What you don't say

She sits in front of me. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

She is delicate. When I say delicate, I mean that she has delicate features. Of average height, with long straight brown hair. Prominent big brown eyes with long lashes painted over with mascara. She has a wide smile with a perfect row of white teeth. Her body would be described as petite and well proportioned. Her stance is always composed. Nothing rattles her, she always reacts correctly to any given situation. Everything about her screams well rounded, there are no edges, nothing you could hurt yourself on.

When I first met her, I thought, through the few conversations that I had had with her, that she was probably from this generation of 20 something year olds that have been taught to be tolerant and accepting rather than opinionated and stubborn. Tolerant and accepting to a fault.

I thought ‘right, the problems haven’t started yet, so she has no need to position herself on any subject matter…but that will change with time’.

Months went by, and I got to know her a little better. As I said, she sat in front of me, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I discovered she has a sense of humour. Inconsistent, it came in waves.

A few more months passed, until one Tuesday where we were all alone. That day I was struggling with anxiety. I was having a severe OCD episode, where my thoughts wouldn’t stop going around in circles. We struck up a conversation, where I ended up telling her about my mental health history.

She then confided in me that she had been struggling with depression since ten years. I listened and asked questions. I’m not sure I’ve ever known someone with depression in close proximity to me. I’ve only ever known it as the last step in a chain of events that would set me over the edge, were I no longer able to manage my anxiety. The thing to keep a watch for, like checking every night under your bed for monsters. Then sighing with relief ‘nope not tonight’ and then immediately after thinking ‘yes, safe for tonight, but tomorrow is no guarantee’.

I vowed to pay closer attention to her, more months go by, until another random Wednesday. I suddenly realise that it’s been a while, that I haven’t felt her presence. Not that she is absent, she is still there, sitting in front of me, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Physically and in the tasks she performs, but I can’t sense her. I am always unsure what I’m picking up on in these moments, is it her mood, or mine? Is she tired? Or maybe angry with me? Preoccupied? I strike up an innocent conversation.

She confesses her depression has gotten worse over the last month. I ask in what way, or what that specifically means for someone in her situation and she answers ‘things are never great. Since the last ten years I’ve never had more than brief moments in a day, the feeling of being really alright. Always the opposite. Always this sadness always this heaviness. It doesn’t help that people tell me, you need to do this that or the other and you’ll feel better. I don’t function like everybody. It doesn’t make it better. My baseline of normality is that I generally feel bad, with moments of sunshine, anti-depressants make things manageable. But even that has its limits. I live an extremely unhealthy life. Lots of different combinations of medications. That regularly need to be monitored and modified. Without them I can’t function at all. My serotonin levels are soo low, that any normal sickness or tiredness which would make a normal person feel bad for a brief moment, sets me completely under my baseline of tolerable. When I got vaccinated, I felt tired, it made me dip even lower than usual on how bad I feel. I never recovered. It’s been a month. I’m already on the strongest dose of medication. It’s not like other people, I consistently feel sad, nothing gives me joy. I don’t want to get up in the morning, because I have nothing to look forward to. Then there are always those people around me, trying to give me advice on what to do. And if I don’t feel good, it’s my own fault. But it isn’t my fault. How can it be my fault, if I have felt this way since I’m fourteen? How is it my fault that my serotonin levels are soo low? That the feeling of joy and happiness are not what they should be. It doesn’t help that all around us, we are taught not to share our feelings and our weaknesses, we are taught to show only the best. That we are competent, loveable, healthy, capable of taking care of ourselves, capable of being in a relationship, that the only thing between us and everything we want is just to try hard enough. But that’s not true, some people will define goals and ambitions and reach them, and some people will always be stuck at the point of wanting to want. Their advancement, personal and professional, will be minimal. Because we aren’t all born equal, not socially, not economically, not in our mental predisposition, not in our childhoods, or the decisions that were made for us before we could decide for ourselves. We’ll fight our whole lives to bridge that gap. But it’s just that. A fight. Not life.’