Hello Am I Dead?

How do you know when you’ve died?

Is it when you watch the red blood mix with the bath water?

Or maybe it’s when you wake up every day and you can’t even find the energy to get out of bed.

Or maybe it’s when you can’t feel a thing. When you feel nothing and everything at all.

“How are you?”

It’s such a simple question, and it requires a simple answer. When people ask you that, they don’t expect your life story, they just want to hear “I’m fine.” Even if you don’t feel it. I can barely remember the last time someone asked me that and actually cared about the response.

“Am I happy?”

That’s a question I ask myself every day. I never know the answer to that. I smile and I laugh until I’ve got tears pouring down my face and I make jokes and I have a good time but then I stop and think, “Am I really happy?”

I go home and avoid looking at any of the mirrors in the house, afraid that if I look I won’t like the person that’s staring back.  

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am capable of happiness but I’ve just been lost for a long time.

When people ask me what’s bothering me I’m always reluctant to tell them. Not because I don’t want help, but because they don’t understand. And because ignorance is bliss�"they don’t want to understand. Not that I can blame them. I wish I didn’t understand.

They’re afraid of getting in far over their heads. They’re afraid of drowning. They’re afraid that when they can’t help you they’ll lose you and then they won’t be able to live with the guilt. So instead, they do nothing at all. They think that when they see you smiling the next day, it’s all been fixed overnight with the wave of a magic wand.

You smile, the puppet strings that control you automatically pulling your lips into a perfect façade. They think it’s alright and they convince themselves that they deserve a pat on the back. They convince themselves that just because they don’t see it, it’s not happening.

They don’t know that when you go home you look longingly at the pair of slightly crooked nail scissors on your desk, and think to yourself, “just this once.” They don’t see you cutting into your own skin, someplace where no one will see. If there’s ever a situation where your mutilated, scarred skin is on show you expect shock and surprise and a chorus of: “Oh my god!” that never happens. Another day, another scar to add to the now growing population of ugly invaders on your skin.

You want help but you’re afraid of boring them with your problems, so you say nothing and listen to them talk about trivial things like homework or romantic troubles.

When you eventually open up to someone, you look them in the eye and there’s a quake in your voice, “I need to tell you something.” They look panicked, surprised, shocked, curious�"a whole kaleidoscope of emotion.  

You take them somewhere where no one can hear. The balcony is a good spot. You sit. You curl your feet under you like a cat. You try to ignore that sickening feeling in your gut that they’ll call you depressed. That they’ll be disappointed. That they’ll view you in the different way. Even worse that they’ll leave. You try to open your mouth to make sentences, but find that you can’t. What seemed like such an easy thing to say when you were going over it in your head now seems so painful.

They sit there, faces of pity and sympathy and nod and tuck hair behind their ears, sometimes look at their hands, and they keep nodding but they’re not listening. They’ll tell you what you want to hear and then they’ll never bring it up again, even though you’re clutching at them for help and they can’t even begin to comprehend the amount of courage it took you to admit that you have a problem, and you want help. You need help. They’re afraid that talking about it will make you upset. It appears that ignorance is their best friend.

You open and close your mouth a couple of times like a fish and try to ignore the burning in your throat that tells you you’re about to cry. They look at you but don’t push it�"no longer curious but truly worried. All sorts of dreadful worst case scenarios whizz through their minds; but they never thought that you contemplating suicide would be one of them. No. Not contemplation, the urge to commit suicide. If I wasn’t such a goddamn coward, I would have done it by now.

Finally, you take a deep breath and pour open your soul to them. As you keep talking you start to tremble. You’re suddenly aware of the deathly silence and you think that maybe they’re not listening. You try to make it sound like it’s not a big deal and make some self-deprecating humour.

When you’re finished you can’t even look at them and your face feels hot, and you’re nervous about their response and every second feels like an hour. You twist your hands together. Then they go into the rehearsed speech of how perfect you are, and you have nothing to worry about and you feel the tears roll down your cheeks, not sure if that’s what you wanted to hear and make a weak joke about your make-up smudging.

Or maybe, they keep silent and they say honestly that they don’t know what to say and you smile faintly, your lip wobbling as you say thank you for listening, even if you can’t say anything to make me feel better.

You can’t bring yourself to tell them about those shiny pink scars on your skin, so you say nothing and let them believe what they will.

Then there’s silence for a beat. Suddenly it feels like there’s a great weight that’s been lifted off your shoulders and you feel like you can breathe for the first time in months.

You expect them to flood you with messages about how you can always talk to them and how they’ll always be there.

A week passes and those messages never come. When they never bring it up, you start to regret saying anything at all.

It gets worse and worse. You wake up every-day and can’t find the physical strength to get through the day and the need to wear the same counterfeit  smile because you know that they don’t want to hear what they’ve already listened to.

You go through your days like a robot, just counting the mere minutes until you get to home and you can allow yourself to fall apart.

You’re terrified of being alone. You’re terrified to be around people; every look that someone gives you feels like they’re counting up every single physical flaw they can find. You get paranoid that they’re talking about you when you’re not around.

When you’re getting ready to go to bed, you mentally tick off another day that you’ve survived and maybe look at your scars, or maybe just hug yourself because it feels like you’re falling apart bit by bit. You look at all of the surroundings that you used to love and think bitterly about how much happier you’ll be when you finally move somewhere else.

You can’t find the motivation to want things to get better, not because you don’t want it to, but because you don’t care anymore. There comes a point where you just can’t care anymore you’ve given up and you’re merely going through the motions.

You start to look around the house for things that you could use to kill yourself with.

You think about which one would be the quickest.

You want to keep fighting, but the darkness has enveloped you so completely that it’s become your friend, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, convincing you that you can stay with it forever, smothered by its protective numbness. Real life won’t be able to find you that way. You’ll be safe. Forever.  

Reviews

[sramspoker]

This feels like a very accurate depiction of clinical depression. (Granted I don't know much about it.) However, I feel you accomplished almost everything you needed to give a reader of your characters depression in a paragraph or two. It was very well done, but it quickly starts to drag. The sorts of scenes you describe might work better if you showed them happening rather than told us about it. I think you could start with the action much sooner and that would make her depression feel more tragic. As a small side note the fish metaphor did not really work for me. All in all, the prose and voice is very strong and I'd like to see where this goes.

[Asya Kardzhaliyska]

Hey, thanks so much for your feedback I appreciate it a lot! This has been a really long project for me, and there's still a lot that I need to edit and tweak but I'm so glad to know that the initial feedback is positive so thanks again!

[Anushree]

I have had a personal experience with depression. Though i never attempted suicide or bled myself or harmed myself in anyway, I spent hours in bed crying and feeling scared. The fear was a fear of the unknown. I didn't know where life would go from there on and if i would ever feel normal again. In those days, I didn't want any friend by my side. I did not want anyone to talk to. I did not want to express. The only person around whom i felt comfortable was my mother. I laid my in her lap for comfort. My parents knew about my depression and they were as supportive as you can expect loving parents to be. They understood my pain completely and made the best effort to make me laugh and see the brighter side of life. I needed no one else then. My doctor treated me for depression through medications but the complete recovery took time. By the time it was over, i was normal. I talked to people and shared a healthy relationship with them. But still there was an aching emptiness. I wanted someone to understand me without needing to say anything. My heart ached for a companion who's company could treat me completely and make me feel alive. I believed i needed a soulmate, a friend and a guide.