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“When was the last time you remember being happy?”
A beat passes. “Maybe… last December?”
It was a lie, like how most things he told the doctor were. He wishes he could remember the last time he had felt happiness, could remember how it felt to not be depressed, but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t.
Doctors just wanted quick answers, is what he realized. They don’t let him dance around questions, don’t let him stay silent. They persistently come back to questions he gives no answer to, and see through the mound of words he provides that really mean nothing at all.
So, he gave them what they wanted. A quick answer,
even if it leaked with dishonesty.
The doctor tries to catch his eye, but Mark stubbornly lets his gaze wander. “You have to promise me you won’t harm yourself again. I take promises very seriously, okay?” He nods. “I’ll have to send you to the hospital if I don’t believe you’re safe, so you have to promise.”
“I promise.” Another lie. He meets the doctor’s eyes to convey his best attempt at sincerity.
Maybe the doctor falls for it, or maybe they don’t. Either way, after giving him a prescription for new meds (nothing ever works, why does nothing ever work?) the doctor lets him go.
His mom is waiting for him outside the room. The air is thin and stale; Mark just wants to go home.
She rambles on about stuff she would implement for him, he would eat healthier with no more chocolate, get less time on his phone, and have to practice mindfulness more often in order to get better.
With his parents it’s always more, more, more. It’s always pushing until he’s stumbling, pulling him along even though he can’t match their steps.
It’s never standing in place to appreciate how much he has progressed, how hard he’s trying. It’s never words dripping with honey, just repeated, sharp words pushing him to move, though he stands still and lets himself get cut over and over.
He can’t move, he’s buried under stone. And yet, even after almost a whole year going by, they don’t get it.
For people always badgering him to practice mindfulness, they really never appreciated the present.
He wants, needs , words that drip with honey. Even if it’s the fake kind that doesn’t taste quite right, that is manufactured instead of found naturally.
He needs pretty, sweet lies. But no one ever lied, just threw the cold, hard truth at him.
He heads to his room the second they get home despite his mom’s protests. Lying on his bed and going on his phone is one of the closest things Mark has to an escape. Sleeping is definitely closer, but according to every doctor ever, you shouldn’t nap when you’re depressed. Not that Mark tries too hard to listen, but he tries hard enough to say he’s trying. Reading is a close second, and daydreaming is a third. It’s more of a risk to day dream though, as there’s more of a chance to come back to reality. The stories fade away and the thoughts start to emerge from the cage they’re locked in.
Time passes so quickly when you lose view on reality. He loves it, time is his biggest enemy.
A knock sounds at his door. “Can I come in?”
Mark sighs. He knows his dad would come in regardless of what answer he gives. “Okay.”
His dad opens the door in an annoyingly slow fashion. Well, at least it would be annoying if Mark wasn’t depressed, if he wasn’t reduced to an empty, numb shell of himself.
Living without any emotions only paints a portion of the picture. If he brings up that he also lost all interest in things he was once interested in, be it music, dance, or grades or anything the picture grows , then he’ll bring up how he’s tired no matter how much he sleeps, that his appetite disappeared, or how his brain is like mush - it can’t understand things like it used to and can’t remember anything, and how he’s so suicidal that he dreams about his death, it paints a bigger picture to what hell is like.
No, it shows what it’s like to be dead, but being forced to keep living regardless.
Who are you, without the things you’re passionate about? What would you do, if one day you woke up and all the things that were once so important to you meant nothing at all?
Mark did what he does best. He pretended, like a coward, that he still cared. He latched on to the things that once meant so much, and pretended that nothing had changed, if only to fool himself.
Mark is a coward, a coward who cannot face reality for the life of him.
His dad stands at his door frame awkwardly. “Son, you have to start doing things differently if you want to see a change. You have to stop listening to that voice in your head telling you to go to your room and sleep. Try to do some work, you’ll have to repeat some courses if you fail them you know. Actually, barely passing doesn’t help either, you’ll have to retake them either way. You need to have some courage.”
And with that he walks away, not even closing the door behind him. Mark would’ve been mad, if he had the ability to be. Instead he shifts around in bed, finds a comfortable position, and closes his eyes.
He doesn’t understand why both his parents are so obsessed with repeating themselves. Sure, his dad may throw in a few adlibs here and there, but otherwise he follows the same script, repeating the same words to Mark, over and over. This is probably all his mom’s fault. His dad wouldn’t have even noticed that he was in his room— that he was even at home, if she hadn’t gone and said something.
