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When people say they are depressed, I always wonder what they really mean. Sad. Bummed out. Distraught. Destroyed. The word is thrown around so casually. They didn’t have my size in that dress. I’m so depressed. My car broke down. I’m so depressed. I lost my wedding ring. I’m so depressed. The word depression can mean so many things. Is there clinically something wrong with your brain, or are you just having a bad day? Then again, I throw that word around too. I haven’t been properly diagnosed with anything, but a dark memory I’d rather forget leads me to believe I should be. When I say the word depressed, I think it means more than just a bad day.
When I was fourteen, my mother found me in my bedroom closet under a mound of clothing. It was really cold, for California anyway, and I’d spent much of the school day shivering from place to place. Rather than unmake my tidily made bed with the perfect corners, I haphazardly tugged on a section of sweaters until enough of them slid off the cheap wire hangers to cover me. Something I’d never ordinarily do, because even the closet equipped with sliding doors to hide the mess should always be neat as a pin. I made a nest in the safety of darkness near the corner that still housed my first pair of roller skates. There, I swallowed what was left in the bottle of pills and waited for what would come next. Sleep? Nothingness? I waited in fear and longing until my eyelids became heavy and the blurry edges took front and center, plunging me into darkness.
