Blonde Ivory

Number Three: h.m.s.

Hayden Sterling

Diary Entry #1

Date: October 16th

Hello... Journal... My name is Hayden Isis Masika Sterling, I am your new owner. I would firstly like to thank the trees that sacrificed their lives so that such a composition book could exist. I would also like to thank my friend, Shiloh Levitsky, for giving me this journal to write down my thoughts in.

I won't lie... Things have been hard for me this year, which is a strange thing to admit. About a year ago, 10 months ago to be exact, my band kind of exploded. If you're exactly like everyone else I've spoken to, you might think that's a good thing. It might've been at first. I was living a dream come true. I didn't have to worry about paying bills or getting a minimum wage job at an In 'N Out.

...

I said I wasn't going to lie. The truth is, I don't think I've ever been happy. I don't think I've ever felt excitement just before a show, or admiration whenever I see all the lovely messages from fans. I don't feel anything, and it scares me. I like playing guitar and I like writing music, so why am I not happy? Why am I not ecstatic about the fact that we got signed onto an Astro Records contract yesterday?

I don't know why, but I just feel so numb. I feel like I'll never truly be happy. I feel like I have never been truly happy. I don't even think I know what happiness feels like. Every person I speak about that with, they freak out and call me crazy. Crazy for not being content with the excess life I'm living; crazy for not being mind-boggled at the fact that I get paid thousands of dollars just for playing guitar; crazy for trying to kill myself; crazy for trying to end it all.

The truth is... I needed a way out. I needed to feel something and if death was the thing then so be it. It's hard not being able to feel anything and maybe I am crazy for thinking such thoughts.

I can tell I'm not making any sense. I'm sorry. Sometimes it's hard to hold everything inside my head once I get going. I don't talk much... In interviews or to fans or to family or to friends. I'm more of a listener. Partly because speaking to people is exhausting, and partly because... Well, once you've been depressed and you've hit an all-time low, people believe you're the best person to go to for advice.

I don't know why. Clearly. they see that I really don't have my shit together. How am I supposed to be a therapist and help people with their problems if my problems swallow my reasonable thoughts whole and replace them with thoughts that lead to my suicidal tendencies?

Now I really do sound crazy.

I'm not crazy though. The last therapist I had told me so. I didn't like her very much. She talked too much about her own teen daughters and how they were growing up so fast or how she and her husband were getting a divorce and she thought she was a lesbian and so on and so forth. Every day, going in and out of therapy, I felt like I was getting more put on my shoulders than taken off.

Dr. Townsend was a beautiful woman, but she, I believe, was just as damaged as I was. The last time we spoke, she asked me not to tell anyone. It would ruin her career and she'd lose her job for acting unprofessionally on the job. Not to mention, taking advantage of a young patient. That was a few months ago and I believe her therapy practices did more bad than good.

Sometimes I have nightmares about all the things we did in her office. I think about her kids and how they would feel if they knew what their mother had done to a girl only a few years older than them. I think about how their faces would be decorated with shame and disgust that the woman they called "Mom" had done such vile acts to a depressed, gullible girl.

Ami tells me that that's part of my problem. I feel too much for others. I empathize with people who don't deserve it. At first, I figured that was my problem, too. Not depression. Just feeling too much for others. Seeing the pain on peoples' faces and wanting to make them feel better no matter the pain it causes me. That can't be true though. I shouldn't want to die this much just for feeling too much. I shouldn't want to think about throwing myself off a roof every time I go into a building with more than one floor. I shouldn't be thinking about how easy my flesh rips when I run sharp objects along it. I shouldn't be thinking about that time in London when I nearly succeeded in feeling something for myself.

Then, of course, my brain does the thing. The thing where it makes me the bad guy. I'm the one who has taken advantage of my therapist. If I hadn't been going to her and listening to her, we wouldn't have done the things we did. It was me who committed the vile acts against a mourning woman who was in a fragile state. I shouldn't have led her on. I shouldn't have said yes. If I really cared about the feelings of others, I wouldn't have had sex with her. I wouldn't have taken advantage of her.

Sorry, I'm not making much sense.

A lot of things have been going on in my mind lately. I keep a lot of things pent up and when they come out it's hard to stop them. I really do sound like a crazy person.

Sometimes, I think about the cure for depression. What it would be and how it must differentiate for each person... Not everybody's depression is the same, so how could the cure for each person be the same? I like to think that mine is easy. Something glazed over and right in front of me, easily overlooked, which is why it's been so hard for me to go back to the happy girl I'm sure that I used to be.

I like to think that the cure is to go home. Drop the band, drop the fame, and just go back home to Egypt with the rest of my family and spend afternoons doing normal things. Going to supermarkets, going to the mosque on a regular basis, even just seeing Ami stop worrying about me.

That might've been the thing that broke me. Seeing my own mother worried half to death that her only child is going to wind up dead. The very first concert we ever played, she swung herself back and forth on her feet backstage. She called me every single day while we were on tour just to tell me to get enough sleep. She even recommended sleeping pills just in case getting rest was too difficult. The worst time by far, though, was when I woke up in the hospital. She'd flown all the way to London. She was standing over me, bloodshot eyes, tear-stained cheeks and I'll never forget the thing she told me.

"Stop crying, baby. Ami's here for you; Ami will never leave you again." She shook her head, "Mother and daughter; together forever."

Then, of course, my father came in and he proceeded to yell at me for being stupid and irresponsible. Throughout the rest of that day, I could see everyone staring at the thirteen slices on my wrists.

The scars have nearly faded to a light purple, soon they'll just be white lines. A fragment of a memory I'll never be able to forget. A memory that none of my friends or family will be able to forget either.

That's why Shiloh gave me this notebook in the first place. I've been having the same nightmares about Dr. Townsend for days now, so I'd asked Shiloh for some sleeping pills. I needed something to keep me from waking up in a hot flash. She'd eyed me up and down before throwing both this book and a bottle of pills at me.

"I know you hate talking about it, so just write your thoughts down in the notebook. I promise not to read it, and you know neither Kasey or Macha know how to read." She makes a joke, and I crack a smile. A fake one; for how could I smile at the fact that nobody will be able to read my continuous cries for help.

Doesn't matter now. I guess I could just write lyrics in you, Journal, and then you wouldn't be completely weighed down with my thoughts about death. I have to go now though. Band Practice and Vocal lessons.

Hayden Isis Masika Sterling