Breathing Has Got Too Hard

It had been two weeks since I’d joined DepressionHelp. I’d had a few people making small talk with me, but nothing really special. Nobody particularly interesting. I’d added a few of my interests on there, a few pictures of my guitar, maybe hoping that would generate more interest, but nothing had really worked so far. I was beginning to think I was pretty stupid for ever thinking anything would come of joining that website.

I’d only been out once in those two weeks, to go buy some new strings for my guitar. But apart from that, all I’d done was learn another Skid row song on guitar, and play on my xbox. In myself although, I felt slightly alive. I was still down, but something felt different. It felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel somehow.

“What’re you doing today Ben?” My Mum stood at my bedroom door, staring in at me sat on the edge of my bed.

“I dunno…play guitar…” I mumbled, pulling a sock on.

“How about you go for a walk?” She asked, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. “I have to work today, but I want you to get out of the house,”

“Uhh, maybe,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to. Where was I supposed to go? I had nowhere to go.

“Alright. Well I finish work at 6. I’ll see you later darling,” She came into my room, wading through the piles of clothes to kiss me on the forehead, and left. As soon as I heard the door slam downstairs I waded over to my laptop, opening it to DepressionHelp.

1 new message

My heart leaped. I hadn’t received an inbox message before. I frantically clicked, and the message came up, I squinted to look at the tiny picture of the message titled “Hey”.

The picture was of a guy, about my age I’d say, with almost shoulder length dark brown hair, and the most piercing soul - reading icy blue eyes I’d ever seen. I hovered the curse over the picture, and his name came up. “Danny Worsnop.”

I clicked the link to the message, intrigued.

”Hey, what’s up? I’m Danny. You seem like an awesome guy. Just the type of guy I’d like to hang out with. You drink, bro?

Danny”

I sat back in my seat, dumbfounded. It was quite possibly the strangest introduction I’d had from someone. But also the best.

I clicked onto Danny’s profile, and as soon as the window popped up, a scream nearly blasted me to the other side of my room, as Suicide silence came blasting out from his profile. I cracked a smile, I liked this guy already. I read his bio.

Hi, I’m Danny. I know this isn’t alcoholics anonymous but I don’t give a fuck. I’m here because I have depression, and I may or may not have a drinking problem. But first things first, I want to die and that’s not a good thing. Talk to me.

I laughed out loud. This guy was great. And he wanted to talk to me? Holy shit.

I clicked back to the message, and clicked reply:

”S’up Danny? You seem awesome too, man. That Suicide silence song nearly blasted me out my seat, that’s the way to introduce yourself!

Yeah I do drink, why?

Ben”

I smirked, clicked send and sighed.

Maybe this was where things started to look up. Maybe Danny was my ticket out of the dark tunnel I was in. At any rate, he’d managed to get a smile out of me for the first time in months.