Dear Digital Diary

Dear Digital Diary,

I’ve been numbing myself with something pretty.

This past week I’ve been re-watching Euphoria. I re-watched season 2 at the beginning of January, and then watched most of season 1 this past week. I first watched it when season 2 came out, back when I was a freshman in college, returning after a winter break that nearly caused me to drop out entirely. 

I was depressed. Like severely depressed. I’d never experienced that before, but I found myself in this constant spiral of a deep, dark, gray that cascaded over everything that was supposed to be happy and good. When season 2 of Euphoria was released, I’d seen the sparkles and purples and warped psychosis-like aesthetic of the show splattered over TikTok, and it drew me in. 

Now if you’ve never seen the show, it’s very dark. The main characters are teenagers in high school, but they are experiencing things that I hadn’t even thought of, even at my elder age. They go through addiction, withdrawal, assault, identity, overdosing, physical altercations, and things I hadn’t even named yet.

But I’ve watched it several times over. And I wait for the third season eagerly, and as I do, I wonder if I’m somehow sick and twisted. Sort of like how I re-watch End of the F*****g World over and over again. And Beautiful Boy. 

If I lined up all my ‘comfort’ shows and pieces of media in a row, there’d be a theme. There’s something in there that aligns with how I feel. But how I feel is not experienced in the same way — it’s colorized for the screen. It’s a different world, perhaps with an unreliable narrator. There’s an essence hidden within the characters that I feel within myself. 

In a way, I’m seeking validation. And in seeking validation, I can ignore those parts of myself while watching how it’d play out in the life of a different character.

Rue Bennett, for example, is one of the main protagonists of Euphoria. She’s also an addict. She overdoses, multiple times, which has her sent to rehab. She lies about being clean, even to her closest friends. 

Now, I’m not an addict. But sometimes I get so miserable and wonder what it’d be like to be one. To drown in my misery in that sort of way. To be covered in purple glitter with mascara running down my face. 

That’s not the life of someone with addiction, though. It’s not glittery with Labrinth playing in the background. It’s pretend. But it’s an ice pack on a bruise to pretend your pain is aesthetic. It eases the pain a bit. 

It allows me to escape for forty minutes. To put my reality into perspective. Yeah, I’m miserable, but Maddy Perez has it worse. I might hate myself sometimes, but I’m not behaving like Kat.

Actually, maybe it does make me an addict…just not to a substance. I’d rather watch something like Euphoria than a Disney animation. I’d rather sink into a photo-shopped image of my own reality than a naive, innocent, imagined reality that I can’t have anymore. 

I’m not addicted to a substance, but I am addicted to these stories. And maybe it’s not sickness, nor fascination, but a recognition. They give my feelings a shape that I can look at from an outside perspective. The glitter in these stories fade, but I still hold a space in my room. I’m still here, not cured, not ruined, just aware. That awareness is enough for now. It keeps my emotions and my soul at a safe distance from each other. 

Occasionally I need that glitter to remind myself of that space I like to keep. I escape when I need to, and I come back when I can.