The Cure

The Diagnosis

Saturday 11th June, 9:21am
I woke up feeling completely numb. I could tell that today was going to be a difficult day, as days typically were for the last couple weeks. However, I wasn't quite expecting-
BANG!
Sadie's younger sister, April, slammed the door open.
"Mum wants you! She says you're going out with her. I wanted to go too, but she said it was too important."
The voice of their mother chorused from downstairs.
"April, I told you not to shout at Sadie!"
"Ugh, fine"
As April left the room in a more appropriate manner, Sadie emerged from her bed. Her daily morning routine begun, as she brushed her teeth and stared at the monster that was looking back at her through the bathroom mirror. Memories flashed through her head of the old mirror in her room, which had since been removed after Sadie was seen standing in front of it for hours on end, squeezing all of the pudgy parts of her stomach. She was thin, tall and had thick arms and long brown hair. Her face was covered in acne, and her nails were bitten down to nothing but a small circle covering the tips of her fingers.
To Sadie, this was enough imperfection to justify considering herself a monster.
After Sadie got herself changed, with a long-sleeved thin blue shirt to cover her arms (despite the fact it was the middle of summer) and some plain jeans, she scrambled over to her mother, who was packing Sadie's not-too-joyful drawings into her bag.
"Morning, Sadie! Your breakfast is ready. Pancakes, huh? Anyways, we're going to the doctors today, to see if we can sort anything out, okay?"
Sadie's mother was, of course, referring to sorting out the fact that Sadie had been drawing pictures of dead people for weeks and staring blankly across the room as tears drooped down her cheeks.

Sadie looked up at the tall, white sign on top of the doctor's office. She cautiously stepped in after her mother, and a neatly-dressed smiling woman arrived. She spoke to Sadie's mother, introduced herself and invited Sadie to step on some weighing scales. She wrote down some information, and they walked into one of the brightest -coloured rooms she had ever seen.
"So, how have you been feeling lately?"
"Have you been eating healthy?"
"How has your sleeping pattern been?"
"Have you ever self- harmed?"
"Have you ever considered suicide?"
"Have you ever felt empty?"
The questions were getting darker and darker as they went on. This fiasco of going to the doctors and being asked questions and answering those questions and being asked more questions went on for several months.
But finally, Sadie's mother said
"The doctor's visits are over! I'm going into a meeting tonight to discuss any options for you. It'll be okay, don't worry."
But Sadie did worry.
And she worried even more when Sadie's mother came back from the meeting with a letter and a self- help book.
"Okay Sadie, here are the results."
"You have been diagnosed with clinical depression."