She probably told him to try and get Mark out of bed. He scoffs internally. Those words only make him want to slice open his wrists more.
No, stop. He couldn’t think like that.
Mark does try to stay alive and does try to get better, contrary to popular belief. He would’ve been dead a long time ago if he had stopped trying.
Why, though? What is he still trying to live for? He doesn’t give himself time to think about it, because he knows the answer.
Mark Lee has absolutely no reason to keep on living.
No, no. Stop thinking about it. Stop, stop.
Stop.
He sighs. It’s funny how people talk as if his mind and depression are two separate entities, when it doesn’t feel like that at all. He just wants to lie down on his bed and relax, but every time he does so he’s “giving in.”
And what did his dad even mean by “have some courage?” Courage? Is that seriously what his dad thinks it takes to get out of this? Just… having some courage?
Sometimes, he wishes his parents could experience this, if just for one day. They lecture him about it constantly, but how would they act, if they had to go through this?
Would they muster up the “courage” to get out of it?
Mark digs his nails into his left wrist. Wow he really is a terrible person, huh.
He glances at the scars on his wrists, as well as the bright angry red marks his nails left. The red is pretty, it’s a nice contrast to his skin. No, look away.
It’s been awhile since he’d last cut. He didn’t bleed as much as he wanted to last time. This time he would—
No. Stop. Stop.
Mark scrubs at his head. He grabs his phone and finds a video to watch, and lets himself pretend he doesn’t exist, retreating into a cave where nothing matters at all.
Where all thoughts disappear.
“— again. Remember at the Halloween party? You said you felt something, maybe even had a moment of joy.”
His therapist is a nice lady, more warm than the last two. “I can’t remember now, honestly.”
“Ah yes, that’s what depression does to you. It makes you stay within your tunnel vision, and makes you forget.”
Mark nods to show he’s following along.
“To bring you back to some of your core beliefs we’re trying to tackle together, you said you can’t remember what you’re thinking when you want to cut?”
“No.”
His therapist hums in thought. “What you’re experiencing is kind of similar to PTSD, where you’re completely numb, and you push out all thoughts and all of everything. instead of sad all the time. Just to check, you weren’t threatened, or bullied or anything before you fell into this?” He shakes his head. “It’s like a coping mechanism, and I’m sure it was helpful in the beginning, but for how long it’s dragged on, it gets…”
Mark drowns her out. It’s true, he knew what he was going through acted as a coping mechanism. Mark had wanted to stay depressed for the first few months. Staying in his little bubble where nothing mattered, where the stress of school was nonexistent, was too good to pass up.
It eradicated the pressure of good grades, getting rid of his parents expectations.
But now, he’s in grade 11. Now it’s back to reminding him that his future is doomed if he stays like this.
Now he’s tired of being depressed, but annoyingly enough, his brain doesn’t care what he wants.
Annoyingly enough, he wakes up every day the same, or worse.
“— and going back to potential future occupations, you can incorporate things you love, or at least used to love, like writing or singing into your job. For example, I like to sing, and I participated in a song concerning mental health. Together we can try to find a clear goal, to make school more bearable.”
Mark tries to smile, lifting the corners of his mouth with practiced ease. It’s too easy to lie, to deceive. So why, why doesn’t anyone lie to him?
‘Lie to me’ he wants to say. He doesn’t want to hear how his dreams are an aftermath, how they’re not possible. He’s heard that his entire life.
He wants to tell her to stop talking, he doesn’t want to hear how he can “incorporate” the things he once loved into his job. He wants his job to be centered around something he loves (once loved whatever you get it).
He wants to hear that becoming a successful writer is possible, that he can do it. But no one believed in him, not even enough to lie to him.
It’s unfair to ask others to play this game with him. He knows that reality is cruel and unforgiving, he knows he’ll only be swept away if he even so much as tries to put his foot down.
It’s unfair to ask everyone to lie, but he needs them to.
He needs them to, so eventually he can convince himself.
Eventually he’ll lose sight of what’s possible and what’s not, and then he can go on like those other people who have dreams. Who want to achieve something, who ignore the unlikeliness of it all.
The ignorance, willful or not, probably started with a lie. Their parents, their teachers, their friends. Someone had lied to them, someone had told them their dream was possible.
