might be dying, too stressed to tell.

We're almost there. It's almost October 8th.

As I write this (9:40pm on 10/12), I keep checking my phone, waiting for the confirmation that they're home. That they're safe. שהם בארץ. (that they're in the land [Israel])

It's odd, after spending two years knowing this awful truth, I don't know what to think. Bringing as many hostages home, alive, seemed impossible. A dream that only the fools held onto as the rest of the world forgot about them. I promise you: we did not. The sancity of human life is paramount in Judaism. Not for one minute, one second, were they not at the forefront of our minds (I can't say the same for Bibi).

The world was turned upside down on October 7th. And when it's finally October 8th, we aren't returning to the world of October 6th. That world is long gone.

I know too much about how former friends think of me and my people. I know how former coworkers shared blantantly antisemitic misinformation online. I know that people I trusted with my heart were never actually worthy of that honor.

It wouldn't be fair to call it a crueler world. Yes, I learned that the world is far more unkind than I believed, but I also found so much love and hope. Love for my people and my heritage, hope in even the darkest of moments. It's not a better world or a darker world. It's a different world.

But here I am, sitting and complusively checking my phone after each and every paragraph. Waiting for the news of a safe transfer. Tomorrow, I hope I wake up to the videos of families reuniting. Tomorrow, I hope I cry happy tears for the first time in a long time.

The return of the hostages cannot undo the past two years. There is no going back but finally, finally, we can start moving forward. This perpetual October 7th can end.

Tomorrow night begins Shemini Atzeret. I'll visit a friend's house for a meal, host one of my own. When the sun sets on Tuesday, it'll be Simchat Torah. I'll go with friends and dance, joyful and alive. I'll carry the grief of what we've lost, but I'll sing till my voice is gone.

:ניצחנו

we have won.

The cost of this victory is unimaginably heavy, but we will be on the other side. The moutain has been climbed, the summit has been found. The descent is upon us, and it often the most difficult part of the hike. But for one day, we will rejoice. ve’samachta be’chagecha, ve’hayita ach sameach: you shall rejoice in your festival, and you will only be happy.

(a more formal post)

Today is Also an Anniversary

It’s easy to talk about “the day everything changed.” To assign one date, one hour, with the burden of a world-altering moment. But there was also the day before that happened. The last day before the world ended.

I don’t remember every detail from October 6th, 2023. I had no reason to commit each moment to memory. To me, it was just another day.

I mostly recall being excited. Simchat Torah was the next night and I couldn’t wait to drink a little and dance with the community. It would be my first time attending hakafot (the circle dances with the Torah scrolls) at the local synagogue. In the past, I never joined the dancing– maybe this year would be different. I explained to my non-Jewish coworkers how we get drunk and celebrate in the streets with our sacred, $30,000 scrolls. It’s one of the happiest days of the year.

On October 6th, I still spoke to a couple of very good college friends. People I thought would stay in my life forever and be aunts and uncles to my future children.

On October 6th, I went to a Chabad Shabbat/Shemini Atzeret dinner and ran into college friends I had not seen in several years. I was so, so happy that night.

On October 6th, I had hope. I had faith in the world.

Two years have passed since that happy day. It’s hard to know what to feel. Hostages are still held in Gaza. Civilians who live in areas embedded with Hamas infrastructure continue to die. Antisemitic attacks aren’t shocking anymore. The lack of support from the global community is expected.

I’ve also watched people turn their unimaginable grief into beautiful acts of tzedakah. A friend of mine opened a gemach for bridesmaid and wedding guest dresses to honor her fallen husband. Communities raised funds to support kibbutz members who lost their families and their homes.

We’ve come together as an am (עם): a nation. United in sharing the weight of the past two years, lending our strength to those around us. The circumstances under which this closeness developed were unfathomable but we are here. We are still standing.

Finding hope has become an active decision. The passive belief that people are good has all but vanished. When a synagogue was attacked on Yom Kippur, I expected silence and was unfortunately right. Not a single non-Jew I follow on Instagram condemned the attack. On our holiest day of the year, as Jews gathered to pray, someone made the decision to cause harm. Several years ago, this would have made headlines but now, it’s nothing more than a blip.

Tomorrow, I’ll be with my immediate family for the first days of Sukkot. We’ll mourn together on the secular anniversary. When I light candles with my mom, I’ll silently recite the names of those I’m committed to remembering. We’ll visit a community member’s sukkah and eat together. Eight days later, I’ll be with my local community for Simchat Torah. The second yahrzeit will begin and we’ll take that sadness and hold it together with joy. We’ll sing ve’samachta be’chagecha, ve’hayita ach sameach: you shall rejoice in your festival, and you will only be happy.

