Homebound
After the respite of spring with Stuart, I flew to Japan. My parents agreed to have me stay with them for a couple of months until I got the student visa and returned to the UK. My parents’ house was full. Other than my parents, my grandmother still lived, though mostly bedbound. My sister and her husband lived upstairs, and Hana, their daughter, was almost two. Hana had a reservation around me, yet she brought me joy in my time of anxiety and stress. I watched her eat, sleep, and clap her hands to the music on a TV show, and I never got bored.
But I was all burden and no use to my family. I’d wake up, skype with Stuart, eat breakfast my mother cooked, read the newspaper, work on the business school’s prep class online, read books, eat lunch and dinner my mother and sister cooked, and go back to the computer. I couldn’t use my laptop because there was only dial-up, so I occupied my sister’s white, bulky desktop all day. I got off of it briefly in the evening when my sister used it after putting Hana to bed.
My anxiety was crushing me, and while my whole family was there, I couldn’t even say a single word about how much I was struggling. They let me be silent and withdrawn. I often forgot to change clothes and slept in the same t-shirt I wore all day. I ate little and lost weight. I didn’t go out and spent most of the day reading and on the computer. My sister commented on the state I was in, but I don’t believe she thought I had depression because even I didn’t realize it was that.