how to stay alive during the holidays

A guide for the lone, or those who have nobody to spend their spare moments with,

Staying in this house during the summer holidays has been a very isolating experience  - in between losing my phone, so contact has been very slow, and a tense relationship with everybody capable of it, I have been spending the bulk of my days locked up in here - either doing coursework, writing whatever I fancy on the Jubilee-esque hell pit of Medium, Twitter-scrolling (though it is a foul habit I've been working to shake), homework-doing and even getting back into reading (I managed to finish something in 2 days, an absolute record for me). I have been very lonely. It's made me crave school again, and nothing besides turning 18 sounds appealing in yr13. Following the events of my attempted kidnap, my sisters are in another country and won't return until school's started. This gives me about a week of self-imposed jail left. 

During this tumultuous time, I've found there are things that stave off the suicidal thoughts, overthinking every interaction in your life, becoming too vivid of a maladaptive daydreamer, or other inflictions on the human body. 

1. Learn new things.

This may seem obvious, but just watching a 30-minute YouTube video about an industrial disaster you never heard of, or reading a new article takes up more time than you think. I have a volunteering job where I get to salvage electronics - and I didn't know much about it!

2. Learn to cook.

When you're bored, you're going to want to eat more and you'll find yourself frustrated when you look in the fridge and food doesn't magically appear. To remedy this, I've taken opportunities to cook dishes that take up at least an hour of my time & utilise foods I already have in the house. Stews of any kind, butter chicken, blackberry crumble & date puddings were fun to make & made nice meals that I otherwise wouldnt've tried. 

3. Next time you think of a random thought, search up the answer to it.

It turns out Hellen Keller was real, and she did fly a plane - only assisted for take-off and landing. You'll end up in a Wikipedia rabbit hole.

In the event of too many thoughts exhausting the brain for little substantial gain:

Overthinking is a deeply serious malady that has ruined my happiest memories on many occasions. We make too many assumptions and end up on harmful train of thoughts far too often. Your friend didn't hate you when you told them a weird fact, they were just a bit put off by it. Your partner doesn't want to break up with you because they said "Sorry, I have a partner" instead of, "Back off, I have a partner." These words may come a little harsh, but not every reaction and action committed in this world by the people in your life concern you, nor are they about you. Your friends deciding to hit the cafe after you've gone home doesn't mean they despise you - it usually means they just wanted a coffee. And you must let go of this "this is the end of the world" attitude. Stoicism may have a bit of a bad rep now that Masculine Kings on twitter have adopted the philosophy, but it has some important life advice, like "it's never that big of a deal. You can recover and life will go on." Your rejection from an audition doesn't spell the end of your career. Somebody rejecting you doesn't mean you're unlovable. Life goes on.

Don't trust how you feel about your life past 9pm. Do not latch onto that burst of energy and that "I need to get my life back together" attitude at 3am. You will beat yourself up for not working yourself to death later. It sucks.

4. Your parents were right, it was the damn phone.

Challenge yourself to break nasty habits. If you cannot remember the last tiktok you watched, you should close the app. Create a list of things you could do every day. It could include homework, some physical activity, trying a new recipe, walking to get groceries, etc. Do that inbetween your internet time to break it up a bit and feel like monotonous and dead inside.

and most importantly, READ!

It could be a short story from a sci-fi magazine, a webtoon, an AO3 fic or a book you saw was trending, but take a couple moments to read a couple of pages. It could be an essay from a philosopher, or a news article documenting a long story. Just read something every day & don't be afraid to read stuff that you thought was too highbrow, or too old. Jane Austen is a mainstay in the literature of teenage girls and there's a very good reason for it!

Anyways, hope these bits of advice helped you if you're in the same situation as me - nobody to hang out with and nothing to do during what's meant to be some of the best years of your life.