Medicine Man

In my visions, I’m always wearing a long white, sleeveless dress that gets stuck to my body during my fall, outlining my breasts, my stomach, and my thighs. I see my mouth falling open but not to scream but to absorb the air, the sky. My arms are always wide open too like wings, but they are not there to keep me flying, they are embracing the glory of the fall.

Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I keep going, still unseeing, focused on something inside me. “I was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of fourteen. My mom was so shocked. Heartbroken. I was too. I mean, it’s not pretty listening to the doctor analyzing you and giving you meds and whatnot. But it was okay because I knew. I knew the reason behind my weirdness. I remember my mom taking some time off from the store to be with me. I guess, she thought I needed the support. I have a feeling she needed it more than me.

“I always thought it wasn’t her fault that I was this way. Nobody wants their baby to be born this way, you know. Everybody prays for a healthy baby. A happy baby. It’s not her fault that I’m ill. That I’ve never been happy. I mean, I’ve been happy, of course. But it just never lasts. So yeah, I always thought it’s not her fault that I’m fighting this battle. She’s given me everything. All the love, all the comforts. It’s me. Things are wrong with me. She shouldn’t get the brunt of it. So I hid. I always pretended to be okay. I never talked about all the stuff inside me. I never thought it could help. I mean, they can’t magically cure depression, right? I always thought my mom was already going through the effects of my diagnosis. I didn’t want to add to that.”

There’s silence. No one’s saying anything. I feel like I’m talking extremely loud, but I can’t stop. I have to get all of it out now.

“I’ve been lying for a long time. Sometimes I think that’s all I know. Lying, hiding, pretending. Six weeks ago, I attempted to kill myself. I jumped off the roof of our summer house in the Hamptons. It was my birthday. Birthdays have always been hard for me. It makes me the focus of attention. It requires a lot of pretending. There’s, uh, a lot of laughter and noise and just happiness. I’ve always had trouble with them. Anyway, on this birthday I don’t know what happened. It became too much. I couldn’t stop myself. I’d been feeling low, very low for weeks. Maybe the whole pretending became too much? Maybe it was the big birthday, the milestone, eighteen? I don’t know what it was but I just couldn’t do it anymore. In fact, the party was supposed to be a double celebration. I’d gotten an acceptance letter from Columbia. They gave me a scholarship too. Everything was perfect. Except me. My mind.”

I see the roof in my head. The edge. The perfect summer night with all the stars. I resembled the pale moon. Even so, its meager light irritated me. The breeze scraped against my body. God, I wanted relief. My head was exploding. My world was ending. Or at least it felt that way.

I wore a dress that day, a summer red dress. My cousin had insisted. She told me to stop dressing like a kid. I was eighteen. I was officially an adult. A woman. She even put red lipstick on me.

“But I didn’t die, obviously.” A few people chuckle, and I finally smile. “When I woke up in the hospital, I was terrified. I thought my secret was going to be out. My mom… I’ve never seen her that way. She was devastated. She didn’t even look like my mom. She looked dead. Like, I’d killed her. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong. It petrified me. It fucking scared me that I’d hurt her. That my defective brain fucked everything up. I did what I always do: I lied.”

I sigh and bite my lip. “I made up a story. I told her that I had a boyfriend and that I was keeping it a secret and well, he cheated on me. I told them I was heartbroken and a little tipsy and jumping seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought if I lied, my mom wouldn’t blame herself, for not doing enough, for missing the signs, whatever. And I think I also lied because… because I wasn’t ready to accept that there was something wrong with me. That I needed help. Serious help. I always thought that if I took the meds, went to see my psychiatrist for regular check-ups, pretended everything was okay, everything would be okay. The power of the mind or something, I don’t know. But my mind is a little broken so there you go. I just wasn’t counting on her sending me to therapy. So my plan kinda backfired.” I chuckle, and people follow suit.