If you look at my Instagram (@mjewrites), you’ll see a summer-themed feed with highly saturated images of my daily activities and cute selfies. It’s not the Insta-worthy European summer of everyone’s dreams but even a quick glance may leave the impression that I made something of the season, took every opportunity to have a moment, get a photo, soak in what is supposedly the coveted ‘best summer ever.’
I took a lot of time for myself this summer. I went out more, even if I was alone. I tried new things, like going to my first Pride festival. I felt more creative, visually, which manifested in silly little photoshoots and tiktoks. Just based on my social media appearance, I was living life!
Then there’s what I didn’t share on my social media but sometimes slightly alluded to.
June
“How are you doing today?” my therapist asked me as I glided past her, sat on the couch, and reached for a hard candy, our weekly routine.
As soon as she closed her door and got comfortable in her chair before me, I looked up at her fluorescent ceiling lights, trying to decide where I should start. Exhaling deeply, I finally answered.
“I decided to end my friendship with [redacted] the other day.”
I immediately went into detail, reading to her the texts between my now ex-friend and me and sharing my frustrations about the situation that had been brewing for months.
“I’m open to reconnecting in the future but not right now,” I said.
“Mary, you’ve come a long way with this situation. It’s incredibly tough to stand up for yourself and voice your side of things. I see a growth in you compared to when we first started meeting,” my therapist said.
My heart warmed a little at her statement, but the anxieties that had been gnawing my brain for the better part of 9 months still couldn’t be quieted.
“But this means I’ve lost 2 incredibly close friends in the span of 6 months. What if the problem is me?”
We spent the rest of our 50 minutes going over the details of my very long friendship with this person and all the times I felt like I wasn’t receiving the same treatment that I was expected to give. I did feel lighter. It had only been a few days but I already noticed a change. I was satisfied knowing that I had finally said my piece, even if it came out a little harsh.
“I still have one friend left and I love our friendship. A part of me kind of feels hopeful for the future and who I could meet. I kind of already started doing this but I’m going to try and go out as much as I can and take time for myself this summer,” I said definitively to my therapist on my way out. I was always trying to get one last word in on my way out the door; fifty minutes just wasn’t enough.
“So, tell me about this weekend! Did you go to Pride?” my therapist asked a few weeks later.
I could feel myself glowing as I told her the story. I had always wanted to go to Pride but the hot weather and the crowds intimidated me. What if I got too hot and passed out? What if I didn’t eat enough and passed out? What if I got sick? What if my anxiety makes me sick? What if something goes wrong and the thousands of people around all put their attention on me?
But when I spoke to my friend about Pride this year, she told me she always went but never stayed long. So we made a plan to attend Pride together. Then she asked me if it was okay if we went with her co-worker because she had already asked her co-worker to go. I said yes and meant it, but social anxiety is a bitch, so I started worrying about the new situation that I had not mentally prepared for.
What if this creates an awkward trio where only two people are in sync while the other is a third wheel? What if that third wheel is me? What if I shut down and go non-verbal? What if I get sick, what if something happens, what if something goes wrong, all the while in front of this person I’ve hardly said two words to? But I tried to shut all of that out as I got ready on the morning of Pride and shoved a few bites of Greek yogurt down into my uneasy stomach. In the car ride, I was fighting waves of anxiety. You’re already in the car on the way there, you’re going, you can’t skip out, it’s too late; just keep going.
We met up with some members of my friend’s family and watched the parade, cheering and making conversation. I relaxed, forgetting everything I was worried about. After the parade, we made our way to the festival; we’d stay long enough to look at the booths, get free samples (don’t judge), and then get out of there. It was hot and there were a lot of people, but the three of us stuck together, even holding onto each other’s bags like kindergartners doing the buddy system on a field trip. I made sure to eat a protein bar so that my body would have something simple to get energy from. Then my friend asked me something that touched me.
“Mary, are you doing okay? I know you don’t like crowds.”
