hey its kaitlyn! sorry for being MIA for the past whatever. i miss you and jove and all the seniors so much :( but its nice to see that youre doing well. i hope your "fresh start" will be fun! i... idk. ive been doing well but all of a sudden i felt a huge wave of DepressionTM hit me and now i feel Lost so if its not too cliche, is there anything that you do when this happens to you? when u feel like shit and the world is lost to you? thanks sasha. i miss and love you so so much ❤️

hi kaitlyn i love and miss you too!! i hope you’re feeling better 💖

i understand about the DepressionTM, over the past year it’s hit me a couple times too, but honestly the entire school year was pretty nerve-wracking for me. back in the fall i was being really stupid and immature to someone i cared about and it started affecting pretty much everything i did bc i couldn’t stop thinking about it. do you remember how the night we got adjudicated for the fall show i dare not speak its name during doc’s post-game talk i ran out of the green room before it was over and everyone was like “um where are u going he’s not done”? that night SUCKED lol i was basically panicking throughout the entire performance, i felt like i was going to faint the whole time and it was so hot and cramped in the green room that i just had to leave. a similar thing happened during the two winter concert days (the rehearsal and the actual concert) where i was just on 30 levels of ANXIETY but for a much different reason, which i don’t talk about a lot bc it’s not really my story to tell. actually the winter as a whole just sucked, what with college and the musical being stressful for some reason. and i when i stress i do whatever the opposite of stress eating is so i lost a lot of weight and now a ton of my clothes don’t fit and i can’t really eat heavy foods anymore!! i also had a REALLY bad couple of weeks in april/may where i would just sit in my parked car in the parking lot and cry for a while before going home for no real reason i can remember??? because that’s how depressive episodes are they happen and they’re the worst and when they’re over you’re like what…the fuck was wrong with me. you’re sad but you have nothing that you can point at and say THAT in particular is what is making me sad. or like maybe i was just in denial idk that’s always a possibility. your brain’s like “hey what if this thing is what’s upsetting you” and you’re like “first of all? shut up” LMAO. but i’m glad it’s over and i feel fine now!

anyways i hate that Lost feeling too, it’s the worst. it sucks feeling like no one else could possibly think that whatever is wrong with you is legitimate if you can’t explain it, you know? because if you don’t know what’s causing it then you MUST be making it up—obviously a logical fallacy, especially considering that chronic anxiety/depressive disorders are health issues and the medical profession is more or less DEDICATED to finding out what’s causing problems, since you can’t always fix it if you don’t know what it is. usually i have one or two people i talk with about it, who i have that kind of relationship with where when one of you is upset you always tell the other, but i’ve also found it’s incredibly and unexpectedly helpful to talk about it with someone who knows you less. it always feels at first like you’ll bother them with emotional baggage they don’t need but more often than not i’ve found that they’re just as eager to talk about one of their own problems. a lot of the time your problems are actually more similar than they are different. i know it’s not like you can just go up to someone and say “hey can i tell you about my latest anxiety attack?” but if the opportunity arises (and i’ve been surprised how often it has) my advice would be to take it.

other than that i write a lot (as u know) and it can be really cathartic when i want it to be. there have definitely been times where i’ve come home from some stressful ordeal and written a short piece about it, usually fictionalized to distance myself from it. now i KNOW that just sounds like internalization and obviously it’s not a permanent fix for something that went wrong, but i don’t think it’s fair for other people to tell you you shouldn’t bottle up your emotions or put them somewhere where you only can see them. however you PERSONALLY need to deal with problems is what you should do first, always. taking small steps to make yourself feel better even just for a little while REALLY helps in the long run for me, it puts things into perspective. i find it a lot easier to talk to other people about the issue (especially if they were involved in the thing that upset me) if i’ve taken a few steps back and come to terms with it myself. and none of this bullshit about “important conversations should always be done in person”!! you have to WORK UP to that. if i have to psych myself up to send a text message on the matter do u think i am ready for a face-to-face conversation about it?? i can think of MANY occasions on which i started dealing with an issue by myself (the writing part), worked up to talking to someone about it over text (in a removed way so as not to freak yourself or them out), and then finally talking about it with them in person. in my experience it goes way smoother that way then trying to confront them right off the bat. and it’s not like it’s always mental health related or anything, sometimes it’s just an uncomfortable topic to talk about.

on a similar but definitely distinct note, if someone else is clearly working themselves up to talk to YOU about something that involved the two of you, you gotta give them as much time as they need. this happened to me recently and honestly it was kind of agonizing to keep waiting, and whenever i tried to bring it up they would give me like a one-sentence answer and refuse to say anything else about it. they just weren’t ready and i really needed to talk about it but in the end waiting was definitely the better option, as opposed to forcing a conversation that could have honestly wrecked our friendship and made both of us even more miserable than before. sometimes it’s just too soon. the most important thing to me is not to escalate it and try to be as understanding but still as truthful as possible. (lying gets u nowhere! don’t say ur fine when ur not!! and if they really care about you they’ll see through it anyway, i can’t remember how many times i’ve been like “[obviously having a nervous episode] yeah things are great” and my close friends have been like “who the hell are you trying to fool you fool??” “myself”) ANYWAYS i find that showing you see the other person’s perspective too really helps. like if your feelings are hurt, saying “i can tell that you didn’t MEAN it like this (i can see there was no malicious intent), but this is how it FELT to me, so just be aware that that’s how you came off.” if there was actually malicious intent then idk man lol that’s not how friends work

I’M SORRY FOR THE ESSAY have i even answered your question?? i think i answered a completely different question actually but whatever i don’t really know what i’ve been saying lol i hope it’s at least semi coherent. i think i pulled the “personal experience” lever a little too hard (why do we even have that lever?). anyways i just hope you feel better and that my dubious life advice maybe helps a little. love you 💞😘🐸