Esther as my reflection

Okay, if you're here for a fun, interesting blog post, this ain't it, come back later. This is going to be a much more serious and kind of intimate post, so if that makes you uncomfortable, this is your heads up. Also, it's going to be quite a bit longer, so if you're in, stick in for a long haul. Also also, I guess, a trigger warning for detailed descriptions of depression and suicidal thoughts - if that stuff isn't your cup of tea or triggers you in any way, you should probably stop now. Last chance to turn away ends here.

In The Catcher in the Rye while Holden and Mr. Antolini talk, Holden brings up how he doesn't feel school brings him anything. Mr. Antolini says that books can really help him, saying there are people who feel the same way as he does and have written about their experiences, and reading about them will help Holden not feel so alone. The Bell Jar honestly is that book for me.
By now we have established that Esther almost definitely has some sort of depression, and as we get deeper into the novel, it seems to be getting worse. More and more she struggles to get out of bed, feels herself disappearing, loses her self-identity, and just generally feels that she's living a lie. Not only that, but she doesn't seem to have the vocabulary or knowledge to realize exactly what is going on or what she can do to help herself. She knows something is off about herself, especially in terms of not being the "perfect girl" anymore, but she doesn't seem to realize how deeply it is affecting her. She feels she's being dragged along by people and life and doesn't know where she wants to go.

Honestly, I wish I had found this book earlier, or had been introduced to it earlier (thank you Mr. Mitchell for giving it to us) because just about everything Esther has gone through emotionally really resonated with me. It's a struggle every morning to get out of bed, to make myself pay attention in class, to do my homework, and just to keep up with everything. There's almost no motivation in me to keep going. Life feels like a treadmill that is on a setting that's a smidge too fast for me, but because I can just barely keep up, I can't make myself give up, and even if I take a break to regain my footing, the treadmill gets faster so when I try to get back on, it's even harder than before. So I keep going, getting closer and closer to breakdowns and hoping I make it through the day. It got to a point where I would just walk around aimlessly between activities in the evening and hope a car would hit me, or that I'd catch hypothermia and die, or I'd think about finding a high place to fall off of just to stop the joyless life that I had. Which seems selfish, but that's how it was.

The crazy part about all of this is that like Esther, I didn't realize this was depression for a long time. I thought it was just burnout, that it would go away with Thanksgiving break, then winter break, and with each break that follows. I thought that's just what junior year does to you. I realize now that it's not (and should not be) just junior year, but the onset of depression. I got a diagnosis about a month ago.

The even crazier part was that even after the diagnosis, I kind of doubted if I really have depression. That is, I questioned if it was all in my head, if I just wanted to feel special and this was my messed up brain's really messed up way of making myself feel different from everyone else. That is, until we started into this book.

Reading Esther's thoughts was like staring at myself in a mirror, if that mirror was a few years down the road for my life and about fifty years in the past. Nonetheless, hearing Esther struggle through the same things I struggle through and being able to clearly pinpoint them as signs of depression made me realize just how real the mental illness is. Plath does an amazing job with her descriptions on the thoughts one has with depression and just a general outlook on life. And of course she does; she went through it too.

But also, reading about Esther and her thoughts has given me a kind of way out, or a view of a way out. She alludes briefly to how this was "before" and how she has a life now, and that she did come out of the situation. After reading her thoughts and getting to know her, I really hope that she will or can also share that process of getting out of the hole. Even if she can't just knowing that someone who felt the same way as me came out of it gives me hope. I know my problems, and now Esther's problems, and knowing that there are solutions to those problems gives me hope.

If you feel yourself uncomfortably staring at yourself as you read about Esther, I strongly encourage you to talk to someone, and don't ignore those feelings or put them off. They are real and they are valid.

Catcher and a Toy

Yesterday in class we talked about Holden's ideal job of being a catcher in the rye (roll credits). He wants to be in a world filled with children and just help them and make sure they don't fall. We then moved to what job in reality Holden could actually do, and I immediately thought of an elementary school teacher or something. He would be able to see kids at their prime innocent stage where no one's being phony, he wouldn't get a whole bunch of recognition that could potentially go to his head. And, as Emma pointed out, the kids in his life would keep coming back the same age, essentially never growing older. This immediately made me think of Toy Story 3, where Andy is heading off to college and the toys haven't been played with for a while. Spoilers ahead.
The toys are taken to a day care on accident, where they realize the magic of being day care toys instead of just one kid. They get played with a bunch, lots of love, and all their anxieties about the kids growing up and forgetting them is taken care of by the fact that new kids cycle in every year, so they get lots of love all the time. This is directly related to Holden becoming a teacher, the whole cycling kids out and them never really growing up thing really resonates with Woody, the main toy. However, the toys soon realize that there's corruption in the daycare toy system, yada yada, and eventually come to realize that Andy never meant to send them to the daycare! They realize how much more it means to be toys who belong to someone, something that really makes a difference in a person's life more so than just a passing toy they have for a year.
This made me realize that maybe if Holden became a teacher, he wouldn't have come of age to his potential. He would still be stuck in the state of bliss that the toys were in before the whole epiphany of bonding with one special kid, even if that means watching them grow up and leave. In this way, I think Holden needs to stop wishing that he could keep cycling around and being a kid himself (think; he's the only big person in the field of rye - basically one of the kids?), and realize that him growing up is okay, and getting to know himself and bonding with himself and the kids in his life (think Phoebe) and watching them grow up is worth more than just trying to preserve a view on the world with innocent kids being the only population.