This is a mental health post (from someone who is not an expert)

Friends, welcome again to another edition of this blog, where topics usually include fluffy stuff like movies and netflix shows. Unfortunately for my five readers, our topic today is way less fluffy but probably way more important. 

I had a bad mental health day today and I am choosing to cope with it by blogging into the ether.

Here is a list of things that I have had on my mind for the past few days that are causing me anxiety. They range from trivial to legit and are arranged in no particular order other than that this is just how it's coming out of my brain, stream of consciousness style:

1) It's like 70 degrees warmer in Antarctica than it should be for this time of year

2) The wealth inequality gap keeps growing and billionaires keep going to space

3) Sometimes I feel an irrational fear that my friends and colleagues do not like me, and yes it is always personal

4) The demands of my high stress chosen profession

5) The feeling that I am but a bit of grease on a cog on a wheel that is turning in an unjust system that is in desperate need of reform

6) The fear that I hurt my friends and family even when I don't mean to because I'm a bonehead

7) Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and now basically everyone has a bad take on it

8) Bridgerton season 2

9) The feeling that I am burned out, but have no idea how to cure the burn out

10) The fear that I haven't done enough to be feeling burned out

11) We are potentially on the verge of nuclear war with Russia

12) What will my life look like a year from now and can I cope with the changes that inevitably come with growth?

13) We are still in year two of a global pandemic that has killed millions

(This show is actually pretty stressful though, right?)

Some of these things I have control over, and some I don't. Today felt like I had no control over any of it, like I am beholden to my anxiety somehow, shackled to feeling paralyzed and awful.

Today felt not good.

And I think it's fair to note that really the last two years on planet earth have been pretty terrible. Like everyone is having a tough time, and no one really feels super great every day. But it doesn't make me feel any less bad or guilty about feeling so terrible today, and letting feeling terrible get the best of me.

And the worst part is that it feels like the anxiety and the burn out are a cycle, like a snake eating its own tail (did you know that that actually happens in the wild sometimes?). The anxiety and burn out make it hard to focus or have a ton of energy, which makes it hard to be super productive, which means I get behind on stuff, and then I feel anxious and burned out because I look at the massive list of things I need to do and solve and think about. And then I feel shame and guilt for feeling this way, and I don't want to talk to anyone about it because it makes me feel ashamed and guilty! Which feeds into making it harder to focus, and saps my energy.

It's vicious. 

I think there's an Einstein quote that's like "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is madness". So of course, being a millennial who was raised with the internet, and not being mad myself, I turned to the internet for help.

Have you ever google searched burn out? Basically the only conventional wisdom that the internet seems to have is 1) everyone everywhere right now feels burned out and 2) nobody really knows how to cure burn out and the advice is to just try to stop feeling burned out and take care of yourself.

Thanks internet!

There's a very acute angst in recognizing that you are experiencing an unpleasant emotion or feeling, and desperately not wanting to experience it anymore, but not knowing how to stop. Unfortunately, one of the best ways I have learned to live with this feeling on and off for the last two years has been to just experience it.

In one of my favorite songs ever, Cranes in the Sky, from her sublime album, A Seat at The Table, Ms. Solange Knowles details the many ways that we can try to chase these unpleasant feelings away. I think that in Cranes in the Sky, Solange is singing about a romantic breakup and the ensuing emotional turmoil that comes after, but I think it's a universal piece about coping with unpleasant feelings. Solange tried to drink it away, and dance it away, and work it away, and sleep it away. She cuts her hair and buys new things to cure it. She travels, she runs. Nothing works. And even though you don't want to feel the cranes in the sky, the metal clouds, you don't have an alternative, and you just have to feel it, absent any sort of emotional crutches.

(Caveat: I haven't fact checked any of this with genius.com, so there's a big chance that I am wrong, but I'm writing from the heart here, come on.)

The other thing that makes me feel better is venting. Maybe it's sick but texting my friends and having them tell me that they feel burned out and anxious makes me feel better in that it makes me feel like I'M NOT ALONE IN THIS FEELING. AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME FOR FEELING THIS WAY BECAUSE A TON OF SMART, COOL, HARD WORKING PEOPLE THAT I KNOW ARE FEELING THAT WAY TOO.

The third thing that makes me feel better is putting on a good record in my attic and dancing around.

^ like this but ideally in a place where no one else can see you, like an attic that has been converted into a home office

If you ever need to vent about feeling awful, or need a rec for a good record to put on to dance around in your safe space, I'm here for you <3

(I recommend any Solange album for starters.)