This happiness feels elusive and will continue to feel so until the war ends. As long as hostages are held and people continue to die, nothing will feel right.

Many will say “It’s still October 7th, even 731 days later.” They’re right. Even today, on October 6th, it still feels like that dreaded day. Unlike those who could ignore the attack in Manchester, I don’t get to pretend everything is fine. I am reminded every day of those we lost and those who we continue to lose. I wear my Magen David with pride in my people, our history, and the tradition of surviving even when the world would rather see us vanquished.

i have a lot of fears. someone i love getting hurt, rabid squirrels jumping out a tree and landing on my face, what i'm going to do the next time we see each other.

the very thought of it terrifies me. will you acknowledge me? will i acknowledge you? do we hug? if we ask how the other is doing, do i lie? will you lie? is the only safe topic your cat?

with some friendships, running into each other after years apart is a slightly awkward, but heart-warming experience. friends that drifted apart for no specific reason, that's easy. but us? i'm sure it'll rip my heart out.

i'm a lot more confrontational in my head than i would ever be in real life. in these scenarios, you ask how i am and i say, "well, i've been better. i lost a really meaningful friendship almost a year ago and i'm not moving on as quickly as i'd like." or maybe you ask why i stopped reaching out and i say, "it was kind of hard to maintain a relationship with someone who outright denied what happened on october 7th. also, you stopped reaching out too."

you see what i mean? i want to face this head-on, to call out the the failings between us. and yeah, i should have called you out on a thousand things before the denial. but we had an status quo to uphold and one of the things i was scared of was losing our friendship. it was (and still is, for the time it was good) so special to me. you became one of the most important people in my life and through that closeness managed to crack my sternum in two and pulverize my heart. it was brutal and bloody and awful.

in reality, if we do run into each other, it'll be awkward. a surface level interaction between two people who used to share secrets. nothing more than "how are you"s and "good"s. isn't that cruel? anyone who knew us from before would question how it came to this. i'll protect you, but only to a certain point. i'll say you shared things i disagreed with and leave it at that. but if they really ask, because they want to know who you are at your core, i'll tell them the truth. you're kind and loving, genuinely you. i'll also tell them that what we disagreed about wasn't just a political opinion, but rather about the value of life and how mine and 15 million others aren't worth anything to you. i'll tell them how you threw away a 6-year friendship without a single word.

dear a,

i used to use this blog to write about anything and everything that went on in my head, but lately, it feels like everything revolves around you. or the lack thereof, i should say. but anyway. the point.

i saw the newest marvel movie a couple weeks ago. it wasn't the first time i've been to the movies alone, but i kept on looking at the empty seat next to me, expecting to see a reflection of the movie in your glasses. i laughed alone. all my thoughts afterwards stayed internal, instead of being shared with you. when i left the theater, i talked to your ghost all the way home. you haunt me, despite all attempts to rid myself of attachment.

i guess all of this is to say i miss doing life with you. i miss celebrating the little wins with you by my side. i miss knowing you.

it's odd, i can see how someone might read this and go, "is a dead?" and in some ways, it's easier to act that way. we don't talk. don't interact at all. when i talk about you, it would be less painful to say, "my dead friend" versus "my friend i don't talk to anymore". that's mean, isn't it? you're not dead. i hope. who would tell me? you shared something really concerning a month ago and the me who used to be your friend would have immediately reached out. but i'm not her anymore, just like you're not the you i loved.

every time i say "my friend i don't talk to anymore", i wonder if people will ask what happened. that line opens me up for a line of questioning. ask, if you have the courage. carrying around the weight of a broken friendship might ruin my shoulders more than a heavy bag of groceries.

to further unpack the phrase- why start it with "my friend"? doesn't that term no longer apply to us? would you consider youself my friend? would you pick up the phone if i called in a panic? is there some part of you that cares about the girl i used to be (and maybe still am)? if you called me, i would assume it was an emergency and i was your last possible option. but without hesitation, i'd pick up the phone. i do not question that certainty. my heart still longs for your friendship, even if my mind knows it's a lost cause (but what if it wasn't?).

we've got a couple months until the next marvel movies comes out. it would be fantastic to watch it with you by my side. or to have the closure to watch it without your ghost. either way, let's figure this out. you always know where to to find me.