This consideration for me on her end reassured me. I started the day uneasy and nervous but now I was having fun, even feeling comfortable enough to stop and take pictures. I sometimes worry this habit is annoying to others, especially because it’s been brought up by past friends in a joking but not joking way.
Then it was time to leave, and this is when some trouble arose. We decided it was too hot to walk back to the car, especially with the huge hill we’d have to climb, so we rented scooters. I hadn’t been on a scooter in years and I was carrying several bags (thanks, full-sized free samples!) and since I hadn’t eaten much, my body wasn’t exactly up for it. I had a lot of trouble balancing and figuring out how to ride the scooter at a good speed. And did I mention it was hot? All these factors combined took a toll on my body and I had to ask to stop several times to catch a break, otherwise I feared I’d become sick. My friend and her co-worker were completely understanding and helped me out, even taking my bags for me to help my balance. We eventually made it to the car, the sanctuary of rest, air-conditioning, and water awaiting us. We stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru and ate in the car, talking shit about anything and everything. I went home and took a nap, satisfied that I didn’t spend the day in bed like I wanted.
“Mary, I am so impressed. Look at you! You tried something new and with new people,” my therapist said.
I grinned. “That’s not all. That was just Saturday.”
The Sunday after Pride I had to meet a client for pet-sitting. I figured that if I had to leave the house anyway, I might as well take the opportunity to explore and go downtown to my favorite vintage thrift store. While there, I noticed a girl looking at a rack nearby who had a really cute outfit on.
Tell her you like her outfit, I thought to myself. But I was too shy, so I continued sifting through the discount bins. Until the very same girl came up to me and said she liked my outfit. Usually, I’d say thanks and find an excuse to go on my way, but we kept talking and eventually exchanged Instagrams, vowing to make plans soon.
“So what I’m hearing is that you had this entire weekend of trying new things, exploring, meeting new friends, and having a great time,” my therapist said.
“Yeah, but…” I sighed. There was always a but. “I’m nervous about meeting up with her. I can’t see it as just a ‘we’re going to get coffee this one time.’ I picture the entire thing. Is this person going to be my new friend? Are we going to start bonding and making memories together? What if our personalities eventually clash or something goes wrong? But then I also think… this is what I wanted.”
July
“I watched one of my favorite movies the other night and kind of had a little meltdown,” I said one afternoon to my therapist. “There are these two scenes that always make me cry, for different reasons. I usually cry a little and then get over it but the scenes kept playing in my head and I couldn’t stop crying. I started thinking about all the time I’ve wasted in my twenties and how I don’t feel like an adult and it’s all my fault.”
I wrote about the movie and the experience that came with it. I worked through the feelings that arose. They weren’t feelings I’d never had before. I’ve felt them basically ever since I graduated high school and they’ve only grown more intense. They’re always running through my mind. They get especially loud at night.
“I’m not nearly as independent as I want to be, as I should be by this stage in life, but it scares me. But then I think about how it scares other people too but they still get up and do it.”
“Again with the comparison and self-blame,” my therapist said in her lovingly smart-ass tone.
“I know, I know.” I laughed. I went home and cried some more.
“Wow, you’re on time, and at 10 a.m. at that! How’s your week been?” my therapist asked.
I rushed inside and sat down. “Yeah, there’s a reason. I basically had to escape the house this morning. I didn’t even have time to go to the bathroom.”
“What happened?”
The night before my therapy appointment that morning, my father started acting stranger than usual. He seemed very irritated and erratic and kept asking me questions that didn’t make sense, like if I was going to take my car to therapy the next day. I reminded him that I always take my car to therapy and asked him if he was planning on going anywhere. He said no, but he kept bringing the situation up. I remembered a phone conversation I had overheard between him and a family member out of state a few days ago. He had told them he needed to find a way to leave home. With that conversation in mind, I hid my car keys and called my brother to confide in him. On top of going to therapy, I had to leave for a pet-sitting job that would mark the start of 3 straight weeks of back-to-back pet-sitting. The plan was to pack my things that night, keep my car keys hidden, and slip out the following day before Dad had time to confront me. I was afraid a confrontation might lead to a crisis and wondered if I was capable of calling 988 for him. The following day, my heart raced as I woke up and heard Dad moving around, something very unusual for him as he tended to sleep all hours of the day. I unlocked the front door as quietly as possible, sprinted to my car, threw my things in the trunk, and drove off. I looked behind me and saw that the curtain in Dad’s bedroom window had moved. I tried shutting out the image of him freaking out at my absence. The nerves settled once I got to therapy but I still felt some residual shakiness. Even though I wouldn’t have to come home for a few days at the very least, I feared what I would find when I eventually did walk through my front door.
