The Pain Inside

Chapter 4

Kat was in another memory, she knew, but this was different from the two she'd seen earlier. Before, it had been shared memories, hers and Matthew's. This, she knew from the start, was Matthew's memory alone. She felt somehow out of place, like she was intruding on something private, yet she didn't know how to leave even had she wanted to.

She was in Matt's bedroom, in his apartment. He was seated at a desk, writing something. She was a few feet away, yet somehow she knew what the note said even though she couldn't see it. Still, morbid curiosity drew her to step forward until she could look over his shoulder. The note was rather short, and he was just finishing it.

"I don't want to fight it anymore. I don't have the strength. I hope you can forgive me. I'm sorry, Matthew."

Slowly he set the pen down. Kat knew what was going to come next, she'd seen the note before, she knew what it meant. "No," she whispered softly, staring at him. Screwing the cap off a bottle of gatorade, he took a sip, and then he reached for the second bottle.

She'd known that Matt was on antidepressants the entire time they'd known each other. She'd found out early on. But she hadn't thought it was a big deal, she'd thought he'd had it under control and that the medication was working for him. She'd never gotten into the details of what he was taking, how much he was taking it, and so on. He'd never volunteered the information, and she hadn't found out the whole truth until after he was in a coma. She'd never known that he tried over half a dozen different SSRI antidepressants over time, getting very little effect from any of them. She'd never known that they'd moved him up to SNRI antidepressants, and that, while some of them helped a great deal, his body had gradually grown tolerant to them, every time. She hadn't known that that was why they'd moved him up to tricyclic antidepressants, a type popular in the 60's and 70's, but rarely prescribed anymore except for extreme depression that showed resistance to treatment. The tricyclics were powerful, far more so than SSRI's and SNRI's. The problem was, not only did tricyclics tend to cause more side-effects, but while even a major overdose on an SSRI or SNRI wasn't likely to cause serious harm and would be recovered from relatively quickly... Even a moderate overdose of a tricyclic could kill.

She'd only found out everything after, once he was already in a coma. His mother had told her. His mother had had ongoing permission to talk to his psychiatrist for years. The woman had kept up on his medications, on what they meant. She'd known how much Matt cared for Kat, and they'd sat together by his bedside in the hospital more than once. It wasn't until then that Kat knew Matt's exact conditions, beyond the fact that he took pills for depression. Major Depressive Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, and Dysthymia. Kat had had no idea his problems were that serious, but the mother had confirmed something Kat herself suspected. Matt had a habit of hiding his pain, of covering it up. He was adept at putting on emotional masks of normality, of acting like he was fine even when he wasn't. 'He didn't want to burden other people with his problems,' his mother had said, 'He figured that just because he had to suffer didn't mean others should suffer with him'.

The entire time she'd known him Kat had noticed that Matt didn't seem to react like most people would when bad things happened. He never got angry, he never shouted or yelled, he never whined or pitched a fit, he never blamed anyone. He always seemed to just accept it, and act as if everything was fine. Kat had thought maybe it was a macho bit, of not letting it get to him, or that maybe his sweetness so overwhelmed everything else that he really was able to just let everything roll off his back. Not once had she guessed that he was just bottling it all up inside, pretending he was fine so that no one else would ever have to share his pain. When she'd found out, it had made her wonder. How many of those times when they'd been together and he'd seemed happy, how many times when they'd just been talking and sharing things with each other, had he really been secretly suffering and just hiding it for her sake? She wished he hadn't shut her out, she wished he'd told her. She didn't know if she could've helped, but she'd have tried. She'd have done anything to help him.