Today, I want to talk about #depression how it feels to me & how hard it is for me to identify that I am depressed when I am depressed. What you should know is that depression never presented for me as it does in the commercials.

My life didn't suddenly stop. I wasn't looking forlornly out a window or sitting quietly with my head in my hands or isolating myself from everyone.

For #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, my memoir about living with mental illness, FINAL GIRL, is only $1.99!

So please consider getting a copy now for you, your friends, your family, or heck, your enemies. (I don't judge, y'all.)

books2read.com/b/finalgirl So, let's talk about FINAL GIRL a little bit.

A heads up: It's a book #MentalIllness, but it is also a book about childhood abuse, trauma & grief.

If any of those are triggers for y'all, this might not be the book for you.

Once when I was an adjunct, a student asked me how much my pay per student was and I said, "A little more than a pack of gum for each of you."

I wasn't right, but I also wasn't wrong.

https://twitter.com/Slangdini/status/1417093818990661636

My class, then, had a discussion about the difference between adjuncts and professors in pay (and rank) and how many courses were taught my contingent faculty at the school.

I've been anxious for days about whether my kids will be accepted to virtual school for the fall (after being anxious that I was gonna somehow screw up their applications).

My brain is like, "Don't eff up their lives, Kelly."

Anxiety sucks. Some day, I'll do a deep dive about how the pandemic has made my already anxious self even more anxious about parenting and how often I am convinced that I'm effing it up.

Me: I have done all I can.

My anxiety: Really?

Me: Um, yes?

My anxiety: Have you though?

Me: Oh God, I haven't! I have to do more. So much more. RIGHT NOW.

My anxiety: You're welcome. A small, gentle reminder: That I tweet & joke about what it feels like to have #anxiety.

I want to be honest & transparent about what it is like to live with mental illness.

This is not me asking for advice or comments. It's just one of the ways I cope.

Me: I think I'm gonna not cuss for a week.

The youngest: You won't make it 10 minutes.

Me, two minutes later: Oh shit!

The oldest: Fresh start high five?

Me: Yeah. Me, five minutes later: SHIT.

The youngest: Another fresh start?

Me: Yup.

The oldest: This isn't going well.

Me: Yeah.

One day I'll write about alcohol in the academy, the expectations that academics drink, and the professor who once told me that academics drink because "they know too much."

I didn't drink much before grad school, but I learned to drink there. I have stopped drinking a few times since graduate school, and at the end of this month, I won't have had a drink for a year.

But I have been pressured by academics to just have one glass of wine or one beer even after I explain that I don't want one or don't drink.

You know it's gonna be an exciting* day when you have to take "your break in case of emergency" #anxiety meds a mere 10 minutes after waking up.

*not exciting at all This, of course, was me.

And it was one of those surprise moments when my heart started beating super fast, my stomach dropped, and my hands were shaking.

So I knew I had to get ahead of it

Friends, people mute & block people on Twitter all the times for a variety of reasons.

Just because someone is on Twitter doesn't mean everyone gets access to them. We get to set our own boundaries about our interactions

So, don't email someone asking them to unblock you. And definitely, don't email someone asking them to unblock someone else, especially after that someone was a serious jerk.

There are consequences for being a jerk on the internet.

Don't enable continued jerkiness.

Ask me how many times as a grad student and junior scholar someone said that my writing was "too accessible" as an insult.

It was not a small number.

https://twitter.com/Rachel_Brandt/status/1359642629798060032

Them: Your writing is too accessible. Anyone can read it!

Me: Thank you.

Them: This is not a compliment.

Me: Uh...are you...sure?

Okay, my youngest asked me if I personally knew Harriet Tubman today because "you were alive in 1850, right?"

I just... My children went all in today on creative ways to tell me that I am old.

They have forgotten thay grudge-holding is my superpower.

The youngest had a science lesson on technology that showed how the telephone has changed over the years.

I explained the rotary phone that I had growing up & the oldest was like, "Yup, we've seen those in a museum."

Child. Another day of the tween cutting me to the quick.

I am not faculty anymore, but I do attend meetings via Zoom with two kids at home.

And I tell folks that my kids might pop in at any time because that's just how it is.

This is ridiculous.

https://twitter.com/Volsicle/status/1359471096932651009

Kids make noise. They pop in to ask questions, complain or tell you something that they find cool or a new thing they learned.. They lose their shit. They streak behind you shirtless or sling a cat over their shoulder and bring it to you.

This happens during meetings.

A friend of my oldest kid invited her to a sleepover, which we politely declined.

And I am deeply tired of feeling like we are some of the only ones still taking Covid seriously. "We're only inviting two other friends and you!"

Um, that's four kids from four different families who aren't taking the pandemic as seriously as we are.

I just...

When we first started watching The Great British Baking Show, I was totally chill, and now, I find myself screaming, "No, not the matcha flavor, it never goes well!" "No, put down the rosemary. It will taste soapy!"

Today in virtual school, I whispered "fuck me" as I looked at the six pages of math worksheets that my 1st grader had been assigned. On a bright note, I can now drink coffee again because I finally am feeling better.

Any time folks call white Christian nationalism a fringe movement, I end up screaming, "IT'S ACTUALLY MAINSTREAM" while dying a little on the inside. I have spent over an effin' decade trying to convince folks that white Christian nationalism is mainstream.

It doesn't matter how much evidence I bring to the table. There are still folks that insist loudly that it is a fringe movement.

Well, this morning I managed to completely freak out the nurse practitioner at the clinic because my heart rate was so high (anxiety!).

I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to be inside places that aren't home even after it safe to do so. This was after I completely freaked out my mom by telling her that I hadn't been feeling well for days.

She assumed that I had Covid. I have a sinus infection.

My therapist reminded me today that when people are on their deathbeds that they don't think "Damn, I should have written more op-eds." I've been having big feelings about not writing like I normally do because of virtual school and my paid gigs.

And my therapist brought down the hammer.

So, I was asked to write down my thoughts on the coup for a major newspaper earlier this week.

I told them no, and let me tell you why. In 2016, after the election I wrote an op-ed on white nationalism and the alt-right for a major newspaper and appeared on MSNBC.

I was hyped to have the opportunity to share my expertise with a wider audience.

I wasn't prepared for what came next.

It seems that we are going to get the "if more people went to college, they wouldn't participate in deadly ideologies" take.

What I would note is that there are white supremacists with undergrad & grad degrees.

Going to college is not a cure-all. This is part of a long standing narrative that white supremacists are backward and uneducated.

But my research on white supremacists, particularly the 1920s Klan, showed that they were middle class and had jobs that required college degrees.