all my love,

dear a,

i'm back to writing about and to you, but let's be honest, did i ever stop?

you showed up in my dreams last night. dream-me was shocked and dream-you was, well, you. your face and your glasses and your smile, all there in front of me. god, it's embarassing how much i miss you. dream-you only showed up towards the end. dream-me said hi and you looked at me the way you've always looked at me. dream-me asked if we could talk and dream-you nodded. after that, i woke up. the most fleeting of interactions and yet the most heart-wrenching.

this was a constructed moment, an instance of wish-fulfillment, but my god do i wish it was real. i hate the way our friendship ended. the complete lack of closure or dignity awarded to a understanding six years in the making. we were friends, but we were something. there was lightness and surface-level humor but there was also love and heavy secrets shared at 3am. there was more and to rip that away broke the part of my heart dedicated to you.

i keep trying to find some allegory or metaphor to describe the way we ended. how does one summize a death so quiet and yet so agonizing with words other than "there is nothing left and i am in pain"?

would a verbal fight have brought me the closure i needed? both of us seeing, in its full truth, our lack of compatibility as friends- do you need that? or did you toss me aside without a second thought?

tomorrow will be six months to the day since you last texted me. i'm sure i'll go another six more without saying hello. it could have been different. it could still be different. what if it was? would that be so bad?

all my love,

dear a,

i'm writing this to Swimming. it's one of my favorite albums, thanks to you. this won't be the last time i write you, but i needed to put some words to paper (or screen, i should say) today of all days.

while i was on the bus home, i wanted to know if my roommates were home, so i opened find my friends. lo and behold, you weren't there because at 3:52pm today, you stopped sharing your location with me. for about a year and a half, i've know where you are. i knew when you were at the girl who broke your heart's house. i knew when you were visiting people in new york. i knew when you drove by my house while we weren't talking on your way to something else. did i check it regularly? no, but i opened it frequently enough to see where my roommates were and you live a fifteen minute drive away. i was going to see where you were, intentionally or not. there was a comfort in knowing you were physically okay. your phone was going somewhere, so you were too.

one hundred and forty one days ago, we stopped talking. you sent me a text about a trailer dropping and i made the mistake of opening instagram before responding. i saw you updated your story and when i viewed it, i saw october 7th denial. we disagree about a lot when it comes to this, but i never thought i'd see this. you'd shared ahistorical posts, qatari propaganda, and a dozen other types of posts. but unmistakable october 7th denial... i didn't know how to react. was this the moment i finally said something? the moment i confronted you for the hints of antisemitism that flavored what you shared? instead, i chose the coward's way out. i didn't respond at all to the text. i wish i had, so ghosting wouldn't be on my head. but i did what i did, and now we're here.

about two months later was thanksgiving. ever since we met, i've always texted you and said i was grateful for you in my life. i didn't this year.

you've always texted me merry christmas, even though i don't celebrate the holiday. radio silence. same with new years.

a few weeks ago, your birthday came and went. i spent weeks wondering what i would do. i didn't text you.

and now we're here. another piece of "us" gone. all that's left are the various social media platforms. once we split there, there will be nothing except an annual event in my calendar, the photos, and the memories.

i think there was a time where we fit togther. both of us a little to broken to be alone and the solace we found in each other moved us onwards. i didn't know that onwards also meant apart. from a two-piece jigsaw puzzle to completely unfamiliar to one another.

the best say to describe it is as such: i miss the person you used to be. not the one who was hurting and losing touch with himself, but the one who made it though and still saw me. before you shed the kind persona and fully embraced the ugliness of hate. i knew it lurked, but pretended it didn't. maybe that was naive of me, but i was happy and i wouldn't trade those memories for the world.

i know that i'm afraid of confrontation. true friends would have cared enough to face it instead of calling it "the thing we don't talk about". i fight it out with you alone in my bed where you can't fight back. i implore you to chose love and see through the lies. i tell you i miss you.

there was a point, i think, where we might have fit the label of "more than friends, less than lovers". i can see you reading this and scoffing, but truly, a, think about how much we texted. the conversations we had. the oxytocin. there were lines we crossed, both of us happy to do so at the time, but ignorant of the consequences. we were never lovers, never intimate. in lieu, i gave you my heart and my attention. i presented myself on a silver platter and said please take as much as you'd like. gorge yourself on my care and worry. it seems birkat hamazon was not a concept with which you were familiar. grattitude for what i offered was not shown.

