i am mentally unwell and the only thing i seem to be able to do is write.

do you ever feel like letting go of a plate you're holding just to watch it fall and break? sometimes my brain tells me things are going too well, and i need to do something to change that. sometimes in a quiet room i want to scream at the top of my lungs and cry for help.

i have to finish some cover letters and research statements for some job applications due this week. i was supposed to start writing them last week at the latest, but ever since returning from taiwan, my health has been a complete mess. part of it can be chalked up to jetlag, but i've never experienced jetlag this badly before, especially given the fact that i've been traveling internationally yearly for a while now.

i've had a migraine for a few days that doesn't want to go away. i guess i haven't tried very hard to make it go away. i've been struggling to eat, and eating just about one meal a day for the past few days. this is mostly because i wake up at 7am — which is 7pm in taiwan time — get extremely hungry, convince myself i'm starting my day off strong, go eat breakfast, and then come home to promptly fall back asleep. yesterday i fell asleep at 1pm. i didn't wake up in time for dinner, or even for a midnight snack. by 3am i was delirious. my head hurt. my eyes burned. it was hard deciphering what was real and what was a dream. i had dreams about getting up and getting ready for bed. i had dreams about cleaning my room, which is still uncleaned. i had conversations with people who haven't been in my life for a decade.

earlier this year i felt my mind slipping from me, in a way that i hadn't really experienced before, at least not for such a prolonged period of time. it was around march, and i was about to go on a cross-country drive with my friend, to help bring his car from michigan back to california. i told myself the drive would help me mentally, and in some ways, i think it did. but i can't keep going on cross-country drives whenever my brain starts to tell me things i don't want to hear.

i do think what happened in the spring was a side effect of stopping an antipsychotic medication that i had been prescribed. i don't think i should have been prescribed it in the first place. i had gone to a psychiatrist to get something to help with my adhd, but they said they couldn't give me a stimulant since that's a class of medication that's controlled and pretty restricted. so instead, we gave this antipsychotic a try. for adhd.

for the majority of my life, i refused to take medication for my mental health. for the most part, i didn't need it. i was able to function fine and go through my days fine and eat and laugh and work and enjoy life as much as i needed to. sure, i struggled with sleep and depression and stress, but who doesn't these days?

i didn't get admitted to a psych ward for the first time until i started taking meds. or rather, until i switched meds, found out i was allergic to the new ones, and had to stop taking them for a while. for whatever reason, i'm particularly sensitive to when i stop taking meds. it's been different for each thing that i've taken, but roughly it boils down to me being unable to function at all. i've been stuck in bed so many more days than i would like to be.

i do think antidepressants help, and they do make a positive difference for myself and so many others. but it's not a cure-all solution by itself. there are a lot of things in my life that no amount of medication can fix, and i'm scared of taking the responsibility to address those things no matter how urgent they're becoming.

i'm scared i've made the wrong choices in life, and while i know i have more time to make better choices, i can't help but feel like there are only a few dead ends ahead in this maze, and the doors behind me have closed.