Franny Glass Syndrome

Exactly one month ago, I was on winter break from college. It is possible that at that moment, I was the happiest I have ever been, and perhaps ever will be. At that moment, I was not visiting with friends, I was not falling in love, I was not even wondering the streets looking for something to do. I was sitting alone, in my room, doing nothing. Sure I read a few books, mostly ones that contributed to the current state which I am in now. And yes, I did watch a few movies, a couple of my old favorites, a few new. Heck, I even watched some television. But what I reveled in, what I loved doing most of all, was nothing. For the first time since I got to college I was finally alone. I would sit, for almost the entire day and just look out my window. It was the first time in a long while that I was left to my own devices. And it was an unsettling experience. My mind wandered to places where it dared not go before. I thought about things that I never wanted to think about. About life and death. But most importantly about my past and about how deeply my past has affected me. This lasted for about 10 days. Then for the next 10 or so days, I thought about my future.

I am not sure which was more frightening.

The fact that no matter what I could do I would always be tied to my past in ways which I still don’t fully understand, or the fact that my future, as uncertain as it is, seems to be forever out of my reach. I have this intense fear that I will not live long enough to enjoy my future, so why plan?

I was scared by these thoughts, but I was enlightened. Never before had I allowed my mind to stretch this far and to these depths. Never before had I acknowledged that I must correct my mistakes from my past before I try to move forward. And never, ever before had I entertained the idea that I would not live long enough to experience all that I wanted.

I used to consider myself an optimistic person. I tried to keep a bright outlook on life but those 4 weeks at home changed my perspective. I am not sure what exactly brought this on, it could have been a book, or more likely it was the change in scenery, the change I experienced from having to accommodate to others constantly to being able to just be, just sit and be for the first in what seems like many, many years.

I am going to take some time to try to explain to you, and also to myself, what might be the cause of this strange happening.

A few weeks prior to my vacation home, I was feeling very closed in. Being in a college dorm room is quite like being in a washing machine with things that don’t belong in a washing machine. Things like shoes, and books and …animals. Now, I am not saying that I was squashed in a room with an extreme amount of shoes and books and animals if that is the mental image you had in your mind. I am simply saying that college is a bunch of kids from different backgrounds, plucked from their comfortable surroundings, taken away from people who understand them and thrown into a small area, forced to mingle and become friends.

I encountered many different types of people, loud people, quiet people, smart people, dumb people, a few just plain strange and many more blatantly obnoxious. I got used to it, but then like most people do, I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to get out. These people did not understand what it means when someone says, “I would just like to be alone”, they take it as an invitation into your room. It is an uncomfortable feeling being so angry with people you have become so close with in a short amount of time. I don’t like hating people, especially when I am not exactly sure why I have become so angry with them.

Basically what I am saying is, that when time rolled around for me to go home, I showed up at Grand Central Station two hours early for my train, I was so ready to get out of there.

Of course at home I was still bombarded by siblings and parents but after a few days it died down and I had an immense amount of time by myself.
I hardly slept at all over my break.
I would stay up until 7 am because I knew no one else was awake, and that gave me a comfortable feeling.
It was unpleasant looking down the street at houses I used to play in, watching people I used to be such good friends with drive by without even a passing glance.

Thinking about ones past is not usually a joyous occasion. Especially when like me, one has based numerous decisions on the acceptance of someone who does not hold the same weight to ones own opinion as one does to them.
That was my mistake over these past few years.
I granted ONE person with the task of approving of me and accepting me, and they didn’t even know it.
I would make decisions based on what they would think about me if I did that.
It was not that I was still in love with them, as many thought was the case, but rather that I didn’t want to disappoint them. I wanted them to be proud of me. Is that too much to ask someone who was such a large part of the early part of my life?

This brought me to my future. What did I want to do with my life? Did I want to follow a career in film like I had thought for the past few months? Or did I want something different? What if I decide all of these things and then not live to experience them?
There was an impending sense of doom within me that shook me to the core.
So I stopped.
Everything.
I was so shocked by my morbid thoughts that I tried my hardest NOT to think. About anything.
I would sit and stare and breathe and eat and “make conversations” but never was I really imbedded into a conversation, I never let my mind wander much farther than counting how many breaths I took.
Then one night I realized how ridiculous I was being.
What was I doing wasting my time not thinking?
Thinking was practically one of my favorite pastimes.
So I started thinking again, about everything. About life and death and love and hate and what makes a person good and what makes a person wise and how dreams work and whether there is a heaven or not. So I went to the library and got books on all different subjects and I read and read, didn’t sleep, ate only when I was hungry and stayed in my room and engulfed these books as if they were the only things keeping me alive.

I was a much happier person than before because I felt like I had a purpose for those couple of weeks. My task was to read these books, learn new things, and broaden my mind. I was trying to accept the fact that perhaps I wouldn’t live to 100 but that is not reason enough to stop living and dreaming all together.

Faster than I would have preferred, winter break came to an end.

I went back to my dorm, back to my roommate, and floor mates and back to society.
It was as if I was Thoreau coming back from Walden to live with a bunch of degenerates.

