Depression's Recipe | Teen Ink

Depression's Recipe

October 23, 2014
By Anonymous

Sometimes all I can see is the blood. I close my eyes and it's there, still dripping from the cuts I've made on my wrists. "Is this what it'll take for you to listen, mom?" I hear myself speaking, shouting, louder, but can't remember opening my mouth. Even as the words come out, they are foreign to me. As if a stranger is saying them. I take the razor and repeat the motion all too familiar. Cut. Cut. Cut. The anger is building inside me and I start moving in fast forward. I can't stop. Cut. Cut. Cut. There is a pool of blood forming beneath me, "I haven't even cut that deep" Cut. Cut. "You think this is bad?" In some sick way this is me proving a point. Cut. Cut. Cut. My mom is crying. My dad is running up the stairs to me. Why is he here? "What have you done?" He's  screaming at me; my mom must have called him. He's grabbing a towel to stop the bleeding, only he's doing it all wrong. He hurting me. "We're taking you to the hospital." And now I'm the one screaming, only it's not me at all who's yelling at the top of my lungs. I don't know this person, never been her before. "I'm not going" Where did she come from? Perhaps she is the demon living inside my head, finally getting to take control.

I don't remember the details, only the silent car ride; no talking, no music, just the lights flashing by. I am lost inside myself. The car comes to a halt and I'm being dragged out of the car. There's no turning back now. Part of me knows this is for the best, but the other part is pissed. This feels like a betrayal more than anything. I'm embarrassed, depressed, anxious, but the anger over powers everything else as I walk into the emergency room; everyone can see what I've been covering up all these years and I don't quite know how to feel, so I stay angry and as we wait for the doctors, I sit as far away as possible from the people who raised me. I'm sure there are other people, but I am alone. I look only down at the mess I have made and try to make sense of it all, now that I am being forced to face my demons, as they have risen from my body and manifested, only to defeat me. Did I lose? Have I won? This is when I realize what I have done, I try to think of how I will explain. Can I save myself, or am i too far gone? I'm searching for the rewind button, too bad it's nowhere in site. The numbness has sunk In as the bleeding slows and the burning exposed flesh is all I can see. What am I gonna do? I'm thinking about the place they put crazy people like me. The place I so desperately don't want to go.

Seconds?
Minutes?
Hours?
I'm not sure how long it takes but I'm being examined. I don't let my parents in the room, I'm still so angry and I can't help it. They take away my phone and all my clothes, stripped of my dignity. I have done this to myself. I am changing into a hospital gown, the nurse won't let me shut the door all the way. I already feel like a prisoner. They're asking me questions I don't know the answers to. Questions starting with "Why's" and "When's" and "How's". I'm trying to answer but all I can say is "I don't know," and I don't. I'm not trying to be difficult but I just don't know. Don't know how I could do this, not sure when it all started. I'm trying to explain that "I'm not a cutter." Well, not anymore. "Just this once. I lost control." That was an understatement.

The way they look at me says they have no idea what it's like to be trapped in a box with no way out, with tiny holes cut for you to breath, while everyone else walks free. They're trying to clean the cuts but it's only making it worse. The drying blood had masked the depth, but now I see my work. Almost like the pride of an artist upon revealing his newest masterpiece. It's a sick feeling, but maybe that's just what I am. Sick. Maybe that's why I'm here.This is the deepest I've ever cut. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," I'm telling them but they don't believe me, they don't get it. They won't listen because they're saying I'm hysterical. I am admitted and given a room. 

It must be late by now but I am still running on leftover adrenaline. There is no sense of time here, no clocks. It's as if the world is at a standstill. Well, for me at least, and for my parents, who have to find a way to explain how their daughter has lost her mind. How will this look to everyone else? How will mom and dad pick up the pieces of our lives? It's hard to imagine everyone else in the world is carrying on like normal. Maybe they are fast asleep, which is more than I can hope for myself. To them it is just another night, to me it is an unforgettable one. I almost feel bad for my parents. Being here, in this hospital bed felt inevitable to me. The press of a blade and a blazing emotional storm are not exactly a predictable combination. They say having a "negative outlook on life" and "overall feelings of hopelessness" are side effects of depression, I would know. Before the therapy that didn't work and the many diagnoses I had known there was some thing wrong in my head. It becomes pretty clear when you can't get out of bed in the morning and you have to start wearing long sleeves in the summer to cover up your sadness. Leaving a table filled with your friends to go to the bathroom and cut yourself, going back to lunch like nothing is wrong.

