brave to discuss anywhere, particularly online.
I open my Facebook feed, and, as I scroll, red Crimson seals roll before my eyes, often with virtual tennis matches of opposing viewpoints playing out between the spectators in the stands—er, comments sections. Many personal stories I’ve read online have opened me up to different and more nuanced perspectives on phenomena I haven’t experienced myself, and a select few have made me personally feel less alone in my own life and mind, which I consider one of the greatest virtues in literature. Literature. That’s far beyond clickbait.
But what is it like to have the first Google result coming up in a search of your name the story of your experience with sexual assault, or an eating disorder, or thoughts of suicide? What is it that makes us as Internet-wielding humans so attracted to reading about the tragedies of others, often skimming and reducing them to a caption or soundbite? A moment of silence for the handful of souls with a piece published about their deepest struggle, be it in their school’s paper or a national news outlet, who just wanted to “make it” in writing. Or, perhaps even more tragic, those who sought to write themselves out of a personal struggle, but wound up as an object of tokenism or a subject of scorn or speculation or ridicule. There’s a certain monotony to the dramatic release of a “big” piece about mental health that gets shared over and over on Facebook, as if scrolling through an article creates any actual change unless people carry it forward into an actual conversation.
I’m having trouble writing my thesis, like many seniors are. I’m also having trouble writing creatively, for fun. I’m also having trouble writing about, and functioning within, being diagnosed with major (clinical) depression. This year, I’ve lightened up on the extracurriculars, including writing groups. Most of my recent non-academic writing has taken place in a small blue notepad, a few words at a time noting the changes I’ve felt as I’ve started taking an antidepressant (first week, nothing but side effects yet). I have nothing artistic or deep to write about how I’m feeling right now, contrary to the stereotype that mental illness is inherently somehow “artsy.” I can text you back and say that I’m actually just gonna go to bed early tonight— that’s about all the writing, and all the energy, I’ve got. My personal story isn’t tragic: I come from a support- ive, close-knit family, I am here studying something I love, and am on-track to graduate in the spring and pursue work I’ll find meaningful. I don’t know how long my difficult and negative feelings will last, or why they stick around.
By writing about these feelings, am I starting to write myself out of this box, or deeper in? Can we make meaning out of feelings of internal meaninglessness? I often don’t feel like it. My words fall short or become repetitive or can’t even form in my head due to my own frustration. But others give me hope. From music to literature to humor-driven web phenomena like Allie Brosh’s “Hyperbole and a Half” and Melissa Broder’s “So Sad Today” to ample voices of my peers, I’ve found a wealth of new perspectives about per- sonal disorder in the creative projects of others, each one gritty and humorous and honest and profoundly internally resourceful. It takes a different kind of guts to wrestle out the most nebulous and dark and deeply internal part of yourself and groom it into something you can show others, much less to turn it into some- thing that connects deeply with people’s innermost selves.
At the beginning of this year and the end of last, I tried to write, think, and talk without giving space to the more uncomfortable and “darker” parts of my mind in any way whatsoever, chalking them up to smaller temporary problems or flaws within myself, a containment method which almost always malfunctioned or backfired. It’s exhausting to even try to hold it all in, and I’d venture to say it’s impossible to succeed—bottling things up just leads to a pressure explosion sooner or later. Realizing this was not sustainable, I opened up. I got help. I put thoughts into words: texts and long conversations with friends and family and sometimes onto paper. I am trying to let all sides of my mind, including the dark side, into my writing, to acknowledge the dark side as a piece of a greater whole that contributes to it but in no way defines it. A demon tamed will be harmless. This is my new aim. A demon tamed can also be an asset in battle. Hopefully I’ll get there too. And I’ll be putting pen to paper as often as I can until I get there.
