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Ponds, Hills, and Sideway Thrills

Why could no one see behind me?

By Alice KellerPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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An arrangement I made at work

The things I’d love to do if I could. Imagine a world where it truly is everything you hoped and dreamed about all your life up to this point. Would it be much different than what it is right now?

I could only hope that my depression would have cancelled its reservation before it came over. Kinda like that one uncle we all have. I’m not sure how my life would be had I not been depressed since I was a child. I don’t remember a moment where I can think back and feel the happiness. The emotional truth is that the time I felt happy, I was just content with not being miserably sad and alone. I was that person who felt like a constant sore thumb, the kid who I knew everyone had to talk about behind my back, the person no one would want to get to know because “she’s not pretty.” I always felt as if there was something missing, but was told just not to show emotion. I learned from Desperate Housewives that Brie Van De Kamp’s mother that “women should never show their true emotions because it allows men to run us [women] down. “ (something close to that). I believed that for years. For my last seven years of school, I refused to show any emotion about anything that happened. I feared that people would find me weak, subordinate, another hormonal teenager. I suppressed emotions for over seven years because I feared someone might think I had emotions. Emotions! Something we all have. I dug the largest hole and hid it so far away from civilization that not even I could find it.

One day I stumbled across the hole I had dug and tried to put all the dirt back inside that hole. I was too late and the dirt piles became hills and the hole was now a pond from all the tears that were never shed, but stored. I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into because now everyone thinks the hills and the pond were meant to be there. No matter how hard I tried to remove the water from the pond... everyone kept telling me to put it back where it came from. I don’t think they knew just how badly I needed that hole to become flat ground again. I started to let the water drain and one day it started to flood. I couldn’t stop. This was the moment I knew I would have to jump in and drown myself. People stopped and pulled me away from the pond, but they thought I was only going for a swim. Many years later, I showed back up to that same pond and saw it filled back up again. This time I knew I was alone. I knew that if I needed to... I could drown this time without anyone to pull me back up and save me. I let the tension build up for another two months and tried to drain out some of the water, but little did I know there was a reservoir filling it back up from below. The day I was ready to jump in... I got pulled aside and was told to seek out help. This was it. Someone finally realized that I was in such a horrible place and wanted to get out so badly that I almost drowned myself.

A year later and the pond is still trying to empty, but it’s not as deep as it used to be. No reservoir to be found, just a dried up pond almost gone with water.

Without a doubt, this has been the toughest year of my life trying to figure out what all of this means. What is the reservoir? What caused me to dig the hole? Why can’t anyone understand we need a change of scenery? How did this happen so quickly? How come no one came to fill up the hole when I needed them to? Who couldn’t see that I needed help? Who didn’t see that behind the laughter, the fake smiles, and comic relief there was a girl begging for someone to come take her away and help her? Why couldn’t anyone see that? Why did everyone think I was fine? How come they couldn’t see the lies brewing in my eyes as I stuttered to make sure my lies added up each time? Why did it take me telling them my tricks to realize that people can hide behind multiple faces, just to make sure that nobody can trace them?

If you struggle with depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness, please call and get help. It is one of the hardest things to do, but it is something you should do to help your future grow brighter than your past. Although life seems difficult right now, we’ll both go through this journey. No, you don’t have to have a reason to feel any of these ways. No, you don’t have to have a traumatic situation to onset any of these diseases. Just know that you aren’t alone.

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About the Creator

Alice Keller

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