Dear Depression,
For a second I wanted to start this letter with “I effing hate you!” But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is that I would not be who I am today without you and I am very happy in my skin. Wishing you away would be like disowning myself. I think I’ve said that I wish I didn’t struggle with you, but my opinion on you today is this: you have shaped me into a beautiful, creative, strong, young mother. And for that I thank you. Getting to this point has been a mixture of agony and bliss, with everything in between too. I first met you when I was fourteen, that’s when I first admitted you had a name, we may have been acquainted before then, but I don’t remember. That jerk brother of yours, Anxiety, he started stalking me when I was only 7 years old, who does that? But anyways, this is about you, not him. Depression, I did some crazy things in your name. Shortly after we got on this first name basis, I carved a mark into the flesh of my right knee with a broken piece of plastic I found in the dirt while sitting on the edge of my back porch. I said it was your fault. All your fault. I spent nearly 10 whole years carving up my skin and pointing a finger at you, claiming innocence. It’s not my fault, that’s what I used to tell myself. And suddenly, I’m at a loss for words. I thought I had a million things to say to you, but none of them will materialize at the moment. I guess just like any first letter to someone when you want to put distance between you and them, it’s normal to stumble for words. In ways I still blame you, but I’m trying not to. If I blame you, then I have to blame whoever introduced us and that just goes on down back towards the beginning of time. If you’re to blame, then the list would only grow and I’m sure I could find a way to blame everyone. So the simplest answer is that no one is to blame. Blame should not exist, let’s do away with it. This isn’t goodbye, this is to be continued. I’ll write again.
-B
Anonymous in Cali 