there is so much i'd like to tell you. so many things have happened in the last 141 days. if you hear, it won't be from my lips. it'll be repeated by a mutual friend who treated my people with humanity. i try to remind myself of this when my soul aches for the loss of our friendship. how could we be friends when you look at my people with such disgust?

i've managed to write this and still have a couple songs left to go on Swimming, but it's my bedtime. i'll probably write again, but i'll leave this on the internet for you to find. if you do, let me know. we've got some things to talk about and closure to find.

all my love,

something i wrote recently:

what a pitiful creature i must be to delight at this treatment expectant of nothing yet treasuring the worst for it is something at least it is something

it is for you, of course. when it is not?

there is more to this story, there always is. there are years of love and pain and caring with every molocule that makes up this tangible vessel. and somehow, despite all that i gave, i have never asked for anything back except a friend.

but here i am now. today. asking for reciprocation. the coffers must be refilled lest they collapse, lest i find myself lacking enough for myself. i do not know how to not be your friend. when a day goes by without thinking of you, i do not know how to feel. should i be glad i can exist without you? should i wail at the thought of distance?

i find myself proclaiming silent declarations in hebrew, all in your name. the language i call home despite my lack of fluency, but is safe because you do not understand it. i say i love you with all that i am, you are my beloved, i am not her but i am here, please see that i am here and forever will be.

i watched good will hunting and it was amazing as i expected but i just keep thinking about the "it's not your fault" line. and i'm not in the same situation as will, leagues far from it, but i just keep coming back to it. it's not my fault. it's not my fault that my best friend in fifth grade suddenly stopped talking to me for a couple weeks, leaving me alone on the playground without a friend to turn to. it's not my fault that that very same friend turned on me in sixth grade when i made a friend and changed out my shoes for converse. it's not my fault that my teachers didn't understand that i didn't ask for help not because i didn't want to, but because i was too scared to raise my hand. it's not my fault that i poured my heart into loving people in college that have yet to love me back. it's not my fault that i'm wired to care wholely and completely without second thought even though they'll forget me as without a second thought.

and there are a thousand other things that i want to put on this list that aren't my fault but how can i put on the list that it isn't my fault that my freshman year friends forgot about me when they realized i wasn't someone who liked going out when my mom said that i chose to not make other friends? how can i put on my list that it isn't my fault that i'm not a bridesmaid for a high school friend when we both gave up on phone tag, not just me? how can i put on my list that i don't feel like i have many friends when i haven't put in the effort to make them after college but that's only because i hate going to things alone and don't want to be annoying?

i just don't get why everything is only my fault. i've had shitty friends and people in my life that decided, whether consiously or unconsiously, i'm not worth the effort anymore. i'm not the best at staying in touch, but neither are they.

i have really exciting news to share but i haven’t texted him yet. i can’t. it’s been almost a month since we last spoke and how am i supposed to start a conversation with “guess what, i got a job offer!! i’m gonna be a librarian!!”

i can hear my mom saying “well it’s also on you to reach out and not let things fade away” but when i’ve been the one starting things for the past few months, it sure feels weird. and fuck it, it’s not just on me. i can’t be the only one putting in work.

it's how i see you in the way i throw a towel over my shoulder when i'm doing the dishes but wear an apron when baking. how i listen to mac and joji and quinn because you liked their music. how you're the person i want to send my baking adventures to. you are, even if you wish you weren't, a part of my life.

and maybe i'm not that to you. maybe i'm not anything at all to you, but that doesn't mean i am supposed to revert back to who i was five years ago. you helped her and you gave her purpose. for the first time, i felt important to someone. i felt wanted.

as i'm sure you're familiar, when you grow up with little to no romantic attention, every relationship you form is bigger. it holds more signifigance because it is a choice. that person chose you out of everyone. you are no longer part of the masses, you are recognized. it's fucking euphoric.

for all the things i've written, i always need to clarify that the way i care and think about you has always been platonic. consider this a life-long banishment to the friendzone because there are fundamental differences in how we want to live our lives that simply aren't compatible and you know what-- i like that. there was never even a minute possibility that i would catch feelings. and maybe that's cruel to say but unless your answer to "would you go through a modern orthodox conversion and keep a fully kosher kitchen?" changes to yes, it's a comfortable space to inhabit.

do you get how weird it is to want to text someone you've felt comfortable texting for years only to think "well, i texted him three days ago, i don't want to be annoying". i feel like i have to be so selective in how i communicate with you that i barely reach out at all. it's like standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff, not knowing if your anchor points are secure enough and just shifting your weight onto the other foot could send you tumbling to the next life.

