I always know when my mental health is deteriorating: my self-management falls apart. It starts with errands piling up, a schedule of gridlocked anxiety. Next, my social life erodes, marked by broken promises and unexplained absences. Housework is avoided until I’m too ashamed to answer the doorbell. Getting dressed is less of an issue now, ever since working from home became pervasive and loungewear became fashionable. Showers are overwhelmingly complex, terrifying almost. I lie in bed for hours, finding the energy to disrobe, get wet, and re-robe – an impossibility when my brain is waging one of its wars.

Yet, two things remain constant: I brush my teeth twice daily, and I do the dishes. I can’t take credit for the teeth-brushing: it avoids immediate distasteful, sometimes smelly discomfort. It’s like wiping one’s nose after sneezing: technically hygienic, but also instinctive. But washing the dishes, now that is a choice.

I don’t know why I’ve always done the dishes. Maybe it’s because of my grandmother who, listening to pre-teen June rail at the unreasonableness of parents, shared that she’d always fought her brother for the opportunity to do the dishes, especially in winter. The water was hot, so she would lean in as far as her arms could go: her parents couldn’t afford to heat the apartment. Maybe it’s because, as a teenager, doing the dishes was the one way I could get away from my arguing parents and be left alone for 30-40 minutes with my thoughts. Maybe it’s because at big family dinners when I’m overstimulated by all the noise, doing the dishes allows me to be present without having to be involved; to witness, but have space.

The point is, I’ve always done the dishes.

Doing the dishes is how I pull myself out of the darkest of my depressions. When my brain puts up a vicious fight to convince me to call it quits, that I am worthless, unlovable, a failure, an endless stream of vitriolic hatred directed at myself, on those nights when I want to give up, on those mornings when I open my eyes and feel defeated, I say to myself – truthfully – “Well, I did the dishes yesterday, even when I didn’t want to. So there’s that.”

A few months into a brain battle, I find myself with a little leftover energy after the dishes, so I sweep the kitchen floor. Days after, I take out the recycling, mountains and mountains of it! Then I usually catch myself later in the month doing all of the laundry and folding it! And so, bit by bit, the list of things that ground my self-esteem and with which I fight back against my poisonous brain is long enough that my brain gets bored and subsides into uneasy silence.  A temporary victory perhaps, but one I always take advantage of. These temporary victories have allowed me to change jobs, pursue in further education, and make new friends. To build happy memories.

This week I struggled. I was overwhelmed and afraid, and I could hear my brain cackling with glee, waiting for an opening to attack. Too frazzled to cook, I did takeout every day of the week. But! I made sure to serve myself the food on my dinnerware, to have dishes to clean! As I do them, I repeat to myself, “Well, I did the dishes today. So there’s that.”

That is reason enough to fight another day.