This Summer by Sonya Pendrey — Cloud Women's Dream Society

I have spent my summer trying not to kill myself.

After waking up, I usually watch remakes of old soap operas until lunch. Then, I try to get myself

to ‘do the day’ - I walk my dog, stretch, get homework done. Once it’s dinner time, I turn the

television back on until I’m half asleep. At that point, I walk myself to bed and collapse. The next

day is the same as the day before and as the day after and so on.

My friend killed himself in April. Hung himself in a room I had stayed in for a few summers with

my best friend, his older sister. The way his bed sheets were mussed showed that he too had

collapsed - instead of into bed, off of it to swing from the ceiling fan.

I’ve struggled with mental health for as long as I can remember. As an eight year old, I

remember slapping myself hard across the face over and over one night after some boys at

school had called me ‘as fat as Garfield’. That led to a whole eating disorder fiasco. I’ve had

stints of regression since then like in high school and actually very recently - I didn’t know it was

anorexia until I learned about the disorder in a college Spanish course. But I had lived it and

have lived it since enough to know it indeed is a disorder that manifests after experiencing

traumatic events that exacerbate the sense of lack of control.

Then there were (and still are) the lists I would (and still do, uncontrollably) make every night

before bed of the tasks for tomorrow. The list making began around the time I learned how to

write in kindergarten. I tried to stop once in fifth grade but I ended up staying up all night reciting

the list - since then, I’ve surrendered to writing my lists down either on paper or on my google

calendar to get some sleep. A friend saw my planner once and called it my ‘serial killer hit list’.

My lists allow me to control what I can.

Throughout high school, there were weekends I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t sleep through

the day, though, although that might have been nicer. The light came in through the window,

dappled in the morning through the leaves outside. I’d watch the sun arc out of view, feel the

heat of the day through the glass panes, and then watch daylight fade and notice the heat

recede. The dark would settle and I’d lay there, wondering what the point of having electric

lights in the house was anyway.

I was convinced the problem was my home - the location and the people in it. I didn’t fit in with

the rich, white kids in the neighborhood and my family just didn’t understand me, both of which

were true to a certain degree. Moving to college will change everything, I remember thinking.

And it did. For a while.

A change of scenery always helps temporarily.

You can imagine my surprise and horror when it turned out that I carry this depression and

anxiety with me wherever I go. It came back, of course, and looking back it never really left. I

just smoked enough weed freshman year in the dorms to convince myself I was ‘cured’.

It’s really lonely to feel this way and to have lived through everything I have lived through. I wish

I had been more open about my struggles along the way. If my friend who is now passed had

known, maybe he wouldn’t have felt so alone. Or maybe we would have felt alone together and

been able to help each other. It’s isolating to feel these things, although I’ve learned recently

that it doesn’t have to be.

Since his death, my best friend and I have been more open with each other about our mental

states. Turns out, while I wasn’t eating, she was overeating and puking it up. Turns out, she

doesn’t make lists but takes pictures of when she turns the stovetop off to sleep at night. Turns

out, she also had weekends she couldn’t get out of bed. There’s a high probability that our

in-bed weekends coincided and we both lied over text to cancel plans with each other. That kills

me.

The morning she called me to tell me what happened, it was unusually gusty for a sunny day in

April. The evening the hospital unplugged him and his heart stopped, it became extremely windy

out of nowhere. At the memorial, it was so windy the pictures we spent hours setting up blew

everywhere. I think he was pranking us from the grave.

It’s nearing the end of summer and I haven’t killed myself. That’s about all I’ve done this

summer and I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that it has NOT been a waste of time but

crucial time spent healing.

Autumn on the horizon, soon leaves will litter the ground. Death promises birth. I look to the

future.

Today, I'll practice being myself.

Here’s what I have learned:

1. Vulnerability is a strength

2. Love is not transactional

3. To get through it, I must write through it

4. Life is hard but worth it.