See Me
TWO
It was a long time coming.
It was insidious; the opposite of love, it was as if it had been lurking there my entire life. The hatred that I one day awoke to. It sat there at the foot of my bed as I stretched and sighed. It followed me as I made my way into the kitchen to switch the kettle on. I could feel its eyes watching me as I poured my coffee and glanced out of the window. I was never alone after that.
Thinking about it now, I don’t really remember ever being happy. My beautiful, terrible mother told me that I was too clever to ever be satisfied with my life. That I’d always want more. She’s the smartest person I know, and she’s tried to kill herself seven times. I guess intellect runs in the family, just like depression and obesity and diabetes. She’s smart enough to know that she wants to die, but also smart enough to understand that real, vein-opening suicide is not an option. So she takes a lot of pills. And sometimes she falls asleep, into such a deep sleep that her heart stops and her lips turn blue. But somehow, she always makes it out alive. And I believe I’ve been afflicted with the same curse. The curse of survival.
Depression creeps up on you. It’s a deviant; it took everything good away from me, but it happened so gradually that I didn’t even notice. And then one day I woke up and I had barely anything left. Things got very bad very quickly after that, and it was all because of a boy. I had spent my entire life getting everything I wanted, and I convinced myself it was because I deserved it. And then I met him. And he was beautiful. I was infatuated, and it was the best feeling that anyone has ever had. It wasn’t love, because I didn’t really know him. I was obsessed by the idea of him; he was constantly in my mind, and in my lungs, and evaporating through my skin, and pulsing through my veins. He was the smile on every face I saw, and every night I’d close my eyes and imagine myself floating into him and nestling inside his arms and pressing myself against his heartbeat.
But he was already in love with someone else. And she was beautiful and elegant, with an Audrey Hepburn silhouette and an exceptional talent for perfection. She was his sole source of light. And he adored her. They were so pleasing when they stood beside each other. She was sharp and compact, and so uncompromising and unfaltering; tanned skin and adamant dominance. And he was soft like dough, malleable and agreeable. He was so expansive and indulgent, and his features were so fluid and he was so lenient. She was this fast, sizzling wildfire, and he was rippling, calming water, and I had hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t work, but somehow it did. And I could see how perfect they were. And it broke my heart.
But he doesn’t deserve all the blame. Maybe it was a chemical imbalance inside my brain, or a spirit that entered my body and turned me upside down, but there was something wrong with me. There always was. And like fate bringing two soul mates together, I knew that it was inevitable that depression and I would find each other eventually. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself; we can’t have this story ending as sadly as it began. Now, just a disclaimer: everything that I am about to tell you really happened, more or less. This is real life. And it’s happening everywhere. Everything you see; everything you pretend not to see. Every scar, every slur. It’s real.
And it’s killing us.
It was insidious; the opposite of love, it was as if it had been lurking there my entire life. The hatred that I one day awoke to. It sat there at the foot of my bed as I stretched and sighed. It followed me as I made my way into the kitchen to switch the kettle on. I could feel its eyes watching me as I poured my coffee and glanced out of the window. I was never alone after that.
Thinking about it now, I don’t really remember ever being happy. My beautiful, terrible mother told me that I was too clever to ever be satisfied with my life. That I’d always want more. She’s the smartest person I know, and she’s tried to kill herself seven times. I guess intellect runs in the family, just like depression and obesity and diabetes. She’s smart enough to know that she wants to die, but also smart enough to understand that real, vein-opening suicide is not an option. So she takes a lot of pills. And sometimes she falls asleep, into such a deep sleep that her heart stops and her lips turn blue. But somehow, she always makes it out alive. And I believe I’ve been afflicted with the same curse. The curse of survival.
Depression creeps up on you. It’s a deviant; it took everything good away from me, but it happened so gradually that I didn’t even notice. And then one day I woke up and I had barely anything left. Things got very bad very quickly after that, and it was all because of a boy. I had spent my entire life getting everything I wanted, and I convinced myself it was because I deserved it. And then I met him. And he was beautiful. I was infatuated, and it was the best feeling that anyone has ever had. It wasn’t love, because I didn’t really know him. I was obsessed by the idea of him; he was constantly in my mind, and in my lungs, and evaporating through my skin, and pulsing through my veins. He was the smile on every face I saw, and every night I’d close my eyes and imagine myself floating into him and nestling inside his arms and pressing myself against his heartbeat.
But he was already in love with someone else. And she was beautiful and elegant, with an Audrey Hepburn silhouette and an exceptional talent for perfection. She was his sole source of light. And he adored her. They were so pleasing when they stood beside each other. She was sharp and compact, and so uncompromising and unfaltering; tanned skin and adamant dominance. And he was soft like dough, malleable and agreeable. He was so expansive and indulgent, and his features were so fluid and he was so lenient. She was this fast, sizzling wildfire, and he was rippling, calming water, and I had hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t work, but somehow it did. And I could see how perfect they were. And it broke my heart.
But he doesn’t deserve all the blame. Maybe it was a chemical imbalance inside my brain, or a spirit that entered my body and turned me upside down, but there was something wrong with me. There always was. And like fate bringing two soul mates together, I knew that it was inevitable that depression and I would find each other eventually. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself; we can’t have this story ending as sadly as it began. Now, just a disclaimer: everything that I am about to tell you really happened, more or less. This is real life. And it’s happening everywhere. Everything you see; everything you pretend not to see. Every scar, every slur. It’s real.
And it’s killing us.