Nobody Cares
Essays
ANNE T. DONAHUE
To my mom and dad, who have kept me alive in a trillion ways.
Contents
Introduction
Anxiety, You Lying Bitch
In Case of Emergency
I’ll Read Your Cards
Near, Far, Wherever You Are
Work, Bitch
Failing Upwards
Things I Have Not Failed
(But Quit Proudly)
“Why Don’t You Drink?”
It’s Called Fashion, Look It Up
Just Do What I Say
Friendship Mistakes I Have Made
(So You Don’t Have To)
But, for the Record: I Am Not Fun
The Least Interesting Thing
While in the Awful
That Guy™
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love One Direction
Icebreakers:
A Guide to Making a Real Splash at a Party
An Anne for All Seasons
Burn It Down
Get to Work
It Will Never Feel This Bad Again
Hometown Glory
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Introduction
I’ve never been a patient person. At my best and worst, I’m relentless and calculating and exhausting in my ambition, abandoning the “timing is everything” mantra for all-caps outbursts about fish and chips on Twitter. I plan and plot, obsessing over hypotheticals and replaying scenes from The Godfather in my head. I’m consumed by the variables I imagine I have to conquer to achieve the thing I might eventually want, and I throw myself into work, believing that channeling my energy into something productive will bring me closer to my goal of the moment — or, more specifically, prove to the universe that I’m ready for whatever the fuck I think will solve everything.
In January 2014, I wrote my first book. I didn’t have a book deal, and my agent only asked for a short proposal, but because I couldn’t do anything low-key if I tried, I wrote an entire book of essays about growing up alongside the internet.
And that manuscript was fine. It was okay. Between us, it was average at best. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever written (see: a blog I deleted years ago), but I would still rather break into your home and pour my beloved basic-bitch #PSL on your laptop than let any living person read it. I wanted a book deal more than I wanted anything else in the world, and I was willing to write millions of words if it meant I’d get one.
But nobody wanted that book then, and nobody wanted it a year later when my agent and I shopped it around for the second time. Nobody wanted the other book we proposed after that, and nobody wanted the book I had a phone meeting with an editor about either. In short, nobody wanted my books. Which was a problem because I wanted to be famous for writing them. After all, without a highly publicized bidding war between publishers for my stunning debut, how could I tell people I’d written a book — or, more importantly, invite them to my expensive and shrimp ring–themed book launch party? How could I prove that I, Anne T. Donahue, was important — or at least important enough to call myself an “author.” Because that’s what books are for, and how life and self-esteem work. Please buy me a present, I was — and am — in no way delusional.
In Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed reminds a reader that the act of writing books and book deals are not one and the same: “one is the art you create by writing like a motherfucker for a long time [and] the other is the thing the marketplace decides to do with your creation.” My gut dropped when I read that line. I wasn’t thinking about the art. I wanted the marketplace to recognize my importance and to convince everybody else of it too. Instead, the marketplace and the universe told me to go fuck myself.
Had that first book been snatched up when I was desperate for it, I would’ve forever been attached to 200-odd pages that operated solely and exclusively as a personal thirst vessel. I would’ve wagered my happiness on party RSVPs and industry feedback (kill me) and whether or not That Cool Guy From Whatever City Is Hip Right Now thought I was finally worthy of conversation with him. You can’t escape your fears by cloaking yourself in the praise of strangers, and nobody else can save you from your worst incarnation.
When I first started my weekly newsletter, That’s What She Said, my thirst was palpable. Each instalment included links to my work and not much else, and it existed to prove that I was in demand and busy, and why couldn’t everyone see how important I was? Perhaps understandably, it died very quickly. Partially because nobody gave a shit, but especially because it was very boring to write.
Then in late 2015, I revved it back up again. I wanted to write without worrying about editors’ feedback or about being professional. I wanted to write what I wished someone would say to me when I was in the midst of a misery marathon or taking up residence in the bell jar. I wrote about my fuck-ups, fears, and real, human feelings (gross), and dove into events and experiences that weren’t gold star–worthy. In it, I was vulnerable, angry, and messy AF, but it felt good to write about life as an often-horrifying shitshow instead of what it looked like through an Instagram filter. For the first time since I’d started writing, I stopped trying to show everybody how great I was and focused on the merits of being a person unfinished. I began trying to work out my issues and feelings in real time and chose to learn as I went. Quickly, the newsletter became the place I could be me and sound like me and write like me and share with the world all the very best Leonardo DiCaprio GIFs the internet has to offer. I was finally happy just to be there. And for the first time in years, I didn’t give a shit about being important.
Which is a relief because I’m not. None of us are. Nobody’s looking at us, nobody cares — everybody’s obsessed with their own Thing. Most of the time we’re all just trying our best. And sometimes we fail and other times we don’t, but we’re sure as shit not better than anybody else before or after the fact. If you can look at your life and feel confident that you’re doing something you love and giving it all you’ve got, I think that’s enough. Especially since not even a tidal wave of third-party congratulations will make you feel better if you don’t already like where you’re at. No amount of RSVPs, no parties, no Cool Guys From Whatever City Is Hip Right Now’s adulations. No book deals. You are always left with yourself.
