Fred Aiken Writing

It’s one of the most misleading lines I think I’ve ever heard: You can be whatever you put your mind to

I barely wanted to be human, much less something extraordinarily human.

At thirteen and some change, I woke up with this sudden sensation that I would continue the legacy my parents established in the psychiatric community and beyond as the most depressed person in the world. 

It wasn’t a particularly distinguished title, and I don’t think anyone wore the medal with pride.

Can you imagine? Going around all day with a chunk of fake gold or copper, or some other sort of metal, reminding you and others that you were officially named the most depressed person living for that year? Perhaps even the most depressed person of all time?

I sometimes wonder whether if and when we discover there’s other life out there, drifting on their own little rock, whether they’ll have their own set of mental health issues.

What a joke it might be? At least it might put things into perspective. Or perhaps make it all that much more depressing.

No matter what galaxy, solar system, universe, or reality, I might always have been destined to be constantly, utterly depressed.

The worst part is that I don’t even have the stomach to kill myself. In some small way, I think that might end my suffering, and I don’t feel as if I deserve the reprieve.

I know, how depressing.

I’ve been seeing a therapist since I was fifteen.

They all give up on me. Eventually, at least.

I’ve gone through a handful of mood stabilizing pharmaceuticals. The list is quite tedious, and hard to remember. Let’s just say, if you are what you eat, then I’m a twenty-syllable word cooked up in a lab by some Korean phD trying to impress their spouse with how smart and clever they are to trick stranger’s brains into thinking everything’s going to be fine.

I can’t blame them, though. If I was that smart, I’d probably try the same thing. 

Instead, I have to suffice with a defunct brain and thoughts that keep draining me.

I went to the Guinness World Record people and asked them if there was some sort of reward for being the most depressed person in the world.

They laughed. They asked how’d there would even be a way to measure such a feat.

I had to agree. I never really thought of it like that. I guess I’d always taken what my doctors and therapists had said to be true.

Somehow knowing that I can’t even be recognized for my accomplishment makes it all the worse. Somehow making me even more depressed.

I guess there is always a lower level.

I have a feeling that I reached a point where I am more depressed than my parents. They at least had each other. In some small way, it seems like that would be comforting to have someone else to share their misery with.

No one wants to spend time with me.

The handful of times I’ve found someone to go out on a date with, it never carried over into a second date.

None of my dates ever explained why.

Though I suspect it has something to do with my lack of a personality. 

Just abhorrent.

Horrible.

Personality trait.

Depressed and still somehow carrying on.