Dear User,
I’m depressed. Drink a full bottle of Echo Falls in my bedroom kinda depressed. Look in the mirror and imagine how mad the girls in school who used to laugh at my hair would be if I was living my dream life in a bikini in Bali or something kinda depressed. Have a GP you’ve been waiting three weeks to see prescribe you fluoxetine after a two minute conversation kinda depressed. Talk about exhausting.
This has been the neverending cycle since I was like, twelve, where the Guy Fawkes part of my brain plants explosives in the motivated part of my brain, and I’m too stupid to catch him before they go off. I’m nineteen now, so maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe this time it’s just the three day old Pepe’s chicken wrap I consumed out of desperation yesterday, after finding it hidden at the back of the fridge. Needless to say, SAAS can’t come in soon enough (if I survive the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in my bowels).
If imagining how slay my life is going to be when I graduate with a first, marry a billionaire, and buy a small army of Chanel bags doesn’t soothe my shame, obsessively checking my follower count will. So let’s hurry up and crunch the numbers already:
Twitter followers: 8,969
Instagram followers: 5,477
Tiktok followers: 15,802
Sad boy hours got me paid this month, when a selection of my finest depression posts went semi-viral on twitter. Tbh, I usually can’t stand twitter, not just since it became ‘X’ and lost all functionality, but because I just can’t seem to figure out how it works. I thought I was pretty funny, but the average user would rather repost some ultra-viral uncredited reddit screenshot than my well crafted and hilarious opinion pieces. It feels like every twitter user who isn’t a like-mining bot account, probably run by some AI secretary, is just writing in their very public diary and hoping others will listen. Not that I can talk. I mean, what are you reading right now?
Something I didn’t count on is how much social media users love a good bit of morbidity. I’ve had it before, that lurch of jealousy when you see someone talk about going on their ‘grippy sock vacation’ like it’s some kind of inside joke I’m not a part of. Like my pain is clearly inferior because it didn’t get me thrown in the mental hospital or make me viral on tiktok. Addiction makes you a great storyteller, bipolar and bpd girlies have all the best inside jokes, and if you once had a public eating disorder you have an arsenal of clickbait at your fingertips. What does a girl have to do to be taken seriously nowadays, commit regicide? Tyrannicide? Yeah, it sucks, I guess. But at least you got something out of it. That’s what I thought anyway, until it happened to me.
On Thursday night, I lost my cool completely. Usually, my posts on all platforms are meticulously planned out. I’ve got to see them from every angle before I hit upload, just in case I’ve left a hole for someone to hang, draw and cancel me. But that night, Primark snuddie over my head, in the depths of my quilt, sucking on a soon-to-be-contraband Lost Mary strawberry ice in the dark, I frenzied:
shame princess (me) when she self sabotages yet again [uploaded with yellowducksmoking.gif]
30,527 likes. 2,800 reposts.
the therapist pulling out a log of everything i did in the past 48hrs when my card declines (it’s three lines long)
184,662 likes. 24,978 reposts.
delulu is a grindset. I’m always mewing on my sigma skibidi ohio just pls pls pls don’t make me face my problems oh god
29,154 likes. 765 reposts.
I’m so stuck. It’s a constant cycle of late nights and late submissions. I can’t remember the last time I went to class. I wake up at sunset. I am always clapped by fear. The dopamine from these semi-viral tweets is long gone now, but if I focus on those numbers enough, I almost don’t see anything else. Even in my lowest moments, the person I am online is so much cooler, so much more aesthetic than the one irl. Calling it ‘sewer-slide’ doesn’t make it more palatable. Mining my hollowness for content is a short-lived high. In brief moments of lucidity, I watch myself slowly letting my life fall apart. I do nothing. I can’t move. I must go viral again.
Remember, User, don’t be a Francis Tresham. This is our wee secret.
XoXo, and pls keep loving me,
Mini Disc ❤
Author’s note:
Please remember that PRJCT_MINI.DSC is a fictionalised column, and that the content does not reflect real experiences. However, with the UK’s current political and financial crisis, mental health struggles are becoming more and more prevalent. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or self harm, please contact one of the charities below. You are worth saving.
Papyrus (Prevention of Young Suicide)
Call: 0800 068 41 41
Text: 07860 039967
Email: pat@papyrus-uk.org
Samaritans
Call: 116 123
Email: jo@samaritans.org
(PRJCT_MINI.DSC is a monthly column by Ophelia Po, exclusive to qmunicatemagazine.co.uk. Stay tuned for more installments!)
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