But to my parents it was a complete surprise. Neither knew just how broken their little girl had become. Certainly not my father, who divorced my mother when I was five. Whom I saw every other weekend and Wednesday's; The man who had this perfect image of his daughter. He was so proud of me. Keyword: was. Would he ever feel that way again? Could anything that I do after this point make him smile and brag to his friends again about me, his only child? What about my mom? Was she plagued with regret? Did she wish she had listened when I first showed her the cuts? Maybe she wished she had picked up the phone and gotten me the help I needed; that she could take back the words, telling me those "weren't so bad". I resented her. I hid my problems for years without her knowing what I was hiding under 12 bracelets strategically placed on my wrists, the cuts I made in my thighs and hips. I thought telling her would be the worst of it, but it changed nothing. Nothing but lies and false promises. She promised she'd call a therapist, I promised I would stop, confide in her if I needed to. But neither of us kept our promises that day, and we carried on like normal. The only time she ever mentioned my problem was to use it against me. If she thought I was being dramatic she'd cleverly ask if I was going to "slit my wrists." To her is was a childish act of defiance, a cry for attention. But how can you be crying for attention when you do everything you can possibly do to cover it all up and pretend to be normal?

But something between my parents and I had changed that night. Just because they hated each other didn't mean I had to hate them both. I could never thank my mother enough for being there. She stayed there in the hospital and never left my side. Maybe it was the guilt. Maybe she just wanted her daughter back. I don't know why she stayed, but she did. My dad even came every day to see me. This was big, he never left work early, but he did to come visit me for those three days. We didn't talk about the incident, I wish we had, wished I could have explained why, to make him understand and feel my pain instead of thinking I was crazy. He was there, though and that was all that mattered to me. I couldn't go back to a house of cards, so tempted to fall at any little breeze. The truth was out and my hand was showing. It was up to us to fix ourselves and become stronger. You know how they say it takes a funeral to get the whole family together? Well, that was the case, except I didn't die. And I'm glad. After all, as much as I had wanted to die in the past I was always to chicken to do it. No matter how bad, and

Three days later I was discharged from the hospital. As strange as it sounds I felt more crazy being locked in that room than I was slashing my wrists. I couldn't even pee with the door closed, guess I was on what they call "suicide watch". I don't know what made them believe I was okay, but they told me I could go home, finally. Three days doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it was the longest three days of my life. I was always on constant watch, stuck in that room. If it weren't a hospital and I wasn't being kept away from sharp objects I would have thought the place was pretty nice. I had the room to myself, despite the nurse that was always on duty, and my mom got the couch to sleep on. It was boring though, only thing to do in there was watch tv, and since I've never been one to stare at a screen too long, It got old fast. I wanted quiet, I wanted to be alone. Doctors were In and out all day long. Never the same one, always an unfamiliar face. Always asking the same questions. I still didn't know the answers. One thing to look forward to was bedtime, It was the only time I could reflect on my decisions, let the reality sink in and hit me like a tidal wave. I could let the tears come,  but only in the protection of the darkness.

My mom and I had worked things out, even talked it through with a hospital therapist. She drove me home on Valentine's Day and i remember the mindless small talk. Both of us were ready to forget, to move on. I don't know about her but I will never forget. Sometimes I look in her eyes and wonder if she will ever heal from the pain I caused her. We never mention that day, but sometimes I want to ask her what it was like. I wonder if it keeps her up at night like it does me, visions of blood pooling and dripping to the floor.
The last few drops were stuck dried to the tiles when I came home. I didn't mention them and wiped it up like it had never happened at all.

I'm not sure if the decision was made that first night. Maybe it was somewhere in between the mess of days or when they let me leave that I decided to never cut again, but I made that promise to myself, and to the people who loved me more than anything. After putting them through what I can only imaging was a horrific experience, I owed them that. More importantly I owed it to myself. It hasn't been easy. They say fighting depression is like an uphill battle; sometimes it pushes you down. When you're down it feels like you'll be there forever, but if you keep fighting eventually you'll always come back up. The hardest part is not knowing when. It's not a perfect recipe, there's no bake for 25 minutes at 350° directions telling you when it'll be done. I guess it's different for everyone, some outgrow it, others just have to find a way to make it through each day.


The author's comments:

This piece was inspired by true events that mark the turning point in my life. Suffering from self-harm is not considered a disease or an addiction but I hope to raise awareness and motivate depressed teens to seek the help they need, and create a dialogue in order for them to recover. Cutting is a sensitive topic but it should be talked about, it is a serious and life threatening choice.


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This article has 1 comment.


Swasher SILVER said...
on Oct. 29 2014 at 3:16 am
Swasher SILVER, Hsinchu County, Other
6 articles 0 photos 3 comments
Sometimes, people closest to you are the ones that you never really understand. This isn't 'sick', it's just different. It may get better if the surrounding can give more love and patience to people like you. Humans thought that they know everything, but the truth is--- there's too many things that we don't understand. That is why listening,sharing,reading is very important.