Sliced Trees and Dead Words

43 - Fueling the wildfire that is my depression.

- DALEN -

Depression is a bitch of a thing. It doesn't just affect you as the person experiencing it. It affects everyone you come into contact with, however unwillingly.

When people learn you're depressed, one of two things usually happens: they get scared and walk around on eggshells and avoid you like the plague; or they look at you constantly with pity and develop a martyr complex, mistakenly assuming whatever they do or advice they suggest will be the ultimate cure for said depression.

The same kind of goes for shame, and in myself I've always seen the two things as being linked, or at least that one was arguably the precursor to the other, which then began feasting off the negative energy of each other and grew into this uncontrollable, monstrous entity that whispered and shouted at me constantly that my life was meaningless and it would be better for everyone if I just ended it.

Shame made up most of what I felt as a small child being abused. I didn't know anything about sex or how people could misuse or abuse it when it started, but I do remember feeling confused and scared and ashamed regardless. When these three things inevitably began speaking to each other and blending into one, depression was the only possible outcome.

I fought it for a long time. I used drugs to try to mask it. I began running to try to hide from it. I eventually even tried to use sex to heal it; to reclaim what was stolen from me by forcing myself to experience it with others in a different way. Healthier, respectful. What should have just been normal from the very beginning.

The pills doctors would throw at me as an easy fix only worked so much. They can balance out chemicals all well and good, but they can't eradicate a lifetime of memories and the despairing feelings associated with them. If there were a miracle pill on the market to take that could do just that, there might have been a little more hope for me. But thus far, no one has prescribed it to me, and even the wealth of knowledge and good intentions of all the therapists I've seen combined haven't been able to achieve that miracle either. Though, admittedly, that was probably my own fault because I could never get over my own shame long enough to let any of them in on why I was this way.

For a long while, I saw Luna as being my miracle pill. My heart fooled me into believing that she was my cure, and that fate is what brought her to me that night on the beach in Byron, because just moments before Medusa ran over to her, I'd had one of two major epiphanies I would come to experience in life—that I would one day be the cause of my own death. As soon as she opened her mouth to speak to me, miracle placebo pill was swallowed and I temporarily abandoned my decision to kill myself.

I don't believe it was ever that Luna stopped being my cure. Rather, my eyes began opening to the impact that my shame and depression were having on her, as well as everyone else around me. When I was miserable, the people surrounding me seemed miserable too. When I cried, they cried too. When I grew catatonic, people fought to pull me out until I finally budged, leaving them just as exhausted from the effort. When I was irritable, others around me grew agitated too, and arguments of a whole different breed grew around me. When I was using, other people either would too, or they remained purposely sober and kept a finger on the dial for an ambulance, themselves probably overdosing on adrenaline while I tried to do the same with something else more harmful.

Luna's light would fade the longer she spent with me. I watched it happen every time I visited her. She would grow tired, bags forming under her beautiful eyes because she was struggling to keep up with my manic energy that emerged whenever I was around her. Her eyes, always alert and eager at first, grew weary of peaking glances at me to make sure I wasn't doing anything stupid. Her heart, though I couldn't see it inside her chest, grew sadder with every second spent listening to and observing how broken mine was. Even on the phone I could hear how her voice would grow weak and tired in having to reassure me that she loved me, that it would be okay, and that things would be better soon.

I knew I was having this effect on her, but I selfishly kept coming back for more because I needed her, which only added to my guilt, which then fed my constant shame, which then fueled the wildfire that was my depression.

No matter what I felt or what I did to stay okay, my depression spread like a contagion to everyone around me, and it affected none so much as it did Luna and my other best mate—Wolfe Prescott.