“So I’m guessing things at home still aren’t good?” my therapist asked.
“No, they’ve gotten even worse. What if he does have another mental breakdown? I wasn’t old enough to really be there for the last one. Now that I’m an adult, I’ll be more involved. I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“Since you’re at home, I know you’re involved to some degree. But whatever happens, it is not your job to fix it.”
I left therapy with a resolution to try and focus on myself that weekend. I had plans to go swimming and catch up on reading. Staying in someone else’s house for a few days would give me the physical space I needed to try and relax, even if things at home still ran through my mind. Once I stepped outside, I checked my phone and saw that I received a text from my brother.
“Hey, I know you’re in therapy right now so I’m sorry to bother you, but Mom just told me that Dad was admitted to the psychiatric emergency room.”
“Everyone tells me to focus on myself and try not to worry about Dad or the situation between him and Mom, but I have to be involved because everything is being done through me,” I said to my therapist a few weeks later. I took a sip of my iced latte and waited for her response. I slept too late to have time to read in the cafe before therapy as I had planned; this was becoming a regular occurrence. “He refuses to let Mom know anything and Mom refuses to realize that she’s done things that make him feel like he can’t go to her. They’ve both done things to put me in this position and I feel like I can’t do or say anything about it.”
“Mary, it’s not your job to manage your parents. They’re both responsible for their feelings and actions, and you have the right to say no if you don’t want to be involved in any of it,” my therapist said. This had also become a regular occurrence, this reassurance that I wasn’t responsible for other people.
“But… I feel like if I don’t do something to fix this situation then it will never be fixed and we’ll be miserable forever. And I’ve kind of always felt that way, even as a kid,” I said.
My therapist leaned back in her chair and put her hand to her chin. “Tell me more about that.”
I chuckled. “Are we about to have the ‘it all goes back to childhood’ moment?”
I gave my therapist the SparkNotes version of my childhood, quickly explaining the context behind every layer of my family’s tricky dynamic and how it’s affected each of us over the years.
“I’m just thinking about you continuing to be in that environment when you’re going through your own problems and trying to figure out your own shit,” my therapist said when I was done.
“Yeah, but I mean it’s always been that way, so can I really use that excuse? I know you’re going to say something about me self-blaming again.” My therapist laughed and I paused, trying to figure out how to bring up the next topic even though we’ve been meeting long enough for her to be used to my random topic changes. “Speaking of… so I got an exciting offer the other day.”
My cousin had heard about my dad’s hospitalization and transfer to a mental facility for treatment, where he’d been for a few weeks now. Her birthday is always Labor Day weekend and she invited me to come visit, citing my texts about the situation at home as evidence that I needed a break. The only problem was that visiting her would mean A) traveling alone and B) traveling alone on an airplane for the first time.
“But… this is really the whole point of what I wanted my ‘main character summer’ to be,” I explained. “It’s easy to do fun things around town because it’s within my comfort zone. I haven’t really challenged myself yet. This would be a new experience and if I do it, then it could be the first part of finally traveling to more places.”
“So what’s stopping you from saying yes?”
