Popping Morticia's Depression Cherry

04.01.2020

16.57 hours

Tish was home.

She sat in her room – pastel-colored walls and purple gradient curtains – her favorite. It’s about 12 degrees Celcius outside and she felt the same inside – cold and unconcerned.

It’s been six days since she’d been enjoying homemade food, zero responsibilities, zero accountability, the unconditional love of her mom pouring out every day in the form of “ What would you like for dinner, hon?” and the comfort of doing nothing. Her five-year-old Labrador pet sleeps on the foot of her queen size bed which her sister shared with her, quite unwillingly. Her mom tells Tish that he usually sleeps with her brother, but for some reason Jo the dog decided to oblige her with sleeping in her bed.

But Tish hates it. Her diary entry reads:

“No. Don’t aww him. Don’t you dare make that fucking stupid noise. It’s irritating. Only people who cannot afford the liability of having a pet dog can ogle and drool over something like that. Look at it practically. You’re snuggled in the warmth of your bed, with a blanket and a quilt, resting peacefully, and suddenly you can’t stretch your feet. There’s something at the foot of the bed you can’t quite shake. Guess what that is? Your damn dog. And he picked the sweetest spot to sleep too, right in the middle of the bed. So you can either squeeze your legs on either of the corners, or curl up like a fetus and go to sleep.”

She continues:

“I’d be lying if I told you it was that bad. It does feel nice to feel that your dog would want to be with the awful personality that you are. That’s right, I am awful. More so at home. You’d think I’d be more tolerable when I’m home? Nah. Wrong. It’s like I get a license to spew venom out of my mouth at everyone at home. Everything about this place either annoys me or makes me downright sad.”

06.01.2020

17.24 hours

The weather’s slightly warmer today.

Tish spends her entire day watching the Netflix psycho-thriller ‘You’, while waiting for her brother to come back home from college. The events of the previous day put a slide show inside her brain and refuse to stop. She lies down, and in about a moment, almost automatically, bursts into tears. And for no reason, mind you. Nothing new had happened, really. It was the same old- dad picked up a fight with mom, accusing her of putting money aside without telling him. He said he’ll be doing all the household shopping from now on – which sent mom on a passive-aggressive rant – which she disliked very much. Her diary entry read:

“ God I wish my mom would stop being so indirect with my dad. She’s been doing that for the past 10 years now. And here’s something I learned the hard way- passive-aggressive shit? Not good for your mental health. Super toxic. Pollution to your positivity.”

She then tells herself - she had no new reason to cry, at all. She’d been an audience to this shit show for the past 10-11 years now. Same old typical dysfunctional family bullcrap raining down her little fantasy world.

And for some reason – deep inside, she just wanted to run away. Or kill her dad. Or kill herself.

But she couldn’t, so she resorted to the cheapest and most readily available escape she could afford – go to sleep.

Note: The next time any of your friends exhibit behavior like this i.e., go for long hours of sleep, do not derail them for being lousy. Go check up on them- they might be depressed. This world’s too crazy and dangerous for you to wait for tomorrow to ask a person how they’re doing- who knows, they might not be there tomorrow. Just sayin’.

07.01.2020

16.53 hours

Tish’s Diary:

“I had a breakthrough today- I woke up at 12.00 noon instead of 2.00 noon. Felt slightly better. The weather was less cold and the sun was good, so I went and took a bath.

I went ahead and finished watching the rest of the Umbrella Academy for the rest of the day. And then I had nothing else to do.

And then, the headache came back.

I began to think – Should I take up a job instead of going for further education? That will definitely help me be financially independent but more certainly help my mom take a stand against my dad.”

Although her fingers were running on that thought, her mind was on a completely different tangent. She kept thinking, what if I did go ahead and did my masters anyway? Would it be bad to be selfish for another 2 years? So that I could have 2 more years away from this purgatory? So that I have another year to figure out what I actually want to do with my otherwise purposeless life?

But then she felt bad. For thinking about it. For being selfish. She then thought about all those times when all she wanted to do was run away. Or get married. Things must've been really bad. Otherwise, what 24 year old would want to get married on their own volition?

