Around the end of my sophomore year, I decided that my parents were annoying as fuck. While they were on the verge of buying all sorts of books on how to deal with an apathetic teenager who wears dark colors all the time, I became a self-diagnosed sufferer of depression. Mental illnesses had always given me this really confusing feeling between fascination and fright. I had always wondered how maddening (no pun intended) it was to know that the only part of you that cannot be touched is sick. How intricate can the ways of our brain be if they can determine whether or not we are normal? Though I’ve always disliked with a passion what didn’t venture – even a little bit – beyond the walls of commonness, I was beginning to fear that I had gone too far.
According to WebMD and Wikipedia, I had chronic depression with a sprinkle of anxiety, served with a whole load of other crap that I was too tired to read. My 'major life stressor' at the time, as the websites said was the likely cause for my condition, was Matt Erickson who, on a good day, was satisfied just with pushing me into the school's lockers and layering a new purplish bruise onto an already yellowing one.
Still, every day I hoped I was just going through a rough time. That, like any other kind of hoping, was proving fruitless. I didn’t want to go to a doctor because if I had indeed had depression, I would have been a dead man. My parents would have obviously found out and turned my life around, into an endless string of pills and therapy sessions. I could never fathom the reason people would want to talk personal issues to a complete stranger.
Self-diagnosed or not, the thought of never being fully cured seemed to gain a horrifyingly real frame in me. It was like when you were little, when you first scraped your knee so bad that you knew for sure that it was gonna leave a scar. A moment apparently insignificant changed who you were; the new you had a small white sign just below your knee. I realized that this power of transforming ourselves was actually within us. At the time, when I looked back at my old self I saw a world of difference. I'm sure that if I do the same now, I won't even recognize myself under the web of good and not so good changes.
As I discovered during my research, dysthymia (aka chronic depression) more often than not creates addictions that are supposed to be momentary pain relievers. Ironically, cutting myself seemed to me the easiest way to feel something else than numbness. I always wore leather bracelets to hide the marks on my wrists and only took them off when I felt the urge to cut again.
Most of the times, I didn’t go out. To distract myself after finishing my homework, I used to buy ridiculous amounts of charcoal and sets of thick A4 papers to draw on. Even though I was no Rembrandt, I mostly worked on picturing the human body, sometimes parts of it, other times the whole thing. When I drew, I would often leave the faces blank because I didn't know who to portray and making up some features made me feel like I ruined the whole thing. Yet, not few were the times when I drew Jaye, simple and true as she always was. At first, I focused on small bits of her, like her big gleaming eyes or the curves of her neck and shoulders; then, I blackened my fingers drawing her in different postures and poses, with her chin resting on her fist and pouting, sitting cross-legged on the boardwalk or sleeping in the comfort of her bed. I wanted to portray her at the beach, where we often went on Sunday mornings, but it felt wrong stripping her to a bathing suit without her knowing about it. I suddenly felt guilty for all the drawings I made of her so I went back to unknown bodies and hid all my sketches under the mattress.
I still have no idea why I didn't want my parents to see them because then they would have stopped believing that all that time alone in my room was spent on masturbating. To be honest, I really rarely feel like it and when I did, the sensation usually faded away shortly. That's why, when I thought about getting myself a girlfriend to lift my spirits, I gave up on the idea because I knew it wouldn't be fair to her.
With the exception of Jaye, the girls that I relatively knew either had a boyfriend or were stuck-up, too impulsive and social-butterfly-like to ask them out. And Jaye was Jaye. She was... she still is my best friend. She stuck with me through so much stuff, when everything seemed pointless and when the cuts on my wrists were deeper than usual.
Still, it wasn't until a few months before our trip to my aunt Annie that she found out about who I really was: a freak who hurt himself. It so happened that the cuts from the previous day reopened when we were at the beach, swimming. The salty water caused the skin of my wrists to sting and the blood dripped down my fingers. I wouldn't have known if Jaye hadn't spotted the reddish stains on my hands and demanded to see for herself what was wrong. I knew I had no chance of convincing her to let it go so I moved the leather bracelets aside, revealing a haunting mix of open, healing wounds and scars. When her eyes widened in surprise, I truly though I lost her forever. The worst part of it was that I could not blame her. I was tired of living this kind of life myself.
But she didn't run away; not when I told her I was depressed, not ever since then. She just hugged me and told me it was okay. I wish I had believed her. I wish everyone else had believed her; it was okay to feel this way. It was okay because it wasn't my fault.
I never faked depression to get attention, I never wanted any of it. It wasn't a fad or a cool play-pretend game. I was sick, there wasn't anything nice or romantic about that. To prevent other people from judging me or saying that I needed to 'snap out of it' already, I only told Jaye and aunt Annie because I was sure they would keep it a secret. And they still do to this day.
Author's Note:
Here it is... I've been wondering whether I should post this now or wait until I finish the whole book. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it, I'm particularly excited about writing this! ^_^
Again, the story may contain swear words (which I won't censor) and triggers linked to depression and sef-harm. I haven't experienced either of those but if you have and think that they aren't adequately presented in this book, PM me the details. I have done research on this, but I'm always keen to know more, as I find it a really intriguing subject.
The song on the side is "Down" by Jason Walker:
I don't know where I'm at
I'm standing at the back
And I'm tired of waiting
Waiting here in line, hoping that I'll find what I've been chasing.
I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
So why do I try, I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly, so why did I drown?
Never know why it's coming down, down, down.
If you liked the chapter, make sure to vote and comment to tell me your thoughts on this. I'll do my best to reply to all of you. ^_^
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Cold Fingers
Romance"Cold Fingers" is the story of young Jaye Elliott trying to find the purpose of her life. Next to her old friend Aaron Lawson, she struggles to make her way through vicious people and unfortunate circumstances and find happiness. ~ *Trigger Warning...