I had gone from what I considered an enlightened state back to the trivial things like microwavable eggs and reality tv.

I felt like a Wiseman living among caveman.

I thought I was smarter than everyone, even my professors.
It didn’t help that my English professor emailed me to say that my final paper was brilliant and the work of serious professional writers.
I took that to justify my claims that I was better than everyone else.
This was every dangerous.
I became the elitist of elitists.
And I HATE elitists.

I started becoming increasingly annoyed with everyone around me.
I didn’t understand how these people could talk about the stupidest things.
I clung to my book about a pilgrim and wished that I too, was alone traveling in the desert.
I worried about things beyond my power, and I internally criticized my peers for worrying about things they could actually control.

I started craving solitude. I wanted it. I needed it.
I had to have it or I was convinced I would go crazy.
Due to the events that took place afterward I call this period of time:
My Franny Glass Months.

If you are familiar with J.D. Salinger’s short stories you will recognize this name as the youngest girl in the Glass Family.
Franny is talked about mainly in the stories, Franny & Zooey.
This is one of my favorite books, so it probably had a lot to do with my situation.

Anyway, Franny was a young girl in college who took solace in a book about a pilgrim who searched for peace of mind and she felt so deeply about this that she started drawing away from people and eventually had a mental breakdown.
I suggest reading Franny & Zooey, but know that it is not essential for that to be background knowledge for you to understand what I am talking about.
For I am sure everyone goes through this same thing, I have even been told this numerous times, “It’s no big deal, this happens to everyone, don’t think that you’re the only one to go through this.”
How comforting.

My-Franny-Glass-Months started as soon as I stepped foot back on campus.
I started, much like Franny, drawing away from people; I stayed in a lot more and tended to keep to myself. This was not an easy task, because there was always someone knocking on my door, requesting my company.
I felt like people always needed things from me, things to borrow, things to take things, things, things.

I had no place to go, but inside my own mind. So when people would talk to me, I would drown them out, I would think about the things I could be doing or thinking about if I was alone.

I would go into the bathroom to read, just so I didn’t have to be hankered by the mere presence of another human being in the same room as me.

I would call home and try to voice my problems, but the response was the same “You’re overreacting, calm down, this happens to everyone. “
What I couldn’t understand is that just because this may happen to everyone doesn’t make what is happening to me any less important.
This was my mother talking to me mind you.
She even went so far to tell me that I couldn’t come home, they didn’t have room for me, when I spoke about feeling smothered and voicing that I might need a break and need to come home.

This is not what I needed, or wanted to hear.

I cried a lot in those few months, I felt I was stuck in a hopeless situation.
How could I belong in society if I could not stand the people whom make up that society? How would that be possible?

I would stay in the shower for an hour each day, crying, composing myself, crying again for having to compose myself, and eventually making sure that no one would be able to tell that I had been crying.
Because as much as I wanted people to know that no, I was not okay. I didn’t want to be bothered. I was suffering even though I was putting on a happy face.

And that did it for me.

Whether it was simply stress from dealing with all my conflicting feeling, or perhaps the fact that it is very possible I am anemic.

Whatever it was it hit me hard one morning, and while pretending to listen to my friends’ story about something, I started not to feel well, as if the whole world was closing in on me,
And then I fainted.

Now I had never fainted before so I actually thought I was dying, but when I came to I realized what the embarrassing incident that happened to me actually was. Luckily there were numerous neighbors and even my RA to ask me over and over whether I was okay or not.
Clearly I was not okay, I just fainted for Christ’s sake.
But yes, I was fine I assured them.
I remember saying when I awoke, “Did I seriously just faint?”
I wanted badly to quote from Franny and Zooey the line Franny says when she wakes from fainting, “Am I supposed to say ‘Where am I?” “Where am I?” But I feared no one would catch the reference so I just sat and laughed at my weakness, a little nervously because I knew that this meant that everyone would incessantly be asking me if I was okay for the next million days.
As much as I wanted people to ask if I was okay and mean it, I didn’t want to tell them.
I think I just secretly longed for someone to ask me if I was okay with the intent that if I did say no, that they would do everything in their power to help me.
But that never happened, people only asked if I was okay because they felt compelled to ask, not because they actually cared.

And then someone announced that I was bleeding, to be precise they said, “She’s as pale as a ghost, I’ve never seen someone that pale! Is she okay? Whoa, she’s bleeding all over the place! Her chin is covered in blood!”

Jesus, what else could go wrong?

So after it was decided that my chin would not stop bleeding on its own I had to be rushed to the hospital, which luckily was right down the street. I felt like an idiot, I just wanted to go back to my room and figure out why I fainted, I didn’t care about my chin. I wanted to be alone; the last place I wanted to be was a crowded, loud emergency room.
Long story short, after 5 hours in the hospital, I got 6 stitches in my chin from a very kind doctor.
This is when things started to become more intense. Now I really started hating everyone and everything.
I wanted to be alone and I didn’t want anyone to ask anymore about my chin or why I fainted because I DID NOT KNOW.