And it turned out people liked my messy-ass self. Including (and somewhat ironically), two book editors who reached out to my agent. So, I’ve tried to keep toning down my quest to prove how special I am, because I’m not. And to care that much about being famous or world-renowned is exhausting. It’s a waste of time and energy. Yet even while typing that sentence, I know I’m still battling. My tightrope walk between anxiety-fueled work binges and genuine hustle, between thirst and a healthy amount of ambition, is a balance I still navigate — daily. And I’m so used to it at this point, I think I’d miss it if it went.
Which is the funny thing about self-acceptance. When you begin to embrace your fuck-ups and anxieties and insecurities and even the most calculating and ambitious and Godfather-like parts of yourself, you end up writing a book that wouldn’t exist without them.
Anxiety, You Lying Bitch
Some are born anxious, some achieve anxiety, and some have anxiety thrust upon them. I am lucky enough to have been blessed with all three.
Ten years ago, I would have never admitted this essential truth about me. When I began my romance with anxiety, I thought it was all a phase; that stress wouldn’t manifest itself in my life (or in my stomach) forever a
nd that, like all youthful dalliances, I would grow out of it — in the same way I grew out of wanting to be Lauren Conrad or marry Benedict Cumberbatch.
With every anxiety attack or anxiety-induced stomach cramp or inability to digest a meal properly, I told myself that it would all get better. That I could “beat” it by self-medicating with booze and sleep aids, or by denying it existed entirely, or by making myself small enough that it might miss me. Because anxiety is a liar, it convinced me that I was the only one it ever visited. It’d whisper its toxic nonsense to me when I was too stressed to question my relentless mental narrative. It kept me pinned down by quietly insisting that if I ever opened up about it, I’d be all alone.
There were certainly signs that anxiety would become A Thing as I grew up: I cried every day in first grade because I missed my mom. I couldn’t stay overnight at a friend’s without assuming that something bad would happen to my parents unless I was home. I couldn’t fall asleep unless my mom promised there’d be no burglars or fires and that she’d check on me every ten minutes “just in case.” In middle school, I developed an irrational fear of tornadoes (despite never having seen one) that morphed into a teen and twentysomething fear of food poisoning. (I wouldn’t eat meat at a restaurant, ever.) And then I failed a math class, and anxiety spiraled me into a full-on existential crisis.
When I think about that math-defined summer, almost every moment is defined by what I can now identify as severe anxiety: by all-consuming destructive monologues and all-encompassing worries and refusals to acknowledge that what I was feeling wasn’t the product of me being a failure, but of my brain being a liar. I’d get anxious about going out, about eating, about having to pretend I was the same person I’d been a few months prior. I’d curl up on my bed on weekends instead of going out, crying because I was afraid to eat dinner since I hadn’t been able to digest anything properly in weeks. I’d sob in front of repeated screenings of Sense and Sensibility, unable to articulate to my parents what was happening to me or why I was feeling the way I was. And, because anxiety spreads as well as it lies, it began manifesting about work, about friends’ birthdays, about my own birthday, about ordering from a restaurant menu.
Anxiety followed me when I changed jobs, during my first year of university, and throughout the following autumn and winter. It hung around when I started to drink more, when I started to drink less, and when I got sober once and for all and was forced to process life without numbness. It would hover over me for days before finally swooping in to convince me that I was failing, that I was weak, that I was alone. It would worsen when I tried to push it down. It thrived in the dark and in my solitude, and the longer I kept it there, the more anxious I became.
Well into 2015, I kept chiding myself for not being better — for not yet outsmarting the narratives that made me feel small and trapped and afraid. So, fueled by comparison with the people around me who seemed to have their lives under control, I threw myself into self-improvement: I decided I needed to commit to being bigger and better, doing more, being more, being smarter, being more involved, less thirsty, more enthusiastic, busier, more relaxed, and, and, and. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
And anxiety clapped back.
One summer evening, my friend Nicole and I had plans to see a movie, and for the first time in my life I was early. I waited for her near the concession stand and scrolled through Twitter while trying to take deep breaths because I’d been feeling out of sorts all afternoon. I’d felt inexplicably rushed on the way over, overemotional when cut off by another driver, and I’d begun to fixate on where we should go for dinner later, convinced that my diva stomach could handle only bread. I was so lost in my what-if narrative that when three guys approached and began chatting me up, I didn’t have time to put my mask back on. And now I was trying to dodge conversation starters from a trio of bros who’d opened by telling me to smile more.
Angry and annoyed and hyperaware of how outnumbered I was, I felt my cheeks and palms getting hot, but I was shivering. My stomach was going to fall out of my body, and my legs felt like I’d just run up several dozen flights of stairs. I knew I had to get to the bathroom before I threw up or passed out or projectile wept all over everybody. I mumbled my excuses and texted Nicole to meet me in the bathroom when she got there. I stood over the sink with my eyes closed, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out until she showed up. She was kind in not acknowledging the obviousness of my meltdown.
