Day 13: A Drawing, and The Story Behind It

This is Depression Cat.

I doodled this in my diary, the front of which I use to remember homework and the back of which I sketch in. Depression Cat is kind of a representation of me when the noise is too much. He's dressed up in his suit but there are bags under his eyes and where there would be a background, there's just the noise. The questions and the doubts and the worries and the fears and the self-hatred all talking at once, talking over each other, jumbled and messy and confusing and almost impossible to unpack. Depression Cat just wants the noise to go away. He's trying his best to fake it, like he's doing okay. But he's not. There's just so much noise. If only the noise could stop.

I drew this at the time because I think it was easier than freewriting. If it's me I'm writing about, I sometimes can't get the right words out, but Depression Cat can. I get that look on my face and I know what it means. I have those thoughts and I can relate. Those are my thoughts too. I wanna hug Depression Cat and tell him it's all going to be okay, that he'll get better with money, that he'll find that one person who'll love him forever and that he'll love forever, that his life has meaning, that he's a good person, that he won't die alone, that he'll make something of himself, that existence can be hard but it can also be so good because I know that, I objectively know those things, or at least some of them.

I just wish I could tell myself that.

But maybe I wouldn't hear it, just like Depression Cat can't hear me. Maybe the best we can do is share those problems and relate to one another and going through it together is the only thing we can do to make it easier.

But if I could reach you, Depression Cat, if I could make it better for you, I would. I'm sorry that you feel this way. But you won't always. Maybe one day you'll be Benevolent Cat or Expressive Cat or Visits That One Hip Cafe A Little Too Often Cat.

If nothing else, I hope you know the noise won't always be there. Sometimes, you'll actually hear the cars pass by or the birds singing or the music playing from the lounge, okay, Depression Cat? You'll be okay.

You'll be okay.