A Collection of Open Letters

to my depression

an open letter to my depression–

you appeared to me slowly after i started public school. you sat and told me how worthless i was– that no one would ever want to be friends with this loud, obnoxious girl. somehow, i managed to shrug you off.

then i discovered my sexuality and you reappeared. you told me how disgusting i was. you told me my mother could never love a faggot. so i hid that part of me because of you.

i have been hiding all of my life because of you. do you know how tiring it is to completely hide half of your life from people? today, years later, i still can't be completely honest about who i am.

"i'm not gay," i say to my friends and family.

i say this to myself.

technically, i'm not lying. i tell myself this to make myself feel better about not sharing every part of myself with those who i know love me for who i am.

i'm so terrified of losing friends due to who i love. i'm so terrified of losing my mother.

i started to self-harm in sixth grade. you told me it would make the emotional turmoil rest for a few hours, if not days. it felt good to let all these emotions out, but then i would see my blood and cry.

"why am i so fucked up," i would ask you.

"you deserve this," you'd reply. so i continued.

i tried to take my life twice that year. how fucked is it that you drove a twelve-year-old to the point of trying to take her own life? i would sit and cry after the failed attempts.

"gotta try harder next time," you'd whisper.

sitting at the bottom of my shower my sophomore year, i realized i wasn't okay. it isn't normal to cry about how much you hate yourself. it isn't normal to sleep all day just so you don't have to be stuck in your head all the time. it isn't normal to imagine ways to fucking end your life, thinking about which would be the least painful.

"she can't help you," you said to me as i marched to the school counsellor. "i'll always be here."

i don't want to admit you were right, but you are. every day is a battle against you. you're always behind me– chasing me. every moment is a struggle. i still think about ways that i could end my life, not because i'm suicidal, but because i'm so accustomed to thinking of it. for a while, you held me close to your bosom and suffocated me­– isolated me.

my friends detangled me from your wiry grasp and helped me find the type of help that i needed and i can never thank them enough for that.

after three suicide attempts, one and a half years clean of self-harm, two of my friends ending their lives, and a change in medication, i'm on a road to recovery.

but the funny thing about you is that i'll always be walking on that road. you will always be chasing me with your dark, cold hands and i'll always be running from you.

i'm done hiding from everyone, though.

you don't control me anymore. ­­