ProPlus and Prayer

Artwork: Ida Henrich

Cambridge is a pressure cooker; a hothouse; a crucible. You have to work and go out clubbing and make friends for life and reinvent yourself and become cool and get a Blue and get a First and learn what politics is and have conversations at three in the morning over black coffee and try smoking and find God and debate at the union, and then you need to choose what you are doing for the rest of your life, and make the most of where you are, because you were one of a select few to get here so be grateful and work hard and make the most of it.

It’s not really a surprise, then, that in the first term of my third year at university, years of untreated, undiagnosed anxiety and depression rose up in a tide, crashing over me, dragging me into the dark.

My brain played — with shattered-glass clarity — a catalogue of my greatest failures which, conveniently enough, was everything I had ever done. Or so I thought at the time. Anxiety is a liar; but she is a brilliant one, because she lives in your head, and she knows all your secrets, and she’ll drag them out for your perusal again (and again, and again, and again).

The only respite from that was a choking grey haze; total, blank apathy. I could not make myself care; I could not make myself do anything. I did not eat, not because I wanted to harm myself — but because I couldn’t physically contemplate the need for food. I was a mannequin filled with droning white static.

My only two modes were ALL OF THE FEELINGS, or none of them.

For years, I had denied that there was anything wrong with me. It was university stress, I would say. Oh, no, I was just a needy friend. Everyone got worked up to the point of nail-biting, skin-crawling terror at the prospect of someone not liking you. No one really likes being alone with their thoughts. Right. Right?  

I spent Christmas adapting to Sertraline and growing out my leg hair, because my mother wouldn’t let me keep razors in the house. And then I went back to university, and my final exams.

Traditionally, Cambridge exams are a time of madness. Students become hermits. Libraries teem; the air tense and thrumming with stress, reeking of sweat and sour fear. Masochism becomes competitive, like martyrs in medieval abbeys bickering over who has the thorniest hair shirt.

I slept two hours last night.

Lucky! I’ve slept three hours in three days…

I live off ProPlus and prayer…

My hair is falling out!

On more than one occasion, I was tempted to skip lunch, or dinner. Anxiety snarling at my heels, chewing on my bones, saying work harder, you’ll fail. And I breathed, and I remembered the drowning dark, the feel of being thrown onto jagged black rocks. I had a revision timetable. But I also had a mental checklist: eat, brush teeth, drink some water. I held onto it, no matter what my brain was doing, no matter what deadline loomed — even when the grey haze swept down, my checklist stayed. Step by step, even when my brain didn’t want to function; even when anxiety yammered and whined, trying to blot out everything else.

It could be worse, I thought, and I told a friend (who was neck-deep in the history of political theory) breathe, my darling, breathe. And look after yourself. Because that’s more important than the exams, in the end.

Jess is a caffeine-addicted feminist with anxiety/depression (both at the same time; mental illness often comes with company). She writes a lot, reads a lot and blogs about true crime books at Coffee & Crime.

Ida Henrich is a German Cartoonist, Illustrator and Designer based in Scotland. She has worked with award winning publishers, online coaches and magazines. Ida is a graduate of Communication Design at the Glasgow School of Art where she specialised in Illustration. In her own work she explores themes such sex-education, growing up, and women’s experiences. Her comics and illustrations are written for both men and women and aims to start an open dialogue between partners, friends, parents, and children about their one’s own experiences. She believes that Art is a powerful way to make ideas and feelings tangible.

As Art Editor, Ida is responsible for all things visual at Fearless Femme including the correspondence with our visual artists, the design and realisation of the online magazine and the illustration of our amazing cover girls. She will also be creating artwork for some of our articles, poems and stories. You can contact her at ida@fearlessly.co.uk.