“You Abominable Twat.”

Yeah, weird title. If my mom still reads these (the concept is for her) then she especially wouldn’t have liked the word I really want to use, which is also very British and describes genitals. So I took a line from Easy A instead. Good film, no?

Anyway. I feel like an abominable twat today. I guess I often feel like one, but after three days essentially in bed, I just can’t help but think of myself as someone privileged who is flouting her good fortune.

“Welcome home,” some friends said to me over Messenger when I arrived in Heathrow. “You’ll have the time of your life there!” London was this magical place in my brain where nothing went wrong, and I guess I thought that, along with taking my medication, it would cure my depression.

NB: Depression can be managed, but it cannot be cured. So.

Looking back through my blogs last time, of course I had depressive episodes here. Of course I had anxiety attacks and moments of doubt and days where I sat at home and watched all six hours of the BBC Pride and Prejudice.

NB: The code word for “anxiety attacks” in my old blog posts is “grumpy.” I wasn’t diagnosed yet. I still don’t feel like I can really call me being a twatty person an anxiety attack, but I recognize it as a legitimate thing in other people, so I have to try to think about it as legitimate in terms of myself.

So it’s okay that I’m having an episode now. It’s okay that I have gone outside every day and attempted to go on adventures but ultimately turned around and returned to my bed. I stepped out my door and into the half rain/half sun that is London. In some ways, I did the thing. Trying counts.

I actually have been experiencing physical symptoms of my anxiety and depression. The mild version of my plight is that I’m very nauseous and can’t really eat. It may have come about by a barista using dairy instead of almond milk in my hot chocolate, or it was just my mind and body both saying: HEY! STOP IGNORING US.

I’m just afraid that this will be like the time, back in September 2017, when I didn’t get out of bed for six weeks unless a friend dragged me out. When I sat and watched all six seasons of Glee, which makes me feel even more awful than my mind usually does. I’m afraid that I won’t take advantage of my time here in London, that I will have taken out all these loans for nothing (apart, of course, from trying to remove this really twatty side of myself from the people I love, so that they don’t leave me.) I’m afraid of things that people might role their eyes at. I’m ridiculously privileged. Which gives me plenty of room to berate myself.

So what can I do? I can keep that goal of getting outside every day. I can, at the very least, finish my homework and go to class. I can try to stop calling myself an abominable twat and give myself some space. I can challenge myself, even if it’s just in the form of little steps. I can celebrate the small victories. Look, I’m writing a twatting blog right now! (I think I’ll just censor all of my swearing with variations of “twat.” Sorry, Mom, but this is me CATERING to you!)

Really, I’ve overcome so many things just to get to this day, September 28, 2019, that going to Kensington Gardens two days ago was a miracle. I actually became ill there, and getting myself home calmly was perhaps even more of a miracle! So I guess what I’m saying is I am not an abominable twat, I am enough. And that’s what really matters.