The days blend together into this one endless loop of sleep and Grey's Anatomy. One moment I was watching Meredith hook up with Derek for the very first time and the next she was drowning. That was over fifty episodes and I can't even remember one. Somewhere between the drama filled series I pee and take showers and eat whatever is brought to my room but mostly I watch tv and sleep.
I don't feel anything; not anger when one of the characters does something irrational, or irritation when George acts like a bitch, or even
happiness when Burke and Christina get together. The plus side to the numbness is that I also don't feel his hands all over me anymore or hear his breathing or remember the fact that I wouldn't be a mom now.
In the beginning of the month before I started doing hardcore weed and drinking, I looked up the signs for depression just so I would know what to look for should I fall victim to the infinite sadness. I had wanted to know what they were so I could drag myself out the funk before it was too late.
I think it was to late.
If I was completely honest with myself I think it was too late before I even started looking at the symptoms.
Depression was tricky like that. Most times I was fine, I was happy and smiling and free. But others times, usually right in the middle of those happy times, I would fall. Everything would start to feel a hundreds times heavier then it was and suddenly I'm being crushed by something at weightless as air. The thing was I couldn't even figure out a way to get the air to stop crushing me.
The thing was, even though I know I'm depressed and that I should try to get some help, I can't. I didn't wanna have to go talk to my mom or dad and tell them how I feel then repeat it to a therapist. I didn't wanna take pills. I didn't want comfort. I just wanted to watch this show and lay in my bed and never get up again.
I just wanted to be alone.
That all changes when my door was slowly opening followed by my moms soft voice. "Lynn, baby?" She moves further into the dark room until she's standing on the side of my bed. I don't make any indications that I even know she's in the room and continue to stare blankly at my wall. It was full with pictures ranging from when I was a baby to this past Christmas. There were pictures of my family and friends and gaping holes were pictures of Elijah once lay.
"Are you up?"
I blink, pulling the cover tighter around me as I count all the holes in my picture wall. "No."
She chuckles dryly. "You have to get up, honey. I know that it hurts but you can't lay in this bed anymore. You have to get up."
Normally I would've felt angry that she was trying to force me to do something, I hated that shit after all. But all her words fill me up with is indifference. There were eighty missing spots in the otherwise full wall. My voice is dry when I whisper; "Could I just have- just one more day." I pause, calling forth some type of emotion to make my plea sound more appealing but coming up empty. "Please?"
It's quiet for a long time before she was sighing, heavy and tired. My mom leans down and presses a gentle kiss to my forehead before turning and opening the door. "We love you Jaelynn."
I don't reply and she leaves my room with a quiet promise that she'll bring me up some breakfast in a little bit. I turn on my tv when I can hear her footsteps in the stairs and start the next episode of Grey Anatomy.
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"So... what do you want to do after high school?"
Blinking up at the young woman sitting across from me, I try to remember why I was here. Okay so I know why I was here, my mom had finally got enough of me sitting in my room and made me go to school today then come to this therapy session. My problem was why any of this was even necessary?
When did I get so far gone that my parents demanded that I talk to a therapist? When did I start thinking it was okay to lay in my bed all day and watch that stupid fucking over dramatic show? When did I lose myself?
I was still staring at the physiatrist, my eyes vacant, while she looks back at me with this polite little smile. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the hell she just said. "Huh?"
She tilts her head just slightly and something flashes through her blue eyes that was gone to quick for me to recognize. "What do you want to do after high school."
"Go to college."
"And after that?"
I shrug. "Get a job, I guess."
To be honest I knew exactly what I wanted to do after graduating collage. I was one of those people who obsessed and planned everything out to a 'T'. When I graduated high school I would go to NYSA where I would major in hip hop and contemporary dance. After that I would work at a dance studio somewhere in New York for a couple of years so that I could build a clientele and save money before eventually opening my own studio by the time I was thirty. I would get married at like 25 and then have three kids, each two years apart.
I would give them unique and beautiful names and they would all have their father, Elijah's, beautiful brown skin. Don't even ask me when he became the husband in my fantasies but he was and I didn't think that would change for some time.
Just cause I knew all of this though, it didn't mean I was finna share with her. There really wasn't a reason for that other then I didn't feel like talking right now. I haven't said more then ten words to anybody today and I wasn't about to start with her.
"And how do you think your baby would've fit into this plan?"
That gains my attention and it must show on my face because her smile gets a little bit more pleased. "How do you know about my- it?"
"Your mom told me." She reply's back and I almost slap myself because of course she did. She must've told Karen, that's what the therapist wants me to call her, everything that's been happening with me lately. "Normally I like for my patients to tell me what's going on with them but seeing as we've been here for almost thirty minutes and you've barely spoken, I have to break you out of your shell some how. Now...how do you think your baby would've fit into this plan?"
I can feel it-something like emotions bubbling up inside of me. After being virtually numb all month feeling them now is strange.
Panic. Anger. Regret. So much regret that it threatens to drown me.
Karen's dark blue eyes lock with mine. "It's okay to feel, Jaelynn." She softly declares. "You need emotions to be able to properly get through a situation. Not weed or alcohol or pills. Tears and emotions help you."
Some part of me recognizes that she was right, only emotions lead to even more heartache nine times outta ten. And I had enough heartache to lasts me an entire lifetime. I didn't want to feel anything right now because to feel you would have to think and thinking meant remembering and I didn't wanna remember what I've been through and what I've done. I just...I just wanted to go home and watch Grey Anatomy.
Those emotions that tried to surface when I thought about...you know were gone and my voice was bland when I say; "No."
She blinks, surprised. "No to what?"
"No I don't think it would've fit into my plans and that's why I didn't keep it."
She nods. "And how does that make you feel?"
"I don't feel anything." My eye twitches and my lip quivers slightly, two things I know she pick up on, but my voice was cold and steady. My hands buried in the pocket of Bri's sweatshirt, I look over at the butterfly painting she has on her wall and focus on it until everything else fades away.
