“So, what do you think made your fixation on suffering start?” The therapist asks me
“Well, I randomly started watching the news, I think in June. I kept hearing about shootings and other things. I knew these things happened, but I never realized just how much. My parents don’t even let me watch the news anymore because of the pain it’s caused me” I respond
“Do you think there’s anything that made this feel more personal, or close to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“A close friend, or someone you know who suffers a lot”
“Oh, yeah, Celeste. She goes through a lot of pain. She’s the strongest person I know”
“This makes human suffering more adjacent to you”
“Well, it does, but she’s been suffering the abuse of Maggie since we were 10”
“Have you felt this way since then?”
“I never really thought about it before. It definitely got way worse a few months ago”
“I think you were already depressed to some extent before”
“Well, I was often asked if I was ok, but I always thought it was because of my serious facial expressions because of my autism”
“It could have also been that you were starting to become depressed, and you were showing the signs of that”
“Then why did I never notice that I was until recently?”
“Do you think you were in denial about it until it became so obvious you couldn’t ignore it?”
“I don’t even want to accept it now really, I have no valid reason to be depressed. My life is perfectly fine, but that’s also the reason I feel like I don’t deserve to be happy. Other people are suffering all the time, I don’t deserve to be happy when other people aren’t”
“Dante, your depression is real, whether you think you have a valid reason or not. There could be an endless debate about if it’s valid, but the fact is, you have it. But at the same time, you do still deserve happiness. All humans are worthy, and all humans deserve happiness equally, regardless of how good or bad their life currently is. I could tell you that you can’t do anything about other people’s suffering and that it doesn’t help to dwell on it, but from what I’m gathering, it doesn’t seem that it would help for me to tell you that”
“My sister always says that to me, and it doesn’t help”
“What I think you need is to focus on the things you can control. Help Celeste through her problems. I’m guessing you already do that, but start focusing on the way it feels that you’re able to help her. There are so many people you can’t help, so try to think more about the people you can help. Knowing you have a positive impact on some people can make you feel a lot better. Oh, it looks like our time is up, I’ll see you next Tuesday Dante”
“Oh ok, thank you”
“Did you find this helpful?”
“Yes”
I leave and head to my next class. This was my first time seeing the school therapist, Ms. Audrey. I reluctantly agreed to starting therapy after my sister constantly told me to. I didn’t want to because I don’t feel as deserving of therapy as other people. But I think maybe it is helpful for me. I never really thought of dissecting my feelings and the deep reasons for having them, I just knew what my exact feelings were on the surface level. Maybe if Ms. Audrey can help me think more in depth about the reasons for my feelings, we can also figure out how I can stop having them.
About 15 minutes into class, the fire alarm suddenly goes off, and everyone is startled. As we all get up and get in line to leave the room, I hear someone sobbing. I turn around and see Tyler, the girl in our class who is high needs autistic, curled up in a ball on the floor covering her ears, her face bright red. I go up to her and gently help her up. Mr. Andrew thanks me and takes over in helping her.
Later at home…
My friends and I are ready to have one of our nightly phone calls. Suddenly, we get a text in the group chat from Celeste.
“Hey guys I’m so sorry to let you guys down but I really can’t call tonight I just had a really bad incident with maggie she shoved my head against the wall and called me a bunch of names i dont even remember right now. She did this out of nowhere when she was walking by me. There used to always at least be an argument or confrontation or something leading up to violence like this from her but this time she just did it for no reasno idk if i can feel safe here anymre if shes just gonna attack me out of nowehere now. I wanna die i dont wanna be here aymore. Kat probably wont join the call either because shes comforting me and we’re both sobbing. Im so sorry again to let you guys down i feel awful but i just cant call when im feeling like this”
I’m immediately filled with despair. Not because Celeste can’t call tonight, but because of the pain she’s in and what happened to her. She doesn’t feel safe in her own home and I myself don’t know if she’s safe there. I text her and beg and plead for her to stay at my house tonight. I tell her I’ll ask my parents and that they would probably say yes. She insists that I can’t. She hasn’t even allowed me to tell my family about how terrible her family is, because she knows they would call the police and Maggie claims she would find her way out of being arrested and then make it hell for Celeste for telling people about the abuse. I sometimes question how realistic it is, but because I feel sorry for Celeste and because of how much she pleads for me not to tell people, I feel obligated to listen. She convinces me that she can stay there tonight and that she’s ok because at least she can go to school tomorrow and she won’t have to be at home anymore. She says maybe she’ll spend the night here over the weekend, but until then she can survive the week nights at her house knowing she has school the next day and can escape her home. I reluctantly accept it. There’s only two more days left of the week anyway.
I email Ms. Audrey.
“Hey, I understand if you’re not available, but something happened tonight and I need support. I was wondering if we could have a short session tomorrow even though we don’t have one scheduled.”
I ask Angie if I can sleep in her room tonight. She agrees and we put the air mattress on the floor of her room.
“Dante, Dante, wake up. It’s ok, your dream isn’t real, wake up Dante” I hear as I groggily wake up. “You were having a nightmare,” Angie says once I open my eyes
I look out the window and see that it is already morning. I get up and get ready for school. I check my emails on my phone while I’m walking to school to see if Ms. Audrey has responded. She has, she says she can have a short session with me from 11:50-12:10, and then she’ll walk me to PE. I respond and tell her it sounds good.
Throughout class I’m pretty much just waiting for my session to happen, barely paying attention at all. When it’s finally time, I walk to Audrey’s office and shut the door behind me.
“Hey Dante, what happened last night that you wanna talk to me about?” I show her the texts between Celeste and me last night. “I’m glad you tried to help her, it shows how much you care about her”
“Should I have accepted that she didn’t want me to help her? Should I have insisted anyway?”
“No. Trying harder to help when she rejected it could make her start to get mad at you”
“How do I handle it when people don’t want my help?”
“Just like you did last night. Now, how did all of this make you feel?”
“I felt heavy depression and anxiety. I was really worried about her and I wished desperately that she would let me help her. I even slept in my sister’s room because of how much pain I was in, I needed comfort”
“Did sleeping in her room help?”
“Yeah, I think it did, but I had a nightmare”
“What was it about?”
“I walked into an old house that was falling apart. I found Celeste in there, she appeared to be unconscious, maybe even dead. I got the most ominous feeling when I found her. Then, suddenly, the house was on fire. I somehow managed to get out through the window while carrying Celeste’s body, and saw that everything was burning. I saw people fighting. The next thing I knew, my sister woke me up because I was talking in my sleep and she could tell I was having a nightmare” There’s a few seconds of silence as Ms. Audrey finishes writing down her notes, and then she looks at them and thinks for a moment.
“I think I know what this dream means. You’re afraid you’ll find Celeste dead,”
“Yes, because she does have suicidal thoughts. And I’m sure she’s told you this since she’s seeing you too, she recently has started overdosing on melatonins so that she can sleep deeply and avoid reality, which causes her to be exhausted all the time”
“And when you found her in the dream, she was just unconscious, you couldn’t tell if she was dead or not. You’re afraid that her just forcing herself to do something harmless like sleeping could eventually also turn into her actually… well, you know, ending it.”
“This all makes sense, I think this really is what the dream means”
“And as for the fire and the people fighting, what do you think this is symbolic of?”
“Just my general fear of human suffering I guess”
“Do you have a fear of the world ending?”
Broken Minds 