I’m on my couch, and I won’t pretend to be sober.

The other day I posted a picture of a greasy, sriracha-drenched pork belly bagel sandwich. I shared an Instagram story with text reading “i hope this kills me” overlayed in tiny white font.

My mom immediately texted me, “Brett Man!! Your mom doesn’t like to hear these things about killing yourself!” She had apparently been concerned that I was depressed to the point of self-harm for some time. Depressed, maybe. But she didn’t realize that the more millennials love something the more they “want to kill” themselves. (It’s a bad habit; I know I should stop feeding into it.)

I post a fuck ton on Instagram. I get that. I’m fine with it. 2015 me would’ve bored you with some spiel about how “I really wanna stop using social media so much.” But if I pull that bullshit now, just call me out. I love Instagram. I lust over the dream of one day being “Instagram famous.” I think it’s not out of the cards for me.

Anxiety is something that’s hard to capture. Hard to post. Hard to integrate into your aesthetic. My anxiety goes undocumented mostly because when I’m in it, I don’t have enough space in my brain to capture anything but its expanding and solidifying concrete. There’s no room to journal about my anxiety, to process its existence. No room to take pictures of moments I’d ordinarily find capture-worthy. No moment to identify, “THIS. This, exactly where I’m at, is something that I find is an important part of my life to share, too. Because this comes just as often as the good.”

It doesn’t show up in photographs. When you see a photo of a boy smirking, surrounded by friends on a blanket in the middle of Central Park, I see a photo of a boy who didn’t want to be in that park in the first place because to be in that park meant it was a Sunday and if it were a Sunday that meant he’d have to go to work the next day and if he had to go to work the next day that mean he was one step closer to the impending deadline that made his stomach flip upside down every time he accidentally remembered its existence.

I like Instagram because Instagram seems to like me back. Instagram seems to like me back because I have no fear of being vulnerable. My indifference to vulnerability on Instagram has been received as so unique—so foreign, so heroic, so innovative—that it’s turned into a pride for my own vulnerability. Maybe it’s an accomplishment. My ability to share with strangers places that most other people haven’t even arrived at within themselves. And maybe, just like all accomplishments, it comes with obligation.

Nah, fuck that. I love being vulnerable; it’s innate. I just got carried away with words. Anyway.

My obligation and/or love for vulnerability is leading me to share this: I have severe anxiety. I don’t know if it would register as “severe” to a doctor’s standard. But it feels severe to me. Sometimes there’s nothing more I can say to life besides physically shaking my head no. (Seriously, sometimes I’ve just momentarily blacked out and found myself shaking my head no at nothing.) Few people have witnessed me in the middle of a full-force anxiety attack. (Actually, maybe more than a few now—they’ve been happening more and more frequently.) But regardless, everyone who knows me knows that when I am in this place I am someone else entirely. A wolverine version of myself. Professor Lupin shit.

It’s not in my photos. It’s not in my feed. It’s not on my stories. It’s not on your radar. But my anxiety exists. And it’s just as much a part of me (if not momentarily more) than the than the moments I share with you. I wrote this in my journal yesterday about something entirely different, but I think it too applies in this context:

“There are some things we can’t talk about until we’re out of them. I promise I’ll tell you everything.”