“Well, the biggest thing is the plane. I’m not scared of planes, I’m scared of being stuck in the air with a bunch of strangers and something going wrong. What if I get sick? What if I’m an anxious wreck the whole time? What if my anxiety causes me to feel sick, making the situation worse? And then there’s the logistical stuff. Even though I’ve flown before and have always been in charge of the tickets and figuring out what gates we’re at and all that, I at least had someone with me to rely on. If I’m alone and something goes wrong, I only have myself to get me out of the situation. And then…”
I started getting flashbacks of the last time I traveled alone. I wasn’t completely alone, I was with the two friends that I had recently lost, but it was the first time I’d been out of town without my mother or another adult around. It was also the first trip since the pandemic, sans one lowkey trip to visit family a year before. I was excited for the trip but also very anxious and I tried to fight the anxiety but it started winning more often than not. The trip was only a few days and I did have fun, but I also remember constantly feeling anxious to the point that I would go nonverbal, using all of my mental energy to do basic things like eating, which I’m not very good at when I’m anxious. Since I wasn’t eating much, we were doing a lot of walking, and my leftover energy was being used to try and act like a normal human being, I shut down and this was perceived as me being disinterested and then later as me not trying hard enough to fight my anxiety. All of this led to tension between us, and even though I could feel some of this tension while on the trip, the extent of it wasn’t made clear to me until after we arrived home.
“So I’m afraid that if I face my anxiety and get on the plane, that will be just the first part of it. What if I get off the plane and it doesn’t go away? What if it will be just like the last time?” I asked.
“Well, the first difference is that you won’t be traveling with people who aren’t understanding of your needs and boundaries. The second is that you have some options now. Have you considered going back on medication?” my therapist said.
“Maybe, I don’t know. I was on fluoxetine for depression and then Buspar for anxiety but I felt like I could do without them so I quit. I think I just need to try harder.”
“Is that you talking or someone else?”
“…Both?”
After a pause, I said, “I mean, I’ve been going out a lot more this summer because I need something to look forward to and something to get me out of the house. It’s easy to do that because it’s fun, but it also takes up a lot of my mental energy I guess. Because all I want to do is sleep so that I don’t have to face my problems or constantly be thinking about things from the past and present that bother me.”
Suddenly, my therapist burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you said you don’t think you’re depressed or have anxiety, you just sleep a lot to avoid thinking.”
I started laughing along with her, realizing how ridiculous I sounded. My short fifty minutes was up again.
On my way out, my therapist asked, “So are we going to tell our cousin yes?”
I grinned. “Yeah.”
August
“I kind of had another meltdown the other night.” I concentrated very hard on counting the Smarties in my hand while I waited for my therapist’s response.
“Can you tell me what triggered it?” she asked.
I’d been crying a lot for multiple reasons over the past year but it became more frequent over the summer. Now more than ever I’ve been thinking about my place in the world and how I’m supposed to survive when I didn’t ask to be born. People and situations from my past and present constantly run through my mind and the only way I can make it stop is to sleep. I’ve probably spent the better part of the last 8 months in bed or on the couch, sleeping or scrolling to distract myself and then feeling guilty about it. This gets worse when I have a pet-sitting job because I’m completely alone in someone else’s house, so I don’t have to perform for any watchful eyes. I’ve been slacking on picking up writing work and when I do have some, it takes me twice as long to finish.
I finally said yes to visiting my cousin and the tickets were booked. While I was extremely excited, the realization that I couldn’t back out of it added to my mental anguish. So I started crying about that on top of everything else and I kept thinking to myself as I tasted the salt of my tears, what is wrong with me? Will I be like this forever? How can I expect myself to travel to places like New York or Europe when I can barely manage a trip to see family? How can I expect myself to do anything and live this life that I’ve dreamed for myself if I’m too scared to actually take the steps to do it? I don’t want to be like this, always terrified of life, but how do I change?
To make myself feel better, I scheduled a doctor’s appointment to discuss anxiety medication. Even though I had taken two ‘Am I Depressed?’ quizzes in the last week, I was still in denial about it and wanted to put the little focus I could muster on finding a medication that would get me on that plane. I didn’t have time to wait for something to build up in my system, I needed the good drugs stat. One morning I woke up to feed my cat and checked my calendar to confirm that my doctor’s appointment was the next day. My body jolted awake as I looked at it and realized that my appointment was that day and I was already ten minutes late. I ran to my car and called the office on my way, hoping they’d allow me to keep my appointment. Breaking several traffic laws to get there, I was close by when the office assistant told me it was too late and the next appointment wasn’t available until September, after my trip.
