"During the past months have you often been bothered by feeling down, depressed or hopeless?" Questioned by the psychiatrist that had stiffened Billy.
"Yes." Billy looked down briefly. His answer determined his mental health.
The psychiatrist jutted down on his notebook and – "Life's not the breath we take in, but we feel its worth the last breath." Billy shared as the psychiatrist asked about life.
"Death is the definition of life. It has an option. Actualizing it." He glued his eyes at the psychiatrist and breathed.
"Facing death does not mean actualizing it because that would mean demolishing all your potentialities instead of bringing into totality." The psychiatrist enlightened Billy on death phenomenon.
Billy told, "Actualizing death is the only way to end the pain…" and zapped his chest with his palm.
The psychiatrist had to do case history, as usual. Billy should need to recall about his life, family and all.
"I remember the last day… the date I had organized – that brought me sorrow and pang, -'' Billy kept gazing the psychiatrist's window of the soul and a long pause "- that killed mom, dad and Brail." Billy's eyes swelled when something sparked on his mind. "The black tall man told me he'll kill me when we'll meet the next time as what he did to my family…" Billy lost his gaze and whined as fear featured on his visage, "…he killed my family." It was hard for him reliving and retelling the bygone days.
The psychiatrist asked unstop, "Who's that guy? Name? you know him?"
Billy shuddered in front of a pendulum and talked shortly, "I dunno." And again as he was like not tired of oozing tears in that weary eyes. "But I'll go over it. I'll find him to pay for everything." Billy narrowed his brows. The psychiatrist knew why he didn't tell it to the police for further investigation.
"Cops had stop the case, their reports. Sure 'twas a mere accident was a common talking among them." Billy strongly disbelieved cops' report like they're not doing their duties accountably.
The sun shone ungenerously all over the town. The foliage shed on the ground. The breeze embraced as it blew cool. And the office of the psychiatrist was antiquated and organized. The table at the center has piles of books – about psyche, for sure, a pendulum – continuously ticking, and Dr. Dodge Walter engraved on a piece of thin wood statically seated over. Beyond the table was a gray-haired man sitting restfully, the tri-wrinkled on his forehead tell his age clearly, 63.
"Tell me what you had felt and is feeling right now." Dr. Dodge diverted the course of the topic, and looked forcibly and undisturbed. Their eyes met synchronously and focused.
"My life would be perfectly happy right now if –'' Billy puffed a long blow and relax, "If I was just careful."
Dr. Dodge vividly picture out guilt, contempt and resentment on Billy's. And asked to reduce the tension, "Who gives your life?"
"My family and Grace."
"Who's Grace?"
"She's my fiancée and we're married should-be but it was put off because of the…" Billy paused, like he couldn't tell repeatedly the bloody word, "accident." And he continued, "February 20, the day I should be at the altar waiting for my bride but it turned out laying on the bed for years." Billy stifled a cry as he pacifies his ruined soul. He had been trying not to flashback again the blood that drowned his family to death. Still, these event sparked on his head clear-cut.
The tragic history had repeatedly toying in his mind. "I felt like my body was full of lead and numbed my heart every time February 14 runs through my head." Billy popped the feeling and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Tell me about that February 14." Dr. Dodge rubbed the head of the pen on his forehead.
"That was the memorable day I had with my family since they were busy businessperson. That was the only picture we're complete." Billy told it with a heavy sigh.
"Then what do you feel when you remember it." Dr. Dodge asked.
"It kills me." Billy bowed his head, "It just pained me to pant for their love."
"I know how it feels." Dr. Dodge comforted him, "but you have to fight and live."
"Bring them out." Dr. Dodge softly said, "I will listen."
"One night, I don't even remember my life then but a dark shadow drowning me and my bloody name stayed blank on my damn brain. I insisted to curl up in distress and sorrow but my brain dictates that a corpse, one worth suicide and a fetal position, lies a beautiful life." Billy jolted his right leg, usually he doesn't do, "I tried to close my eyes but a voice inside my brain played nightlong, it let me be awakened."
Billy kept reminiscing but rejecting to linger on those days of yore, like he was forcing himself not to think or talk about the afflictions but he need to. And paused for a minute or a couple.
"Then? I feel you, Billy." Dr. Dodge chilled the moment and considered the sad story to know how could he help Billy cope with distress, sorrow, pain, pang of guilt or sort of.
