When he asks me this question, I don’t even know how to respond. How do you explain to someone the darkness inside your head? What do you say to describe your thoughts – thoughts that you aren’t even sure you are really thinking? If you are mentally ill, but your mind is everything that you are, how do cope with that? He can’t possibly understand the tangled thorny vines that make up my brain.

My mother once described it like this. Picture the brain as a tree. When the tree is bright and full of leaves, that is a normal healthy brain. But when the tree is barren and all the leaves have fallen? That is depression. But even she doesn’t truly understand. How could she? How could he?

“What’s wrong?” he repeated, pressing his forehead to my cheek, his arms wrapped around me.

I close my eyes. If I just let him hold me, I won’t fall apart.

If only I could live forever in this moment. The moment after he asks that awful question. When my mind is blank. No words floating around getting all mixed up while I try to grab the right ones and set them in order. They just keep spiraling, and when I think I have the right thing to say, the words I had picked out are already gone, drifting away likes leaves in a tornado. Yes, I think I’d rather like to live in the empty place where the darkness is comforting rather than scary, where I am just a body in his arms.

He can hold all these pieces of me together in moments like this. I know he won’t let go. I know he won’t let me get lost in the woods.

That’s how I describe it. When I’m starting to feel it, it’s like I’m walking at the edge of the woods. I can still see the light through the trees. If I reach out with my hand, I can feel the warmth of the sun. But I usually don’t reach out. I cross my arms, hugging my small, cold body, and I shiver. I walk deeper into the woods. Before I know it, I can’t see the light anymore. I’ve taken too many wrong turns, and I don’t know how to get out. I’m lost now. Deep in the darkness of my mind. It’s cold and damp here, and although he may be calling my name, desperate for me to come back to the light, I’m too far gone. I can’t even hear the echoes of his voice anymore.

When it gets really bad, I can’t even find the path in the woods. I’ve gone and walked to the most tangled part of the woods, where the briars reach out and scratch your skin. And it feels good when they do. You want to hurt yourself more, so you keep going deeper. The blood makes you feel better. Because you know you deserve the pain. And when you get to that place, you know you’re one step away from the ultimate sin. You know that you’re one impulsive decision away from laying down in the woods and never getting back up.

That’s how I describe it. But I can’t explain that to him right now. I’ve tried to explain it before, yet he still asks this question. So I just say,

“I don’t know.”

He sighs. Pressing his forehead deeper into my cheek before shifting positions, pulling me where he wants me, bringing my head to rest on his chest. I slow my breath to match his deep, steady intakes of air. I imagine it moving through his lungs, moving through my lungs. I can hear his heart beat. Loud. Strong. Clear. Safe. I think about my own heart beating, and I can’t help but imagine the day when it will stop. How will it happen? When? What will I feel? Comfort. Relief. Nothing.

“I love you.” His voice sounds louder, different, with my ear resting against him. It’s almost as if I am in his body with him, or as if we are just one body. What I wouldn’t give to live a day in his mind. A sure mind. A simple mind, but not in the sense that he’s dull. He’s one of the smartest people I know. Plenty of common sense, exactly the type of man I need. If I could just take a break from the scary, dark place that is my mind, for one day, maybe I could figure out what to do with my own brain.

This is why I won’t go talk to someone about my problems. What if they ask me, “What’s wrong?” or “How are you feeling?” or “What do you mean by that?” The thought of it makes me start to cry, and he gently runs his hand up and down my back, comforting me in the only way he knows how.

I can’t imagine what he must think of me. Or why he chose me. Or why he loves me.

“Why do you love me?” I ask.

“Because you make me happy,” he says.

How? How can I make him happy when I don’t even know how to make myself happy?

I start to sob. Ugly sobs. Uncontrollable, ugly sobs that shake my shoulders and cause strange noises to escape my throat.

“I think you need to talk to someone.”

The scariest words he could ever say. I feel betrayed. But I know he’s right. But how could he suggest that? But I probably should. But I don’t want to. He’s wrong. He’s right.

My chest tightens. My heart beat quickens. I sit up straight. Breathing is hard. I feel my airway closing up. I hate this part. If I can just slow my breath, then everything will be fine. But I can’t breathe. How can I slow my breath if I can’t catch it? It’s rushing past me so fast that even as I reach out it slips through my hands, rushing through the empty spaces between my fingers. My arms start to tingle. The tears cut down cheeks. I gasp for air. I gasp. Gasp. Gasp. Gasp.

He knows the routine. Puts one hand on my back, one hand on my chest.

“Breathe,” he says.

My breath is sharp. Fast. Fleeting.

“Inhale.” I inhale. “Exhale.” I exhale. “You’re okay.”

I’ve told him I need to hear those words. “You’re okay.” My mom used to say them to me when I was little, anytime I would hurt myself or get scared. She’d rub my back and say, “You’re okay.” Not, “It’s okay.” That means nothing. I need to know that I’m going to be okay. Me. Alone. I need to know that I’m not alone. That’s how selfish I am. I don’t know how someone who hates themselves so much can be so selfish, but I am.

“You’re okay,” he repeats.

I feel better but only for a moment. I feel comforted but only for the smallest bit of a second. Then the self-hate returns. I feel so weak. I feel so stupid. God, I’m so stupid. I can’t even breathe right. I can’t even exist without messing things up.

He’s the only one who knows that I have these panic attacks. I could never tell my mom. She’d be so disappointed. After dealing with my dad’s depression for so many years, I can’t let her know that my brain is broken too. She has no idea. The depression. The panic attacks.

I can go for months without one. But I’ve had four already this month. What the hell is wrong with me?

I need to figure something out. But maybe I can just try harder to be happy. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe …

“I’ll call and make a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,” I say.

And I did.

But I canceled it the following week. He wasn’t upset. It was actually his idea. He had promised me that he would come to the appointment with me because he knows how terrified I am of having to answer those questions, of having to explain myself. I can’t explain myself because I’m not myself. So when he thought that he wasn’t going to be able to make it, I gladly made the phone call. One quick phone call and I was off the hook again.

Things have been really good since I canceled it though. I think that coming that close to having to talk to someone scared the depression right out of me. If only.

Today was the first day that I caught myself walking toward the woods. I stopped. I turned around. I’m not going back there. I’m not going back to that place. It’s so easy to think rationally on days like this. I almost don’t even recognize that girl who can’t even breathe right. I still think she’s stupid, but she’s not me as much as she was then. On days like this, I find it hard to remember why I felt so low. Why should I feel that way when I have so much to live for?

“I don’t know.” My answer to his question echoes off of the edge of the woods.

He doesn’t like the idea of me being on medication. He said, “The problem is, I don’t think you need medication all of the time. Some days you are happy. But then there are the days that you aren’t.”

I explained it like this. He already knew the analogy of the woods. So I said, “If my depression is the woods, I feel that way when I’m in the woods. But even when I’m not in the woods, the trees are still there. I can still see them. Some days I get really far away from them. But they are still there.”

He understood that.

So on days like today, I know the woods are still there. But if I squint my eyes and tilt my head toward the sun, I can almost convince myself that they are not there at all.