Prologue
I write this now from a psychiatric unit on March 5, 2017. I am fourteen years old, and was diagnosed with depression at age ten. For four long years, I’ve battled with the monster inside me, and I was ready to throw in the towel. I don’t know how this will start, and I don’t know how it will end. I don’t even know what will be in the middle, but I know that the woman who inspired me to keep battling fighting deserves the world. I pray that this is enough.

I met her twice. We talked for about four or five hours, collectively. But I owe this woman so much. For ideas, for hope, and for the integrity to do the things in my youth that she didn’t. We had most things in common, as many do, but, as uniquely as I can put it, this was something else. This companionship is what I needed to win the battle against that beast called Depression.

I wish I could’ve talked to her more, to completely ignore the body’s needs for sleep and nutrition. Maybe then I’d have more to write. But I won’t dwell on things that I have no control over.

As much as I hate to repeat what has been said over and over in the past in the exact same format, be yourself. I even cringe as I write that because I hear and see it almost everywhere, but it’s the truth. Being me is how I got here. And I would do it all over again for the same result.

We didn’t have voices when we were young. We were beaten into submission by people who demanded victory in every argument. We spent numerous hours just wondering if what we were fighting for was right. It might not have been the right thing, per se, but I’m glad things turned out the way they did. I’m glad I got to meet her.
The first day I was in this psych unit, I was in shambles. I was thinking out a plan, saying my goodbyes... I was ready to kill myself. That seemed to be the only to escape the unbearable pain that I was feeling then.

Then I met her.

At first, I held resent. Then anger. Then anxiety. Then understanding. She opened me up like a book. I just saw her walk past the door of my room, and I fear I will never see her again.

I will do my best to describe the companionship I had with her without giving away personal information for the safety of her friends and family, as well as herself. She deserves no less.

As short as a prologue this is, I need sleep. I implore you to read on, for this is as much of a journey for you as it is for me.

March 9, 2017
“Humbling,” she said. I made her cry. She really is something else. I’m glad my writing made her happy. It’s just a small act in a desperate attempt to make up for what she’s done for me. I don’t think I’ll ever do that. So this is why she does her job...

I don’t want to say goodbye. That’s always the hardest part. That’s why I’m afraid of relationships. They always end with the same word, and there’s no promise of another try. So cherish the time you have with your loved ones, to the people who mean something to you, because your time is limited. You may not say goodbye. You may not even get to say thank you. It could all just be gone in the blink of a blind man’s eye. But if you take advantage of the time you have left, your loved ones will already know.

I’m not quite sure if this is chapter one or not, but I’m just going to go with it. Say what needs to be said about life, or at least what I know, which isn’t a lot. But I can try.

Relationships have always been hard for me. Not only because of my fear of goodbyes, but also because of the people themselves. I feared them. I was always too scared to open up and show my emotions. It was the hardest thing in the world for me, and it seemed like it was for her, too. We were just both… socially awkward kids, I guess. Only now, as I type it on this laptop, does that sound as cheesy as it is. But maybe that’s not so bad.

I remember so clearly at the age of about three or four, I had a babysitter. She was kind, and loving (and my godmother). She would also have to pry me off my mother when she left for work because my separation anxiety was so bad. But even after I was detached from my mom, I wouldn’t stop crying.

It’s strange how someone so young can feel the crushing sadness and anxiety that I still feel today. It’s like a parasite that I can’t shake. It’s become a part of me. I’ve always been close to my mom, there’s no denying that. She served as a comfort zone to me in the years before I made friends. That woman is my rock, yet sometimes I’m too nervous to tell her something she ought to know.

As I got older, I went to preschool. Surprise! Next stage of life. Nothing had changed. I was still terrified of new people and eye contact. Just thinking about it makes my heart leap in my throat. Give me a minute to have an anxiety attack.

I doubt I’ll ever recall the name of the preschool I went to, but it was a pretty neat place. There were these big apple trees that seemed to touch the sky and only drop the sweetest of apples. I was four. Of course it seemed that way. But alongside these trees was a playground, and turtle-shaped sandbox. It rocked. The people running the preschool also lived there, so they had a massive TV in the nap room. Movie time was the best.

But what held me back from really enjoying all these things was Anxiety. I capitalized the word because the feeling is so strong, it deserves capitalization. And, you can never really articulate feelings with words. Not perfectly.

