She laughed. She actually laughed. “Sad?” She was baffled. “Well, don’t you exercise?”

What? Do I exercise? “Yes,” I replied, although I said it as more of a question. I was beyond lost as to what she was getting at.

“Then doesn’t that make you happy? Exercise cures depression because of the endorphines. Did you know that?” Oh, OK. Things were starting to come together. My coworker must have a Pinterest account.

“I’m actually a runner,” I told her, “I run four times a week, but that doesn’t cure depression.”

“Well, maybe it’s something you’re eating.” Was she trying to diagnose me?

“No, I’m healthy physically. I live a plant-based vegan lifestyle.” Before she could ask me where I get my protein, I continued, “My depression is a chemical imbalance in my brain. If I could fix it with food or exercise, it wouldn’t be there.”

“Well, see, because I had a friend down in Florida who put her daughter on medication because she was depressed after her grandma died.” Awesome. We were to the part of the conversation where she tries to relate — like how when you’re gay, suddenly everyone has a gay friend they want to set you up with. “I told her not to because she wasn’t depressed, she was just grieving.”

I tried to explain to her that her mother couldn’t have “put her daughter on medication” without the consent of a doctor, and a doctor wouldn’t have consented unless it was necessary. Depression medicine can mess with you in unpleasant ways, and no one wants to take it unless it’s the only option. With that story dismissed, she went on.

“Well, what about anxiety?”

“What about it?” I asked.

“Well, I have that sometimes. Like on my way to work, I swear I have to avoid the highway! It just makes me so–... ” Here she mad a flapping motion with her hands and grunted, “Uh!”

At first I just sat there, trying to take in what she was telling me. I gathered the facts:

1. She avoided the highway during high traffic times.
2. Traffic frustrated her.
3. She classified this feeling as anxiety.

Apparently she was going to have trouble grasping the concept of anxiety as well as depression. “I usually just have to take some deep breaths!” She laughed again. I was gathering so many mixed signals from her.

“Yeah, I’m not sure that would work for me.” I let her believe she had anxiety. I wasn’t about to dive into that rabbit hole.

“Just do breathing exercises,” she prescribed me, “You’ll feel so much better. I do.”

“I wish it was that simple,” I laughed out of politeness until my flashback of last night started. I remembered the helplessness of laying on the living room rug, pounding the floor with my fist and gasping for air, choking on my own tears and squeezing my mother’s hand. I could hear her calmly telling me, “Try to take deeper breaths, Bethany.” I remembered my mouth gaping open, sucking in all the air I could, and it still not being enough to keep me from suffocating in the panic. I remembered hating myself in that moment for being so weak.

If only I had thought to do breathing exercises, I mused.

“Well maybe there’s some kind of herb…” I put my headphones in and acted like I didn’t hear her. Sometimes people just can’t grasp mental illnesses, and sometimes they’re just impossible to understand.

Maybe that’s why they’ve become a fad. Everyone loves a good mystery, something they know about but aren’t connected to. However, you will never see me caught dead wearing a shirt that says “DEPRESSION” or “ANXIOUS” across it. That’s like a cancer patient wearing a shirt that proudly sports “CANCER” in huge, block letters. It’s a little fucked up, right? I thought it was supposed to be hilarious.