Sad Girl season
Inside the mind of a woman who googled “can you die from feelings"
I know! It’s been three months since I last wrote to you…
What have I been doing in the interim, you ask? Mostly, perfecting the art of staring blankly through the window and scaring my neighbours. But a few more things managed to… well, happen.
Basically, I had depression.
I can feel you clutching your pearls, gathering your children around you, trying to control every muscle in your face so you don’t look at me with pity. But fear not - I’m here to tell you that I might have (temporarily) lost my ability to enjoy life, but I have not lost my talent not to take anything too seriously.
What can I say? Depression happens. These things happen. These things actually usually wait until you feel safe and loved for the first time in a long time, and then poke their idiot eye-less dementor head and whisper something like: HEY, REMEMBER YOUR PARENTS’ UGLY DIVORCE? THAT WAS A BLAST, UH? or ARE YOU SURE YOU WOULDN’T BE BETTER DEAD, BABES? SMELLS LIKE A WASTE OF SPACE HERE!
Word of advice: If you’ve always been known as “the strong one” in your family, book that therapy appointment pronto, because it won’t be long before you need it.
Depression doesn’t care that you are happily married, or that you’ve built a nice life from scratch in a city that once was only a wild, impossible dream for you. Depression is a lil bitch with its own agenda, which ends with you dead (probably in a very messy way) and everyone who loved you scarred for life. So I decided, for the first time, to call things by their name (this being: I had become ill & I felt I was losing my mind a little bit) and request a few weeks off work. I decided to invest in myself and start weekly therapy sessions. I embraced loungewear outside of the house and crying in public spaces.
Taking time off your 9-5 and going to weekly therapy is not something that everyone can do, and I am well aware of this privilege. I have been so lucky, and acknowledging this has helped my recovery process. (I REALLY don’t want to use the word healing, it gives me the ick!). To be completely honest, I don’t think I would still be alive today if I hadn’t had access to private in-person therapy. Or the kindest and most supportive partner. Or 2-3 real friends who read between the lines and showed up to take me out and hug me.
Apparently, all of this happened, without going into much more detail, because my expensive therapist says that I have never given myself permission to be sad or angry. I am the lovechild of “eldest daughter syndrome” and “narcissist parents.”
And it all had been bottled up, very mindfully, very demure (do we still say this??) until NOW.
Between walking around the flat crying for no reason and cursing my image in the mirror, I had little moments of joy here and there, periods when I was able to hyper-fixate on something, and 1 out of 10 times, those things would distract me and give me a sense of purpose. I wouldn’t shower in 6 days, but for example, I would spend 3 figuring out the best way to print a zine. Priorities!! Little by little, hope started to take over.
It’s about the small victories - but victories, nonetheless. Like getting out of bed to go to work. Or showing up to your therapy appointment. Or getting out of the house to get some good Victorian air, indispensable to fix all my melancholy fancies and hysteria, as they would say back in the day.
So, is my depression cured? ARE YOU GOOD NOW, CYNTHIA?? I hear you asking, praying for a positive answer so you don’t have to fear the “I really don’t want to say something stupid & cliché” moments. Well, not there yet, but she’s on her way!
So, on that note, since I last wrote to you, apart from the sad bits…
I was supporting act for a Spanish comedian during his gig in Edinburgh (!!!). (Yes, apparently you can be balls deep in the pits of despair and make a room of +100 people laugh?)
I made a pretty cool website to take myself more seriously as a writer and comedian.
I created a YouTube channel to upload my stand-up clips and sketches.
I’m planning my first Riso print zine: it will be about meal deals.
I signed up for the 48-Hour Film Project (something I’ve wanted to do for the last two years) and last weekend, AND WE MADE A SHORT FILM that will be screened at The Cameo Picturehouse in June. Tickets here!
This concludes the most personal and chaotic post in this newsletter so far. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. This is gonna be a hell of a vulnerability hangover. Don’t forget to subscribe.
Love y’all.
dangity dang 🥲 tragicomedia me río de janeiro 🫣 un abrazo muy grande
This is so raw Cynthia - I see you girl 🫂