I cried even more after my “incident” I felt like a switch had turned in my head that made me conscience of the fact that for almost my entire life I had been pretending to be okay, and pretending to be fine and happy.
From childhood I was told to “stop crying” or to not take things so seriously, or to just get over it.
But I started to realize that sometimes you need to cry, and some things needed to be taken seriously and sometimes things needed to be handled carefully not just put on the back burner.

I started realizing just how seriously my childhood was devoid of me showing my true feelings about anything.
I realized how much I had complied with other people, let them have their way because it was easier.
I had been pretending my entire life and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
I started to think about friends I had, and whether they were real friends or just more people who took advantage of the fact that I was essentially a welcome mat that you could step all over.
I became worried that when my two best friends, who were currently living in two different countries than where I was, returned that they would not be able to get used to the changed me, the me that did not allow people to take advantage of the fact that she “just wanted other people to be happy.”
Even friends I had made at college were starting to get confused at my sudden request for making my opinions heard.
I started getting hard headed and became essentially, a bitch.
I was ruthless for about 2 weeks before I realized that being a bitch and getting was I wanted and needed was a lot harder than going along with everyone else.

Or so I thought.

When I went back to being complable and indifferent I started to notice the physical effect it was taking on my body.
Not only did I feel emotionally drained from the constant fighting in my head between was I want and what is easy, but I also felt drained physically.
I slept long hours, rarely got up unless it was urgent, and hardly communicated with anyone.
Years and years of being devoid of opinions, and having to bottle up all my emotions were finally catching up on me.
I was sick and tired of the person I was, but I was unsure who I wished to become in place of my old self.
I was stuck in a type of personality purgatory.
All I knew was that I wanted to be alone.
I still want that now. More than anything.

I realized that I was without a “safe place”, I had nowhere to go where I could just be me, a place where I didn’t have to be friendly if I didn’t want to be, a place where I could feel comfortable. I was stuck in places that trapped me and forced me to be someone other than who I wanted to be.

So I became a drone, a robot if you will.
In order to achieve my solitude the only place I would be able to find it was within my thoughts, and within my mind.
I did not show interest in things I used to love, I became blind to beautiful things happening around me and I somehow learned to ignore or block my own needs.
I would go days without eating and not even realize it. I didn’t feel hunger I didn’t feel fullness, I didn’t feel tired.
I just was.
All I did feel was despair.
The sense that how could I come out of this and be able to like people and not be angry with them for being themselves. These people did not fit into my mold of what a good person should be like and that angered me. How could I find a way back into life if I detested everything within it?
My mother and sister time and time again suggested anti-depressant pills.
But I have a problem with medicine of sorts, particularly anti-depressants.
I shall elaborate.
I do not wish to take anti-depressant because I do not want to simply block the feelings I am having. I want to understand them.
If I am taking medicine that shields them from me, what am I to do when I forget my pills? Go crazy?
My theory is that the mind is the most powerful medicine, I am sure beyond measure that if I put my mind to it, I could figure out these depressive thoughts and find the source and fix them, without modern medicine.
But I digress.

I was a depressed drone in a shade of grey.
I didn’t want to feel anything unless I was alone.
I had this strong need for solitude, stronger than before.
I feared that if I did not get this solitude I would die from company.

I wish I could say that this story had a happy ending.
It does not. Well not yet at least. Because it is still going on.
I have yet to fully come to terms with My-Franny-Glass-Months, and perhaps I am still experiencing them. But I know that each day I feel a little better.
I still long for solitude, but not as intensely.
And I still sometimes despise people but I am learning to forgive them their faults.
And its hard.
Its hard to not just say forget it all, and live by your own rules.
We live in society for a reason, otherwise it would be chaos.
Just a bunch of freethinkers running around. There would probably be mass murders.
But everyday I am learning to keep what I like and get rid of what I don’t.
I try not to pretend but I realize that will take a long time to unlearn.

Most importantly, I can feel again.
And I want to feel again.

I know that any performance of the Nutcracker Ballet will make me nostalgic and I will most likely cry at how truly beautiful the .

I know that when I listen to “America” by Simon and Garfunkel that I will remember the person it reminds me of, and I hope to god I can remember him in the best way possible.

I know that no matter how many times I read J.D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey, I will still be touched on a level deeper than I had known about before. It never ceases to amaze me even though the words do not change, only I do.

I know that I still love to learn and that one day I hope to find a higher meaning to my life, but I also know that I will not settle.

I know that my favorite thing to do is to look at the sky and sit and wonder about life, and I know there is nothing wrong with that.

I know that I am young and still have a whole life ahead of me. I just hope I remember to catch myself every once and a while before I go overboard and make sure that I always have my feet planted on the ground no matter how high my thoughts go.

And I know that even if I die tomorrow, I will know that I tried. That I tried my hardest to live a life that I wanted, that I tried to live a life that I would be happy to live, that I attempted to live a life I was proud of.

And that is really all I need.

What more can a girl of 18 ask for?