Time - USA (2021-03-15)

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Asian women saw a rate of 7.9%, Black
women saw a rate of 8.5%, and Lati-
nas saw a rate of 8.8%. And women
who were forced to leave their jobs to
care for their children— who are now
at home because of COVID-19 school
closures—are not officially counted as
“unemployed.”
A study by CARE, a nonprofit that
fights global poverty, found that the
pandemic has caused a crisis in wom-
en’s mental health, and that accessing
the quality health care services they need
has been significantly harder during this
time. After months in isolation, I started
to experience that firsthand: I didn’t
leave my apartment for days, weeks.
Time became meaningless. I stopped
sleeping, stopped eating, stopped read-
ing and writing, stopped doing every-
thing and anything I loved. It wasn’t
so much that I chose to stop, but that I
just couldn’t, even though I tried. I’d try
melatonin one night, Benadryl the next.
I’d doze off for two, three hours, and then
wake in despair. I called friends, desper-
ate for sleep, or feeling absolutely ex-
hausted with life, or convinced that I was
having a heart attack, or that we were all
going to die. I didn’t hug another person
for a month, then two, three, four, five.
When I finally slept, after swallowing my
last four sleeping pills, I didn’t wake for
a day and a half.
The day after winning an award for
my book, I called a suicide- prevention
hotline.

There is a hisTory of mental illness
on both sides of my family. We have all
been in and out of therapy at some point,
on and off medication. Five of my moth-
er’s six siblings suffer from depression
or bipolar disorder. My maternal grand-
mother, like my mother, spent her life
battling schizophrenia and depression,
and threatening to end her life. Ten
years ago, she died by suicide. When I
got the news of her death, I was both sur-
prised and not surprised at all.
Being alone during a pandemic,
just me and my thoughts in that apart-
ment, I started to feel numb. I couldn’t

remember feeling joy, even though

months before I had been celebrating

my work, had been planning a life, had

been able to pick up a collection of po-

etry, read a single poem and feel a sense

of connection with the world, some-

thing meaningful and artful and com-

plex. Now the pandemic had me ques-

tioning whether any part of my world

had any meaning at all, if there was any

point to all of this. I was convinced I’d

never see my partner again, I’d never

see my family again, that my mother

would die in that hospital, alone, with-

out me there to hold her hand. How

could I keep going when I didn’t have

had to do and was fully capable of tak-

ing it on. Finally, when I couldn’t take

any more sleepless nights, I made an

appointment with a therapist.

i arrived in The U.K. in early August,

after months of weekly psychotherapy. I

was finally able to read, and write. I was

sleeping without medication. I had com-

mitted to getting better, and was doing

the work. I quarantined for two weeks

before moving in with my partner. At

the end of August, we got married, in a

small, private ceremony in their moth-

er’s living room.

I never stopped thinking about how

fortunate I am, how privileged. I grew

up poor, and that meant that as a teen-

ager, when I first started showing symp-

toms of major depressive disorder, my

family couldn’t afford treatment. It was

never an option. During the pandemic,

when so many people have lost their

jobs, their homes, their health insur-

ance, I’ve been lucky: even though I lost

most of my income, I’ve still been able to

work from home. I don’t have children

to care for. I can still afford weekly ther-

apy. I was able to pay for an international

flight, leave the U.S. for six, seven, eight

months at a time. Most women are not

this privileged.

Living in the U.K., and watching the

U.S. from abroad, even temporarily, has

given me new perspective. I’m grateful

for every day, for my health, for my fam-

ily and friends, for my spouse. I’m al-

ways conscious of how fortunate I am,

and I can finally say I am truly happy,

the happiest I have ever been. I try to

remember that I may not always be this

happy, that depression tries to convince

me that there’s no point. But there is.

I’ve learned that for me, there is a way

to keep making art, to keep living: I pri-

oritize my mental health, I stay focused

on the things that feel meaningful and

purposeful. And sometimes I ask myself,

“Am I alive?” And the answer is always,

“Yes. I’m alive.” And I know it’s exactly

how I want to be.

Díaz is the author of Ordinary Girls

a reason?

The truth was that I didn’t want to

die. The truth was that as soon as my

partner left, as soon as the work and

the planning and the traveling stopped,

when there were no more parties or

family and friends, as soon as I was

alone, I recognized what I’d been doing

my whole life. I’d spent my 20s and

early 30s avoiding the problems. Even

though I’d had periods of happiness,

even though I’d been productive and

high- functioning, I had somehow man-

aged all that without dealing with any

of my mental illness. I hadn’t taken care

of myself—I’d spent 15 years avoiding

therapy, starting and abandoning it as

soon as it got hard. And now, the isola-

tion was forcing me to see how I needed

to face all the ways I’d let my illness

get out of control when I knew what I

I didn’t LEAVE

my apartment for

days, weeks.

Time became

meaningless