"I thought, one day, to end the time these life running through. I thought of hanging like a bird hovering over the clouds freely. I looped and knotted the rope but my brain told me, it is worth seeing blood trickling on my hands. I obeyed it, I have no power to go against." Billy darted a look on the Parishan paint glued on the fawn wall. Tears dropped.
Dr. Dodge scribbled Depressive episode on his jotter.
"Then I opened my eyes and I was at the hospital again. Treated."
Dr. Dodge stole-glanced on Billy's right hand. A stitched, wound of escape must be in behind that bandage, Dr. Dodge reckoned.
"I am physically alive but spiritually dead." Billy blurted out. He meant merely of his agonizing. "This is just a mark that I'm still existing." Billy loosened the bandage and showed his wound. A mark of depth-rest would-be.
Dr. Dodge conducted a physical status test as he had observing head-to-toe. And ticked the checklist of something.
The music of raindrops and booms of thunder stringed and vibrated Billy's brain to trace a blue music or compose his own slow, dark, insipid, melancholy jazz melody. His mum moment. The rain murked the entire room and a need of light so Dr. Dodge switched on.
One thing Dr. Dodge was so sure; Billy has an acute mental cancer. Malignant, it affects all the systems. The spirit or soul. Depression. And he's at the point of suicidal stage. If not treated, it might be worsened and the worst is… he could kill himself or could bring him to insanity. He need to intake Lithium or Prozac once a day for his insomnia, Dr. Dodge prescribed. In his case, life or death don't matter to him. What matters to him is to end up the pain he had have been suffering for a long time.
Antidepressant medications and therapies – psychotherapy or talk therapy and interpersonal therapy could help a lot to manage and treat it, it must be done at least once a week. It's better. Better to provide all of these reminders, treatments or managements to a guardian, Dr. Dodge phoned Liza, other than to a twenty-six years old depressed bloke, he might think his brain function normally and not take the medications. And formal advises.
Billy had to bode goodbye when Dr. Dodge forgot one thing, "By the way…" Dr. Dodge stood on his static chair. "Do you have friends?"
"None."
Billy hesitated and, "But there's a bloke befriending me last night. That crackers." It could be better if he socializes with friends.
Billy needs to cultivate social connections. Social support work much to reduce isolation – key risk factor for depression. To gallivant around the town to dissipate tension, anxiety, and distress which caused depressive episode. Dr. Dodge thought.
Billy stood over the door and gestured a I'll keep going to Dr. Dodge.
"The rain poured so heavy, would you mind abating it here?"
Anyone would not like to stay longer in an office like this – Psychopathology or Psychiatry.
Billy got back and sat on the couch.
"Coffee?" Dr. Dodge offered a hot caffeine.
"Please." Billy sniffed the aroma of a stimulant beans of tropical shrubs.
***
The talking had been stretched to weeks, unknowingly months lapsed. As time progressed so as Billy. A series of therapies and constant medications have had done as he was vying with depression and anxiety. He learned to upturn the corner of his mouth as he did not-so-far ago. Sometimes, he meet-up Dr. Dodge over a coffee at the nearest café or diner at Liza's house. Much time had lapsed before he half-forgotten the catastrophic life he had had.
John Gordon, a funny guy, who befriended Billy. They became close after a two months. They were like brothers who shares cloths and sleeps together. They became more than acquainted. Socialization or bar nights with Billy and other blokes were always on the schedule. Hangout or standby. Boozes. Tipsy or wobbled trudges. Fun to dispel negativities. To forget pensive sadness one night yet like was done an epoch.
One chilling-temperature night at the street while walking shoulder to shoulder, "Moving on meant halfway of forgetting the memories you kept returning to or sometimes, it meant halfway of facing the present for beautiful future," John told seriously to Billy. Not all the time John slipped words like this on his bloody mouth but were fiddlesticks or craps. This time he was in normal state of mind.
One morning, he opened his eyes. Insomnia has gone, he reckoned. His head was pounding like he wants to scream. Boozes or medications, because. He held his head in nausea and bent his knees toward his chest. And later jump out in the bed, took a bath. Wrapped his lower half with white towel. His physique has recovered. Quintessence. Physical tone had been honed much better now. Bravado look has been achieved after months of physical-jerks with John. As Dr. Dodge advised, Billy needs to do gym or outdoor exercise to boost serotonins and endorphins, the same effect as antidepressants. Billy opened the curtains and showered his body over the sunlight.
Two years later, actually.