She continued writing her diary:

"And in that moment, I cursed the moment I decided to come home. That this is how I’d decided to start the new year, the new decade. Like I didn’t know how it was, back here. Like I thought things had changed for the better. I forgot the fact that people never really change. Good looking psychopaths never stop going after killing young women and sniffing their soiled underwear. Men will never look at your face first if your breasts are big enough – which I do not blame; it’s only natural. Under all these polite dressing and benign façade, we’re all animals, are we not?"

Before she knew, she began to sob. What made her even madder was that she couldn’t figure why. She'd never been this unproductive, not in MONTHS. She was one of those people who identified as being true optimists, come what may. She'd gone through dozens of moments when people had made her feel like she wasn’t good enough – good enough to be loved, good enough to be committed to, good enough to be a girlfriend. There were moments when she felt she wasn’t good enough to be a friend, good enough to be made efforts for, good enough to go out of line for. And it was really disconcerting given the fact that no matter how people gave up on her left and right, she'd always gone all out for them. 

No matter how shitty things had gotten, she never gave up or backed out or left. No matter what happened, she had taught herself to only see the silver linings out of every storm she’d weathered. Every time she lost her momentum, It would automatically redirect her to another webpage – one where she channeled that sadness into all her writing.

But not today. Her diary page read:

 Today wasn’t the brightest page in my journal. I just couldn’t feel even a slight sliver of hope or happiness or anything happy. All I had in mind was – how do I end it? I was super sad. And hungry. But I couldn’t feel even an atom of energy inside me. I snatched my blanket and covered it up to my entire head and stared into the dark. I wanted someone to fix me something to eat. But there was no one there. And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Is it possible to die instantly from the sharp pangs of hunger?  No. That was a stupid thought. I’d never felt this low, never in my entire life. And I wondered – is this how I’ll go? Is this how people finally give up on themselves? I finally understood why someone becomes an addict – to alcohol, to marijuana, to sex, to other drugs – because the depths of sadness are brutal. And lethal. And fatal. And if not taken care of, they kill.

She finally succumbed to the heavy resonance of the headache and went to sleep.

22.10 hours

Tish woke up and bullied her sister into making her some ginger tea. She felt better instantly. Her sister’s a strong person- she thought. She imagined if a week in this house sent her into such paranoia, how did her sister survive the retarded ghosts haunting this house?

She decided to not continue binge-ing on American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and went to YouTube instead. Tish drew inspiration and the will to live from a lot of characters, most of which did not exist in real life. She’d surrounded herself, her room, even her laptop wallpaper, and screen with inspirations all around – as if like an automatic kill switch which went off as soon as she went into panic mode. And just as she went to YouTube, there they were, waiting.

Elliot Alderson nodded at her from behind his Kali Linux laptop computer, about to wreak havoc on the top 1% of the top 1%, the ones who liked to own the common people, the ones who liked to play God without permission.  

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From another, the G2 sparring bot Atom looked at her as he steadied himself in the ‘ready to fight’ position inside the ring.

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As she scrolled down, Mr. Keating’s students stood up on their desks, half happy and half proud, chanting, ‘O captain! My Captain’ in unison.

.

She looked at Miles Morales, who, ready to take a leap of faith, jumped from a New York skyscraper.

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She looked at the green-haired Ophelia, who reminded her that even though there are people who only pretend to care about you, there are also people who really, really give a damn.

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Sun Bak’s tiny eyes peered through her hair and made Tish realize that even when all hope is lost, you can always find a sliver of light, even on the darkest of nights.

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Somewhere inside the bunker, the lights flicker. Sam & Dean Winchester huddle up and ready themselves for the apocalypse, one more time, and Dean whispers to Sam, "Ready?" Sam answers spontaneously- "Ready".
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And even though there are days as this one, and the one before that, and the one before, even if you find one molecule of hope, of love, of courage – you take it, and make it multiply – just like this new strain of virus that is killing people around the world.

And even on days when you’d do nothing but want to go back and bury yourself under your blanket, get the fuck out of your bed, and say hello to the morning sun that shines for you.

And even if things don’t seem at all bright, even when you feel nobody cares, even in times when you’d rather give up, remember – this world that feels so heavy on the shoulders today, the weight of the same world will give you the strength to go forward tomorrow.

Don’t give up, just yet.

It’ll all be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

(John Lennon said it first, but I’m gonna reiterate, just cause.)