I thanked her, hung up, and let the tears burst as I drove to a local coffee shop to buy myself a little treat because, coping mechanism. I’ve never missed a doctor’s appointment before and this one was crucial. This was supposed to be my saving grace and I had screwed it up because I was too lazy and disorganized (level-headed me would say I was depressed and stressed out, causing me to be forgetful). I cried off and on about the situation for three hours until I got desperate enough to message my doctor and get the medication that way.
“And it worked! I got some hydroxyzine to take as needed,” I told my therapist. “But…”
“But what?”
“What if it doesn’t work? Or what if it makes me dizzy or drowsy or sick and I have to deal with that while trying to deal with traveling?”
I wouldn’t know until I tried and that was always what scared me.
“Well, this is a first, I’ve never cried in front of my therapist before,” I said with a weak chuckle before going back to burying my face in the pillows on my therapist’s couch.
“Take as long as you need to breathe and calm down.” My therapist pushed a box of tissues toward me. “These are complimentary by the way.”
It took me a while to calm down. It’s not like I’ve never cried in public before but I always managed to do it discreetly until I could find a more private place to let myself go. My mind flashed back to ten minutes ago at the coffee shop a couple of blocks over when I got off the phone with the fourth place to tell me they couldn’t do anything to help my father who, upon his imminent discharge from the hospital, was facing going to the homeless shelter on the very day I leave for my trip. I put on my sunglasses to hide my wet eyes and tried to look like I was just scrolling through my phone, but I was shaking and my face was twitching from the effort to look neutral. I was pretty sure the girl at the table next to me knew something was wrong. I got embarrassed and left. I tried to keep the tears at bay in my therapist’s waiting room but they came in periodic bursts. When my therapist opened her door and asked me what was up, the damn broke and I choked out, “I need a minute.”
“He doesn’t want to come home and he keeps calling to ask me to help find him a place so he doesn’t have to go to the shelter but there’s nothing I can do, I’ve tried already and I shouldn’t have to do all of this!” I exclaimed.
We went over the usual: I did everything I could even though I shouldn’t have had to do any of it, the most important thing was to take care of myself, and I should go on my trip and turn my phone off so I can enjoy my time away and not worry about what will be waiting for me when I come back.
“I can’t wait to hear all about your trip,” my therapist said as she opened the door to let me out.
All I could think about was that in 11 hours, I’d have to get up and do the thing that I wanted, knew I needed, but dreaded doing; getting on that plane and getting the fuck out of Cincinnati.
September
Damn, it’s cold enough this morning that I could’ve worn jeans! I thought as I dragged my feet to my therapist’s office, my body running on a bagel and pumpkin chai. I would need some real caffeine ASAP.
“So, tell me about your trip!” my therapist gushed, happy to see that I came back alive and seemingly well.
“It went great!” I smiled and immediately launched into telling her every minute detail from the minute I woke up to the day I arrived back home.
My flight was at 6 a.m. so I had to wake up at 3 a.m. to call an Uber and make it on time. I got a couple hours of sleep but in the usual fashion, I didn’t hit the sweet REM cycle until my alarm went off, breaking me out of my dream where I was running around the airport and passing people I knew at various stages in my life at the gates. As soon as I woke up, anxiety crashed into me like a freight train. The first thing I felt was my arms becoming so heavy that it was difficult to use them. I briefly considered taking some hydroxyzine, but my fear of the side effects stopped me. I fought off shaking and paced my living room, trying to do calming, positive self-talk as I waited for the Uber.
You’ll be fine. You’re just going to see family. This isn’t anything you haven’t done before, the only difference now is that you’re alone. And this will be good for you. You need to do this. You need to be a big girl. If you can do this, you can go anywhere. Your summer of fun means nothing if you don’t push yourself to do this.
