I Think I am in Hell, but at Least There are cats.

Sitting on my couch after midnight, naked because I couldn’t find the energy to put clothes back on after my mental breakdown bath. Hungry, but completely indifferent to food, as I’ve lost all drive and have no intention of eating. In this moment, I have never felt more profoundly sad, hopeless, and alone.

I think this might just be my rock bottom.

Though, I’ve said that before—only to fall through the floor and land in yet another basement, with new layers of bullshit I couldn’t have imagined were an option.

I feel like a shell of who I once was. Am I just supposed to accept this as my new normal? Is this me? I used to have such passion, such vocabulary, and eloquence. Now, I can barely string together a coherent thought. I can’t even find the words that once effortlessly connected me to my soul. It’s like I’ve become a manufactured fraud, pretending to create when the creativity I once had has slipped away, leaving me grasping at straws.

Have I not had enough hardships for one lifetime? When will I be enough?

Enough for my friends to check in on me without being asked.
Enough for my fiancé to make me feel like I’m worthy of love.
Enough for me to stop hating every ounce of my too-much, not-enough body.
Enough for my parents to love that little girl they broke and shattered beyond recognition.

My mind is racing a mile a minute (or should I say kilometre a minute? Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it).

How am I supposed to make sense of all of this, to bottle it up and present it in any kind of coherent way when it feels like I’m living a million lives at once?

I’m still that little girl who watched her mom get blackout drunk after my grandfather died, feeling like the world had just stopped turning.

The little girl who peed her pants in class because she was too anxious to ask to go to the bathroom. A reputation I could never live down.

The teenager who was constantly told she was ugly, and who had to accept the harsh truth: “You’re just incredibly ugly. There’s nothing you can do. So accept it, and stop looking in mirrors.”

The young adult who, after a failed suicide attempt, was told by the cop called to the scene that I was “just a pain in the ass” and “wasting his time.”

The ambitious woman in her mid-20s who gave everything to grad school—only to be backstabbed and discarded by the very psychology department that broke her down. Who knew there was so much cattiness from adults in academia?

The 29-year-old, who thought she had hit rock bottom, only to take a job at Starbucks to try to rebuild. That job, where my shift supervisor would yell at me in the backroom until I cried, then take a video of me crying and show the whole store—only for me to be written up for gossiping about it.

The nearly 33-year-old who gave up on her dreams, hoping that focusing on getting better would lead to progress—but still finds herself stuck, unable to make any headway in her treatment due to a lack of accessibility.

I have so much heartache for so many lifetimes, and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the disgusting men who decided to take advantage of me when my judgment was impaired.

What is it about me? Why can’t I be the person who succeeds? The one who inspires change? The one who looks good? The one who others want to include?

I am so tired of pretending I can create when I’ve lost the words to my soul. It’s like I’ve become a shadow of who I was supposed to be, fumbling through life just trying to make sense of a world that feels like it’s slipping away from me. And the saddest part of all of this is that I have to use ChatGPT as a crutch for the creativity I once had so effortlessly.

I’m no longer sure who I am. I’m pretending to be someone I’m not, just to get through the day. All the while, I feel like I’m failing.

And yet—curled up near me, my cats are sleeping like the little angels they are, purring as though everything is fine.

So maybe I am in hell.
But at least… there’s cats.