The lie is still sweet, a fake sweetener, but still enough to replace actual sugar. Mark didn’t have that kind of luxury.
No, he’s not that pessimistic, is he?
No, not everyone lied about dreams, about things that others can achieve.
But some did, and some didn’t even bother.
Like the therapist sitting in front of him, and his parents.
They didn’t even bother.
“—oh it looks like that’s all for today! Do you have any questions? Anything you want to mention?”
“No.”
“Okay then, see you in a few weeks!”
And then she clicks off of the video call, leaving him in the silence of his room.
His mom comes looking for him after a while. “How was it?”
He looks down. “It was okay.”
“What did you guys talk about? Did she give you any coping mechanisms?”
“Uhhh no.”
His mother frowns. “Then what did you talk about?”
Mark tries not to mirror her frown, he doesn’t want to be having this conversation. “She said what I am experiencing is kinda similar to PTSD.”
“What? No. She’s wrong.”
Mark looks up at his mother, her face twisted with emotions he doesn’t want to decipher.
“She’s wrong. I don’t know why she said that. That’s a shame, I was just starting to like her too. We’ll have to find someone else.”
“What? I think what she was saying made sense…”
“No.”
Mark finds himself in complete disbelief. Does his mother seriously think she knows better than a professional?
Being shut down like that brings out something in Mark he didn’t even know existed. It’s a weird sensation, and it leaves him aware of only one thing.
He needs to get away from here.
“Okay,” is all he says. He backs away like a wounded animal, trying to escape before it gets eaten.
He retreats to the safety of his room. In there, reality ceases to exist.
In there he’s safe, unless someone intrudes.
A noise sounds from his phone, indicating that he got a text. It’s his mother.
There’s a link, and text following.
From what I can see PTSD is very different from what you have. No idea why she said that.
The link is a website detailing the symptoms of PTSD.
She’s using one website against the words of a professional? Mark feels like scoffing. More than anything… he feels like cutting.
He wants to watch himself bleed.
She’s trying to protect herself. Mark isn’t stupid, and maybe there’s more similarities between them than he once thought.
She’s trying to lie to herself.
She’s trying to avoid the blame, avoid the fact that she has something to do with him developing depression
She’s trying to protect herself, so much so that she’s holding Mark far away from her.
So much so, that she'll leave Mark out to die.
“What’d you get?”
“92, I’m so mad.”
“Oh shut up, I got an 87.”
“How am—-
Mark groans internally. He’s been trying to drown out the voices around him with music, but has had no such luck. The voices persist, like the universe is trying to torment him.
He’s running away from reality again, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to hear about their “bad” marks, doesn’t want to hear how they're ruining their averages.
He was once in their position, there was a time before all of this that he would’ve probably joined their conversation, would’ve complained about a grade that he could never achieve now.
He was once a normal student, one that was on the path to getting scholarships and praise. One that studied hard, one that the teachers loved.
It’s hard to say why he doesn’t want to listen to them, because after all, he doesn’t care. No emotions bubble up within him, and yet he turns up the volume of his music some more.
Maybe, it’s because he envies them. He wants to be normal again. He wants this to end.
He wants his old life back, though he’s aware he’ll never have it. Even if he does manage to get better, his experience has given him a different perspective.
From a star student to a failing one, he’ll never be the same again.
But that’s if he can even get out of this in the first place.
Everyone says it’s possible, but he finds it hard to believe them. Maybe they’re lying. Mark smiles, the lie is sweet. Considerate, even.
Why hasn’t his mind complied, why is he still depressed? Mark knows, it’s because life isn’t like an equation. There are too many left-brained people on top, too many people who think imputing things will always give you an output.
Spoiler alert: life isn’t like that. Life is more like an English test, unpredictable and with several answers. Where none of the answers are necessarily wrong, but there are some that are more right than others.
He’s done everything he could possibly do, everything that any doctor or therapist would tell him to do. If life was like an equation, he would’ve already been better.
But hard work doesn’t always equal success. Life isn’t like an equation.
His parents are both left-brained people. They blame him, instead of blaming their equation.
He knows this will end one way or the other, but with only one opinion does he have complete control.
Only one option is actually foreseeable, the other is a dream.
The other is a lie.
One is unattainable, and one is not.
Mark thinks the choice is an easy one to make.
To live or to die.
To be selfish or selfless, to be brave or a coward.
Mark Lee has always been a coward.