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this was the worst i'd ever felt... (and how i got better) · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  During one of the lowest moments of my life, I wrote this.
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  Maybe if I just do my laundry tomorrow, I'll feel better.
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  I know that's not true, but I like to hold on to the idea.
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  Perhaps clean clothes mean a clean slate.
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  Perhaps I'd feel washed of all my wrongdoings.
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  I think if I just clean my room tomorrow, I'll feel relief as I
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  splash water into the sink, look up at my tired eyes, glassed
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  over and stained. That pile of junk has been
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  sitting in the corner of my room for months.
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  I just need to sort through it. I just need to find what's
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  hurting. Maybe if I take a hot shower
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  tomorrow I'll feel better. I don't fit into my skin very
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  well so maybe it will melt right off.
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  It always feels a size too small or big.
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  Maybe if I do my laundry tomorrow I'll feel better so I
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  can wash myself clean and stop going in circles.
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  When I wrote that, I was so deeply depressed and going
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  through the exact same cycle every day, and I kept convincing
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  myself that if I could just magically get myself together,
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  magically stop being depressed, then everything would get
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  better. But I didn't understand that
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  that's not how it works. So I wrote this poem saying
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  that, oh, maybe if I just wash my laundry, I'll feel better.
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  And of course, from a very realistic standpoint, that's a
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  little bit ridiculous. It's a little bit ridiculous to
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  say that, oh, if you just wash your clothes, you'll feel
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  better. That's not how it works.
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  But I was more holding on to this notion that I just needed
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  to fix myself, that I just needed to clean myself from the
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  inside out and then I would feel better.
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  It was desperate. I was completely alone with what
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  I was feeling and I didn't know what to do.
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  I just kept getting worse every single day.
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  I couldn't even get out of bed to wash my laundry.
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  I kept re wearing the same clothes.
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  Depression is not a pretty illness.
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  It does not treat you well. There's nothing glamorous about
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  it. And a lot of people don't like
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  to talk about the not glamorous parts of depression like not
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  being able to do your laundry. I noticed somebody who doesn't
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  struggle with their mental health.
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  It sounds ridiculous to say that you literally couldn't do a
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  simple task like laundry or brushing your teeth, but it's
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  something that you can't really understand until you've
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  experienced it. Deression holds you down, it
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  stops you from being able to do the most small menial tasks, and
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  it's very difficult. I want to share my own personal
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  experience with depression in relation to this poem that I
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  wrote. It's from my book.
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  I Feel Everything All the Time. I want to talk about how
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  difficult depression is and how it tricks us into going after
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  the wrong things, how it tricks us into thinking we can just
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  magically heal and how it stops us from doing the little things.
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  This is a part of a new series I'm starting where I go through
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  different poems in my book and I just talk about them and I talk
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  about what I was feeling at the time.
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  So thanks so much for being here and let's feel some feelings.
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  Looking back, it's hard to imagine that I woke up every
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  single day feeling as bad as I did.
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  It's very hard. Even now, as somebody who went
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  through it, you know, I experienced depression and I
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  still do. It's still there.
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  You know, I believe it never truly goes away.
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  You just learn how to cope. You learn how to deal with it
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  better. You learn how to live with it
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  and you learn how to treat yourself well.
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  But at my lowest point, when the depression was the heaviest and
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  I didn't know what to do and I didn't know how to cope and I
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  didn't know how to treat myself well, life felt impossible.
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  And even now, looking back, even though I went through that, it
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  is hard to picture exactly what it felt like.
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  And it is hard to imagine how it completely screeched my life to
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  a halt. I couldn't do laundry.
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  I, I could barely bring myself to brush my teeth.
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  I would go days and days and days without showering,
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  sometimes even longer. It wasn't glamorous and it
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  wasn't pretty. And I think this poem is a
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  reflection of that. A lot of people like to talk
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  about depression in the way, you know, oh, it makes you isolate.
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  We understand that it's a heavy feeling.
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  It makes you feel sad. It makes you feel numb.
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  You lose interest in things. We understand that.
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  But we don't talk about the not glamorous side of depression,
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  the not being able to do laundry, the thinking if I can
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  just do my laundry, maybe I'll feel better.
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  If I can just shower, if I can just brush my teeth.
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  It absolutely does bring relief and it is so important to put
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  effort into doing those things. But it feels so impossible in
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  the moment. Even now looking back, it's hard
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  to imagine. There's so much stigma around
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  mental illness, depression, anxiety, personality disorders,
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  bipolar. There's so much stigma still
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  because it is hard to imagine what it feels like if you
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  haven't personally experienced mental illness.