at the end of the day, i can't tell if i'm just imagining it. maybe you haven't thought anything of it (which would be bad, because that would mean you've thought "i haven't heard from her in a while, but i don't care enough to reach out") but maybe you have and you're also stuck. maybe you're distancing yourself because you're dating someone and don't want to cross any lines.

to be honest, i really don't care if you have or haven't thought about it. i just want to know if we're still friends. i just want to know if i am still important, cause it sure as hell feels like i have become completely irrelevent and disposable.

i think we’re drifting apart and i don’t know how to make peace with that. i don’t remember the last time you reached out to me first or wanted to see me, and so much of me just misses you all the time. i could deal with a long distance friendship, if it was a friendship that ran in both directions.

maybe you found my tumblr and got scared off and that’s valid, i guess. this blog probably makes it seem like i’m a head over heels in love with you, and i’m not, i promise. i think at some point during my freshman year we were sitting together, and my heart decided that i loved you. and love is such an overused word at this point, it’s doesn’t really even carry much meaning anymore, but for me it’s a promise. i say i love you and i mean that i’m there if you called me at three in the morning because you couldn’t sleep or you just needed someone, i would fuck up my sleep schedule without a second thought. i chose you.

and i think that’s what hurts so much right now, the fact that i chose you and you stopped choosing me a long time ago. i don’t mean like three years ago, but instead enough months ago that i’ve just been sitting with this hurt for so long that it’s what i associate with you. and knowing you, if you saw this or if i had the guts to tell you this in person, you would reassure me and say no no no no no, of course you matter, of course you’re important to me. but that doesn’t change how your behavior towards me has just been nonexistent. and i can’t call it bad behavior, it’s just none. you don’t think of me.

a while ago, my cousin asked what i thought my love language was, and at the time i wasn’t sure. i have never really been loved by someone for long enough that i would know. of course, love languages extend beyond romantic relationships, but i didn’t really know because at the heart of it, i just wanted to feel wanted. And i think that’s still how i feel. i try to make the people that i love feel as though they’re important to me through my actions. i send memes and texts, and i’m not perfect. i can admit that i am not perfect and sometimes forget, but i do the things and you don’t.

i can hear my friends telling me that this isn’t a friendship that provides anything productive or beneficial to me anymore and all i want to do is prove them wrong. i want to be able to say no, he cares, no, i am important to him. i think i’m just coming to terms with how i’m probably never going to be that important to you. and maybe that’s my fault for not recognizing sooner that the two of us were better as college friends and not as post-grad friends. but why am i not allowed to want more from you, why am i not allowed to want you in my life?

i should probably write this out into a longer form post, but i just wanted this feeling to exist in a space outside of my own head.

i miss you, a. i miss you a lot. i don’t think the love i feel for you will ever be reciprocated and i’m trying to make peace with that, but that doesn’t stop me from missing you from the moment i leave until the moment i return.

i don't feel anything. and the sounds dramatic but i guess what's happening in my own head takes precedence and i don't have the capacity to care. i spend too much time spiraling and thinking about everything to take the five minutes to write a cover letter. i'm spent before i even wake up.

the thing is that everything in my head is situational (for the most part). my mental health falling through the earth's crust coincides with academic and post-grad stress, but this is where the loop kicks in. i'm stressed about all that, my brain takes a vacation from keeping its shit together, and then i can't do anything for academic/post-grad, and then i get even worse. it's vicious and it's been like this as long as i can remember. this is the most awful part of it-- i know what i need to do to help myself and push through, but i mentally cannot. i stare at readings, job applications, everything, incapable of processing anything in front of me.

and i can hear my mom saying that i can always come to her for help and that she's there for me, but she's never shown the understanding that maybe i'm just like this. this isn't something that can be fixed with a pep talk or an article. mom, there's part of me that's broken. i can live with it, i can move with it, but you cannot fix it, no matter how much you say you love me. what am i supposed to tell you, mom? your eldest child doesn't love herself the way you do? that she sometimes wishes to just blip out of existence cause telling you that i'm just tired instead of "hey a seven-year-nap sounds appealing" every single time we talk is exhausting? that she hasn't been okay in years but has fooled everyone into believing she's got it under control? you don't want to hear that, mom. you want me to have my shit together.