The next day, I made an appointment with my GP, assuming I’d be prescribed anti-anxiety medications. But he declined. Had I been actively working through my anxiety with my therapist (I hadn’t) or doing any exercise (I wasn’t), he might have. Instead, he suggested we start by me talking (and breathing) through it.
Which is a much longer road than a paragraph in a book — talking to my therapist was not one conversation that led to me overhauling and retraining my brain. Instead, it is and was a long, tiring, and frustrating work in progress. To this day, I’m still anxious, it still manifests physically, and I still actively worry about what to eat before going anyplace with a questionable bathroom. I’m simply learning how to keep anxiety in a guest role instead of as my co-lead.
I’ve found ways to quiet my anxiety, to balance my work and the rest of my life, to take breaths, to say no to plans. I’ve learned that no one will die if I need to reschedule, and that Jessica Jones is onto something when she closes her eyes and recalls the street names of her childhood neighborhood. I’ve learned to keep track of my plans by writing them down, by asking friends if we can do dinner at someone’s apartment instead of at a restaurant if I’m not feeling well. I’ve stopped going to parties I never wanted to attend in the first place. I leave when I want. I’ve also learned that anxiety isn’t indicative of weakness, but a symptom of being a living human person. It’s also an ever-evolving creature you have to constantly outwit to keep it lurking and not thriving. For the most part, I’ve learned to do a good job of it. Then there are weeks when I feel like I’m back at square one. But, like the bags under my eyes, I consider my anxiety a badge of life experience. Or at least proof that my brain is still mine.
And my life isn’t over because I’m open about it. Pretending was exhausting. When I finally began testing the mental health waters by opening up to friends about how I was actually feeling, my revelation wasn’t greeted with shame or pity, but with most of my friends admitting the same. I’ve yet to meet a person who’s never felt anxious or sick or overwhelmed. (And if I do, I will assume they are sociopathic.) Which has made it way easier to say what’s happening as it happens, instead of excusing myself to a movie theatre bathroom where I’d try to remember how to breathe in a silent panic.
Today, I went to the drugstore after my anxious stomach insisted I give it as much Pepto Bismol as possible. And there, in an oversized sweat suit with flat hair and arms full of drugs and saltines, I ran into someone I hadn’t spoken to in about eight years. She looked great. She was fit and tanned and picking up diapers for her kids, looking like my hometown equivalent of Reese Witherspoon’s character in Big Little Lies. Me, I was pale and blotchy, my eyebrows weren’t filled in, and my face had broken out because adult acne is real. Then, within seconds of saying how good it was to see her, I accidentally dropped everything I was holding as she very kindly said, “You look great too!”
Picking up my grab bag of anti-nauseants, I abandoned all remaining fucks and said, “No, I don’t — but I’m for sure shitting my way to my bikini body!”
She laughed. The cashier laughed. And the people around me in line laughed, and not out of pity, but because who hasn’t? At some point, even the coolest, hippest, prettiest, hottest, richest, most together, all-powerful people have needed to take Imodium, all while desperately trying to keep their shit together.
Sometimes literally, sometimes not.
In Case of Emergency
There’s this moment in Happy Valley that I think abou
t all the time. Catherine (the series’ main character) walks down the street and shouts, “WHAT A SHIT WEEK!” And boy oh boy, what a slogan for what feels like most weeks.
Here is what most of us already know in the year of our Lord 2018: for a very long time, everything has been feeling scary and bad. Everyone’s feelings and emotions are heightened. Most of us are walking the line between cynicism and feeling absolutely bananas, sensitive to the point of wanting to strike down anyone who disagrees about how disgusting cilantro is. (It is extremely gross!!!) Me, I have stuffed my feelings somewhere near my spleen. Mainly because I have no idea where my spleen even IS, so I assume I will just forget about having emotions at all, and I can just continue on with my life without doing a lot of processing. Every terrible thing necessitates an “Of course this is happening right now,” and all of us are very tired.
So let’s acknowledge that.
Also, let’s acknowledge that right now, in this moment, in this second, you are living and breathing and moving through the misery marathon with the rest of us. This is something you can tell yourself to keep on keeping on when you’re starting to feel like you are just about to fall off the planet. You are ON this planet, you fucking freak (I love you), and on this planet you shall stay.
So you’re feeling like an anxious mess? Let’s get you centered.
Are you breathing? Please breathe. I’m not kidding. I want you to just sit there for a second, and I want you to breathe in and breathe out and take your time and concentrate only on doing this. Tell any other thought to fuck off. This is your time to fill your lungs with air. A cool thing. Fuck off, everything else.
Are you drinking water? Drink some water. Jesus. Look, we’ve all lived on the fumes of caffeine and sleep deprivation while forgetting to drink water because we are idiots. If you’re me, you’ll experience a beautiful anxiety attack spurred on by running your body into the ground and chasing a Venti Something™ with another Venti Something™. Not a hot look, and not a terrific feeling. So drink some water. Water’s great! It’s boring as fuck, but that’s why carbonation exists.
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