“How are you?”: Reflections on depression, trust, and vulnerability
This blog was originally posted on my Substack on October 14, 2025. The original post can be viewed here.
I’m exhausted.
It’s the kind of feeling you can’t get across when you’re really in it. I tried to write this blog a few days ago, and the words wouldn’t form themselves. It’s like a weight on my shoulders, on my back, even on my mind.
The other day, I messaged my psychiatrist for a refill on one of my meds. When I logged on to her online portal, I noticed the PHQ-9 on the dashboard, waiting for me to fill it out. I’m sure it shows up every 2-weeks like clockwork, but I only ever see it when I log on to ask for a medication refill.
I completed the short depression screener, and when it told me I’d scored a 19, indicating “moderately severe depression,” I sighed, and drafted a quick message to her, letting her know I was safe, and did not need a med change.
“Agree that depression at this point likely situational,” she responded, a day later. “Certainly reach out if anything worsens. See you next month!”
It’s the sort of brief, clinical response I appreciate. She isn’t my therapist. And she trusts me to ask for help when I need it. Because I do.
The trust still feels new, even though I’ve been building it for years.
Not too long ago, I mentioned dealing with suicidal thoughts to my therapist at the start of a session. A while later, as I was getting up to leave, she circled back, “I just wanted to check-in about safety. Do we need to talk about it more?” I shook my head, and then I laughed.
“I think that might be the first time I didn’t immediately follow up the disclosure by assuring you that I’m safe.”
“Could be.” She smiled, warmly.
“I trust you not to overreact.”
We both smile, this time. We’ve both put a lot of work into that trust.
I can feel my therapist’s voice in my head, now, asking, “can you take in how much you’ve grown?”
But the part of me that answers back is more irritable than gracious: “I’m too fucking exhausted to appreciate how much I’ve grown! I just want to sleep for a few millenia.”
And that’s okay. There is a part of me that’s scared she’ll recoil. But a more assured voice responds with dry humor: “honestly, it’s more likely that she’s proud of you for not being agreeable.”
It’s not just that the dry voice is right. It’s the other, quieter voice behind it: “even if you say the wrong thing, she’ll forgive you. It won’t be the end of the world. Not with her.”
Right now, in my mind, she’s proud of me. She’s relieved. She knows the shape of my trauma, and the shape of the wound it left behind. And she knows this is a good sign. I’m stepping away from a life where I was walking on eggshells, anticipating criticism for every wrong move. Suddenly, my boundaries aren’t a liability anymore. They’re safe again.
But safety isn’t comfortable. It’s exhausting.
I think a little while ago, my body declared a state of emergency. Only essential work can be done. Everything else is on an indefinite hold. I’ll sleep for eleven hours a night, and then have to drag myself out of bed in the morning. I’ll highlight my day with two hours of angry-crying in therapy, or a plate of fried eggs and buttered toast for dinner. Then, more sleep. Another migraine. More heat to ease the ache. Another meal I can’t really taste.
It’s been weeks now of too much pain to put words to it. Usually, I use writing to process everything, but recently ‘everything’ becomes so heavy that even the writing has had to step to the side. It must have been weeks since I’d written a poem.
But the other day, I did. Here it is.
The whimper.
What happens? Surely, something happens?
Some great realization. The snapping
of the camel’s back. Some revelation of
prophesies. Some becoming. Something?
What if it doesn’t mean anything? What if
it shouldn’t have happened? What if
you were just full of shit, and there’s no poetry
in tragedy? (Maybe just a whole lot of brokenness?)
I feel like I’m watching you from
some other universe. All this time
you were lighting fires in your home. And
it was also my home. So they were “our fires.”
But now, they’re yours again.
Now my home is not healed,
but it lays still in the aching calm,
watches your death glow with weary eyes.
The betrayer inside me still stuns me
with her acrobatics of mind (she predicts
your arguments with obscene precision).
But now, I sit through whole routines
without feeling the pull she used to draw.
You are in the spotlight, painted
like an innocent, with your hand
pilfering my corpse.
Half of me is seething, another half
disinterested, a final half disturbed by
your unhinged audacity (holding
a lit match to the dynamite).
I didn’t want you to fall apart.
You wouldn’t believe me if I said it,
but it would still be true
(like so many things).
I didn’t want you to fall apart. Watching it
splits me open like a fresh scalpel
(you know, it’s both a wound and a drug).
Sometimes, I can’t look away.
I never wanted you to be in pain, but
you’ve inflicted so much. And I took it,
again and again. I made excuses for you.
I explained away your cruelty.
It’s almost insulting, how I convinced myself
you didn’t understand what you were doing.
Aren’t you angry I painted you the fool?
Or were you too desperate to be offended?
You needed my excuses more than you wanted
my respect. (The real kind, not the feigned politeness
you were raised to wield.)
You left when I became disagreeable. You left
when I wouldn’t soften the edges of my opinions anymore.
You left when I stopped dipping the world’s bitterness
in honey.
You wanted the old me. Wouldn’t believe the truth.
I think back on my simpering and it makes me sick.
But you preferred that version of me.
You liked me scared (no matter what you tell yourself).
You didn’t teach me to tear myself apart
looking for flaws. No. You found me that way.
But you still exploited it. You took what you needed.
What if I didn’t owe you any more grief?
What if I grieved you well and good,
a long time before you stepped out the door?
What if, today, when she told me how much
she still loved you, nothing but my indifference
came to meet her?A not-so-quick note:
This piece (the poem itself, and also the blog post as a whole) isn’t a cry for help. I have the support I need to be getting through what I’m going through.
But, I also think there’s a lot of value in vulnerability. I think we live in a world where it’s not okay to talk about how hard it is when things are hard (especially when everyone else is going through it, too) (especially when we are therapists who are expected to have our shit together) (especially when helplessness feels like apathy, and apathy feels like a threat). And that’s something I want to change.
If you know me personally, and feel so obliged, you’re welcome reach out. I think we all need more connection right now, and I’m certainly no exception. But, please know this is not an SOS signal.
It’s just me hearing the age old question “how are you?” and refusing to practice this weird social norm we insist on: smiling despite the dumpster fire, lying through our teeth, and saying, “okay.”