i don't think i understand people better than the next unlicensed psychologist. i'm a good listener, that's true, and i will help anyone who comes to me with their problems. i know why i'm like this, i can unpack it in an instant. i play therapist with myself, one part of me reminding the other how we got here. i cannot hide secrets from therapist-me cause they're her secrets too. therapist-me is half of the never-ending spiral. she knows the path out of the spiral but cannot leave without her companion.

here's what they don't tell you about college:

if you don't drink and all there is to do at your school is party, you're going to be lonely. when you spend freshman year nervous about drinking so instead you sober mom your friends cause taking care of people is your love language, you're going to eventually get left behind in the dorms when they go out to the frats and bars.

when you're a sophomore who doesn't really drink in college, people expect you to have found a group of friends who also don't drink, surely you've joined clubs and found your people, right?

if you're terrible at making friends because you've spent your whole life with people you've known since kindergarten, you can't just decide to join a club. you need a buddy to go with you, at least in the beginning so you don't feel so alone. but nobody wants to come to the club meetings since who the hell wants to write creatively in their free time, god, you're such a weirdo.

when you're a junior who doesn't really drink in college, people are curious. they want to know why you don't drink and when you explain, they furrow their eyebrows cause they've never heard of such a student. sometimes they ask what you do on the weekends and you just joke that you catch up on work, maybe watch some movies. but you never say hang out with friends. all of your friends are out drinking and spend the week planning for future adventures. junior year is the year when you finally dip your toes in the world of inebriation but not enough to fit in with everyone else.

finally, when you're the senior in college who doesn't really drink, people forget about you. they don't invite you out to drink and they don't invite you to hang out. you're not present in their happy party memories, so why would you be a part of their sober laughs? by senior year, you're isolated. the only friends still at college are members of your future graduation class and maybe you see them socially once a month.

i don't know what happens after college, but it sure will be nice to (hopefully) make friends with people who do things other than drink for fun.

i can still feel you on my skin. the way we held each other throughout the whole night cause neither one of us could sleep but no matter how we shifted, our fingers were laced together. how you wrapped your arms around me and nuzzled into the back of my neck. how you made sure my shoulder was positioned correctly. how you always found a way to pull me closer. and while i may have only slept a couple hours, i've never felt more safe or loved.

and now it's 14 hours later and i don't want to sleep. i don't want to get into bed and toss and turn and wonder why my twin xl bed feels too empty. i don't want to face a sleepless night alone.

for the first time in four months, someone held me. it's impossible to go back to a time before my body knew that sensation. i can't pretend it never happened and that all i want is for someone to treasure me. and yet, you graduate in a couple months. i'm so happy for you-- you get to live and get out of this college town and be someone brand new.

i won't lie to you though. i'm really fucking sad you're leaving. i can't imagine what college would have been like without you. i don't think i would have liked the person i would have become if i hadn't met you. okay, yeah, part of the sadness is not getting to cuddle with you- but i'd give that up if i just got to keep on hanging out and simply seeing you.

the sadness is also fueled by the uncertainty: what happens to our friendship once you graduate? when you have a job and responsibilities and i've still got a semester of senior year? when i can't just come by your place and hang out? i'm not great at keeping up with people, i know. i send memes and tiktoks and weird thoughts on snapchat cause it feels less annoying. there's less commitment to an actual conversation when whatever i send can be replied to with a "LMAO".

i think i've written about this in the past, but i can't tell what's real and what's constructed. not in a schiznophrenic sort of way, but in a "am i rewriting the past to fit my own narrative" sort of way.

to elaborate and rephrase the question: am i genuinely mentally ill or am i lazy and creating a narrative where having depression, anxiety, or ADHD justifies my behavior?

for instance: am i really unable to focus on writing my essay or am i just an unappreciative, lazy college student who's procrastinating writing because it's easier than reading a damn paragraph? or am i really depressed or do i just feel like crap in this moment and laying on the floor is easier than pushing through? or my favorite one, which started this whole line of thinking: do i have social anxiety or do i just not want to put in the work of finding a summer job?

at the beginning of the summer, my mom was pushing me to go to therapy for social anxiety-- something i'm not even sure if i have. i kept on dancing around the question and reaching out to a therapist because i didn't even know if it was a real problem for me. i've always hated phone calls and meeting new people and especially public speaking-- but i've never had an anxiety attack over it. i got through, each and every time.

and i know what you're thinking: even if the therapist isn't for social anxiety, an outside and objective opinion would still help figure out what the hell is wrong with me (cause i can tell you that much-- not everything is a-okay). but i can't bring myself to commit to that. a problem for another time, even when this is definitely not a problem to push off.