When I first met the people who were taking care of me, I was terrified. Like, ready-to-have-an-accident terrified. A large, Santa Claus-looking man asked me what the name of my stuffed rabbit was. Being put on the spot so suddenly by a stranger momentarily silenced me. Then I said a name I didn’t even like, in fear of angering or offending him. I always remember that man as strict and mean. I never acted out in preschool.
His wife, on the other hand, had a kind smile and hair a couple shades darker than crimson. We all liked her, but she was also the one to give out prizes, so that opinion may have been biased. But she also played with us, helped us, and corrected us when needed. I saw her almost as an aunt.

They were in their mid-50s or 60s. But we didn’t care. We just wanted to eat applesauce and watch the lizards in the tank in the playroom. And me? I was the kid that played with the stuffed animals in the corner, praying that no one would want to play with me. It’s not that I didn’t want to share, it’s just that talking seemed like such a hassle and a burden, really. Being around the other kids just didn’t feel right. And I can tell you now, that hasn’t changed. It’s just something about the loud noises and crowded places that I just can’t handle. And I don’t think I ever will.

Even at that age, I knew what an anxiety attack felt like. My nose stung, like I was going to cry. My chest got tight, my palms got sweaty… My smiles didn’t feel real. But even then, I masked it. Because I had no clue what else I could do. And I guess it’s been like that ever since.

April 13, 2017
I think I’m suffering from a writing withdrawal. I can’t calm down anymore, and I don’t feel heard. So, on we go.
Fast forward a couple years, and I’m in third grade. I was tall, chubby, and had hair that made me look like a mushroom. Not appealing in the least, but I guess I taught my friends how to look past the outward appearance. There was a girl in my class (let’s call her Alexis) who was my best friend. She scared the ever-living crap out of me, mostly because she was also my first bully. She teased me, hit me, pulled my hair, the whole bit. She made me feel like nothing. But I stuck around because I sometimes had fun with her. On good days. When I only hung out with her. I know it sounds awful, but it didn’t feel like I was getting the short end of the stick. I felt that her love was maybe just… a little rough. So I held on. Now that I think about it, it sounds a lot like what I did with my dad. I endured that hate, the yelling, the taunting, because I thought that was as good as it gets.

Boy was I wrong.

Now, every time I tried to stand up against Alexis, I got nervous, which was understandable. This girl was my main idea of a friend, and had been for a decent amount of time. She was my best friend, and as much as she would hurt me, I still cared for her (spoiler alert: I do the same thing five years later with my dad). So, I just didn’t say anything. I dealt with it for another three years or so. I actually got into a lot of trouble during those years. I’m not going to be specific, but those years were also when my depression developed.

So, long story short, if you have a friend, or a significant other, or a family member that is verbally or physically abusing you, don’t take that. Don’t hole yourself up into a corner of your mind like I did. Don’t put yourself below other people to make them happy. It hurts so much more in the end when you have to rip off the band-aid and say “screw this.” I will always regret not breaking it off in third grade. I might’ve saved myself from a living hell.
Please don’t think that Alexis was a bad person. She had her struggles too. And maybe in trying to pull her out of her rut, I fell in too. But I do have some amazing memories from her, even if they’re a little tainted.

There was this one time, when I was about nine, we went to the beach. I was currently writing my own novel, ‘I Will Always Remember You, Dan Howell,’ which had turned out to be 170 pages long. (Please don’t make me talk about it. It’s a bad memory and half of me wants to find the notebook right now and burn it). I had picked up this thing where I wasn’t eating so I could be thinner (hint hint: anorexia). And it was working, although I did fall off a small cliff because all I had eaten were a couple of Pringles. Good times. But Alexis and I walked along the beach, until she got in the water. She eventually convinced me to get in the frigid ocean after splashing me to the point that getting in would make no difference. I remember that summer as footloose and fancy free, despite my depressing slowly cultivating in that place next to my heart. I remember walking around her apartment complex at dusk and watching the sun set on the grass. I don’t know why, but that is one of my favorite memories. The air smelled faintly of smoke, marijuana, and perfume, the grass was prickly in some places and green in others. Her hand was warm in mine, and we didn’t have a care in the world. Not about school, not about what mom would think, it was just us and the setting sun.