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  It is so difficult to imagine that a simple task like doing
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  laundry can feel impossible. It can feel impossible, yet it
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  feels like a way out. And you just go in circles over
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  and over and over, day-to-day, trying desperately to get better
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  and yet always feeling like you're at square 1.
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  It's a hard feeling, and I went through that for years.
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  Depression keeps you from doing the simplest things.
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  And it, it, it feels kind of like torture because you know
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  what you have to do. You know that you are supposed
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  to do certain things and that it's supposed to make you feel
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  better. You know that you're supposed to
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  do your laundry. You know that you're supposed to
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  talk to people and you're supposed to get out of the house
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  and, you know, maybe get professional help.
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  Yet it's not that simple. It's never that simple.
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  For years, I did know what I had to do.
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  I did the research, I did the work.
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  I knew how to work my way out of this mental illness.
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  Simply put, I knew how to feel better.
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  It sounds ridiculous, but I, I, I, I knew the exact steps that I
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  needed to take in order to feel better from this intense
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  sadness, this intense mental illness that I was feeling.
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  But I felt stuck. I could hardly get out of bed
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  and I couldn't do the things that I knew I needed to do.
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  And that's one of the most frustrating parts.
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  And that all comes back to this poem.
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  Maybe if I do my laundry tomorrow, I'll feel better.
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  I knew that I needed to do this, and I knew that it would make me
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  feel better, but it felt impossible.
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  That pile of junk that had been sitting in the corner of my room
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  for months. I just needed to sort through
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  it, yet I couldn't even sort through the emotions that I was
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  feeling. Depression is cruel, it is
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  unfair, and it halts your life in its tracks.
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  So I want to speak directly to you if you are dealing with
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  depression or any kind of mental illness right now and you
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  roughly know the steps that you need to take.
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  Maybe you've been doing some research, maybe you have talked
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  to a friend and you figured out what it is that you need to do.
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  Yet you feel completely frozen in place.
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  And every time you try to get better, every time you start
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  taking steps, you end up back at square one.
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  I want to speak directly to you because I know how frustrating
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  that is. It sucks to try to heal your
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  mental health over and over again, yet always be back to
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  square one. It sucks to put in so much
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  effort yet feel like you're never making any progress.
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  But I want to tell you, every single time you try and every
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  single time you fail and you think, what is wrong with me?
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  I can't heal. You are slowly getting one step
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  closer. And I know it sounds ridiculous,
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  but what worked for me is starting ridiculously small.
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  So instead of trying to do all of my laundry at once, instead
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  of trying to do these big steps, instead of trying to go, if I do
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  this, I will feel better. If if I take this big step, I
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  will feel better. I just started ridiculously
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  small. For me, it would just be sitting
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  in the shower as the water ran over me instead of fully going
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  and taking a shower. Once again, that's hard to grasp
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  if you haven't struggled with mental illness, but that's the
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  spot that I was at. I, I, I just literally had to
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  sit in the shower. I was so depressed, I couldn't
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  even stand up. You know, maybe the tiny step is
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  simply getting out of bed today and, and walking to get a glass
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  of water. Maybe it's reaching out to a
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  friend via text, maybe it's just looking a few things up about
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  potentially getting professional help.
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  You have to start ridiculously small.
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  You have to start so small that it doesn't feel like it's doing
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  anything. Then slowly, month after month,
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  year after year, you will have made progress without even
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  realizing it. Does it ever truly go away?
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  No, I live with this mental illness every single day.
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  But it's not impossibly heavy as it used to be.
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  It doesn't define me, and I'm able to cope and deal with it
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  because I've lived with it. I know what I need to do now,
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  and it's a lot easier to do those things because I kept
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  going, because I kept trying, because I started ridiculously
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  small and now laundry is not an impossible task.
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  In fact, while I was recording this, my dryer just went off and
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  my laundry is done for the day. That's something that was
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  unimaginable just three or four years ago.
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  I promise it does get better and one day the weight of everything
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  will be a little bit lighter. That's going to wrap it up for
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  today's episode. Thank you for joining me on this
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  slightly different episode. I'm going to try to do this once
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  a week along with the regular Feel Your Feelings videos.
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  If you want to get a copy of this book, you can get one on my
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  website, ethanjewel.com. I'll link it down in the
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  description. If you need help feeling your
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  difficult feelings, check out my music on all platforms under the
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  name of Ethan Jewel and I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
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  Also, drop me a comment. Let's start the conversation on
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  mental health. Let me know what you have been
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  struggling with the most recently.
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  Maybe try to identify some small steps that you're going to take
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  to help heal. So thank you so much for being
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  here. Thanks for listening to this
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  poem. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.