Before I knew it, I was at the airport and standing in the TSA line. My anxiety quieted down some but I wasn’t over the hill yet. I went through security efficiently, proud of myself for being quick and obedient, and then I was free to go to my gate. On the way there, I kept thinking to myself, I did it! I did that!
Once I got to my gate, I felt better now that I was where I needed to be and just had to patiently wait, but as I waited, my body kept introducing me to waves of nerves. I tried to push them down, telling myself I had nothing to worry about, but I knew it wouldn’t truly go away until I was in the air, and even then, maybe not. Once I took my seat on the plane, I reminded myself that I was doing the thing and focused on the other passengers, wondering where they were all going. Then the plane took off and…
That was it! I did the thing! I made my connection at the next airport and arrived in my cousin’s hometown where my aunt would pick me up. From that moment, I felt perfectly at ease. When I arrived at my aunt’s house, I immediately went for a nap as I had been awake since 3 a.m. While I was trying to sleep, I got a phone call. I had told myself no calls or texts while I was away but I couldn’t help answering because I recognized it as a Cincinnati number and with my father’s fate in the balance that day, I knew it had to do with him. I took the call and then, comforted by the fact that I would be hundreds of miles away for the next few days, went to sleep.
I wasn’t completely at 100% while on my trip, but I immediately noticed improvements. I went to bed and woke up at a decent hour; I didn’t even have to take a nap! I stayed off my phone for the most part and enjoyed spending time with my family. Everything that had been swirling in my brain didn’t completely go away but it was much quieter. I was finally there as my own person and not as an extension of my mother (whose side of the family is the people I was visiting). I engaged in conversation, we watched some good movies, and discovered a great TV show called Jury Duty, which we stayed up until 2 a.m. watching. I had the best conversation with my cousin about some of the things going on at home.
She told me, “I love you, but your twenties are for figuring out how to get the fuck away from your parents. You have to.”
I knew she was right. As my time to fly home came closer, my thoughts became louder. I was a little nervous for my flight home but it went away quickly. I sat next to a cute boy on the first plane and we had a nice conversation. I never even got his name but it was nice to talk to a beautiful stranger. The second plane was absolutely packed but I found it kind of comforting in a way. Everyone was very nice, making conversation, laughing with each other, and accommodating anyone who wanted to switch seats or get up to use the bathroom. I offered the people next to me a piece of gum so their ears wouldn’t pop. I made it home, exhausted but happy and proud of myself.
Almost immediately, my life in Cincinnati resumed as it had been before I left. Stuff with my father had gotten even worse while I was away and I spent a lot of time dealing with that when I got back. Everything that I had been obsessing over came back to my brain in full force, prompting another 2 a.m. teary-eyed meltdown. I wasn’t delusional (this time, anyway); I knew a trip wasn’t going to magically solve everything. But it was my last chance to escape, to distract myself from mine and everyone else’s demons. It marked the end of a messy, confusing, contradicting summer of growth, fun, anxiety, and anguish. Now that I was home, I became afraid again of the weight of living.
“I was half-expecting you to stay in Texas,” my therapist joked as she opened her door to let me out into the world.
I won’t let everything I’ve felt this summer go to waste. I can’t. I have to use it to fuel my character development. Because I am the main character, right? Being the main character isn’t just putting yourself first and having a bunch of fun and making your social media feed look enviable. Your problems are still there when you return home from your night out, your friend’s house, your trip across the country. Main characters go through the hero’s journey, and the hero’s journey wouldn’t be a thing if no struggle were involved. If I am truly to be the main character, I need to develop.
I really feel you on trying to get out more and push yourself to do things you're interested in even if it scares you. I've been trying to do the exact same and will actually be taking my first trip without my parents in a few weeks. I tend to get anxious and overthink in social settings, but I also have so many things I wanna do and I'm tired of missing out cuz I'm too afraid. It's honestly really nice to read that someone else is going through something similar. Thanks so much for sharing this <3
Also, really love how you connected the main character summer to wanting to actually experience the character development of a main character and not let it stop at your Instagram and the fun experiences!