I’m still friends with Alexis. We talk from time to time. Believe it or not, I miss hanging out with her and all my maybe-probably-gay best friends. We all had memorable moments together during that summer. I wish I could remember how to be like that again, instead of knowing how much worse it actually gets. That summer was inconceivably bittersweet.

Then All Hell Broke Loose
It was about fifth grade when I really started thinking about suicide.

It had started out as a passing idea, you know? It was like when you walk past a really nice car and think “Wow, that’s a great car. I could steal it if I wanted to… but I won’t.” It started out as something that I knew I was capable of, but I just didn’t want to suffer the consequences. Then things started to go downhill. Up until now, I really haven’t talked about my dad and his role in all of this. Maybe I should have.

I honestly believe that at least part of the reason I suffer from mental illness today is because of how he treated me as a child. I grew up always being afraid of what mood he would be in, always choosing my words carefully. If I didn’t, he would yell. For hours. He wouldn’t even tell me how I could do things better or how it made him feel. It always seemed to be about my mom. He would always go on and on about how he thought my mom was sick and disturbing. He called me a puppet at one point, saying that my ideas were my mother’s
But it got worse as I got older. When I was diagnosed with depression, I had my psychiatrist call him and tell him for me so that I wouldn’t have to face him. Right off the bat he blamed my mom for it. He didn’t even believe I was depressed. He still doesn’t. In fact, I remember there was one time I was having a breakdown. I couldn’t stop crying, he kept yelling at me. Then he said something that still hurts me today. “Oh, you’re gonna have another mental breakdown? Do you need me to give you more pills?” Let me tell you now, that messed me up. I hated him from then on. If he was going to go so far as to make fun of my depression, he doesn’t deserve my respect. Simple as that.

Encounters like that started happening more and more, and by sixth grade I had five suicide notes and a recommendation for a psychiatric hospital. I didn’t go. I stuck it out, and tried to assert myself, see what I was capable of. I ended up cussing him out, and leaving him speechless with arguments that actually made sense. A twelve-year-old beat a 52-year-old man at his own argument. That felt pretty damn good. Of course, that always made him turn a different direction entirely, and in turn made the whole thing last a lot longer. But I got through it.

I was in seventh grade when I first started talking to people online. I was on a website I had found when I was about nine, and I started making friends. It got me away from all the things my dad would say about me, all the voices telling me to end it. Instead, my mind was filled with inside jokes and people who loved me. Then it went a little too far. That was ripped from me, naturally. So I had to start again. That hurt a lot more than I’ll ever tell my mom it did. But, I got myself out there. I learned how to take the first step in a friendship, and I did a good job of it. I don’t regret anything.

If I thought things with my dad couldn’t get any worse, I was wrong. So painfully wrong. That was about the time that I started flinching at every single loud noise. That was the year he threw the razors across the room.
I was also experimenting with gender in seventh grade. I decided to shave my head on the sides to look like a boy. I thought it looked cool then, but now as I look at pictures from that time, I regret everything. People at school didn’t recognize me because I looked so much like a boy. My mom wasn’t too happy about it. She told me how she had a little girl, and how she’d miss her. That made me both angry and sad. Queue first hospital trip
I made some of my best friends that year, both online and in real life. I started learning Japanese from a possible psychopath, I patched up some old friendships, and I even had a girlfriend for a time. So even if my dad was an asshole sometimes, I always had my friends to help me come up with good comebacks

We’re Here Already?

I guess that brings us to now. This year… it hasn’t been so kind. My grandma passed away, I watched my pup die, and my dad… well, you can take a guess. I have a restraining order against him now. Sometimes the pain is so intense that I just double over and sob. That’s all I can do. But I’ve gotten stronger, I know it. I have this fire in me that I can always feel, even if I’m at one of my darkest points. I want to thank my friends and family for keeping me going, keeping me here. I have a plan for the future, a story I want to write in experiences and memories. I want to keep this fire alive. So if you can relate to this drabble in any way, know that everything is a roller coaster. Yes, it gets better, but it will always fall again. Hold on tight to your friends and enjoy the ride.
I really wish I had more to say. I really do. Just keep that flame alive, because I know it’s inside you. Take care of it, nurture it. That is what will make you stronger.