A/N: Okay so my first strictly Jazmine fic. I have I'll Be There, as well, which is mostly Jazmine, but overall, the theme is Juey. This theme is Jazmine suffering from CLINICAL DEPRESSION (not situational, so it's not her circumstances or anything like that, although those could just add on) and will only mention each other character every once in a while.
THIS IS ALL JAZMINE'S POV!
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN THE BOONDOCKS
I was so sick of this therapist, and I'm pretty sure she could tell by the vibe—or attitude, as she called it—I carried. However, my mom, who was rather in denial, could not realize.
I was back in Miss Grogan's office for the fourth time in two weeks. I went on Saturday mornings for three hours, and Sunday afternoons—about an hour after church—for two and a half hours.
My mom had got reconnected with church, saying that the bible was now going to guide her through life. I still believed; though I had lost most faith in myself, I held faith in what I couldn't control.
"He has his hands on you," she would tell me, looking me in the eye with her no longer bruised blue eyes, her no longer rigid blonde hair falling right above her shoulders.
We had surely come a long way, but what she was still in denial about was that my depression was clinical, unlike hers, which was situational.
She didn't realize that my father's hands not slapping her face or pulling her hair, or pushing her and I around places and keeping me outside the house while he did Lord knows what to her, weren't going to just bring me out of my depression, as it did for her.
She also didn't realize how much my social life had gone downhill.
Caesar and Cindy were the only ones I ever talked to, but that was only every once in a while. I couldn't blame them, though. Who would want to spend time with the retarded, abused mulatto—or, rather, Oreo girl? I saw Riley every once in a while; when I traveled the streets alone, he would just wave while his fellow eleven year old friends all shook their heads.
"She's just thirteen with all those bad things going on?" They would ask him, pitying me.
I was read just like an open book to everyone, or at least what they could see of me. I only had good thoughts every once in a while, and things that used to give me a boost—compliments and such—no longer held that power; such as Caesar once telling me how beautiful I was when he had a crush on me.
That probably was the only average teenage part of me that existed: crushes.
I had one on Huey Freeman, who I used to talk to often, but isolated myself from now, just as I did the world.
I figured it would be better for myself to first come to terms with not being around them as frequently, rather than them pushing me out of their lives, being the burden I am.
Occasionally, though, Huey would say something in contrast to what other people thought about me, like, "I'm glad she's finally accepting her African beauty", but his friends' negative comments about how I should've kept the relaxer in, or whatever other pointless jokes they could come up with, brought me down once again—being they weren't so pointless to me.
"You shouldn't only get self esteem boosters by what some people say to you," Cindy would tell me, but she didn't have the same outlook of realization as I did.
She couldn't tell that people made up fake compliments as soon as they became aware of my "deep sadness", as they called it. She didn't realize that some people would extend their hand, acting as though they were trying to help me out of my depression, but, in reality, had ladders behind their backs to actually help me get out.
She didn't wear the same lens on life as I did; she didn't feel like killing herself everytime she looked in the mirror. And more importantly, she didn't understand why I had the urge to.
Today was Sunday, and I was able to change out of my church clothes to rather baggy clothes—I'd like to think wearing baggier things will conceal my fat that they all talk about; I'd like to think missing meals improves my image.
"Let the white girl out of you!" Ruckus would yell as I passed him on the streets.
"What other thoughts do you have?" Miss Grogan asked me, peaking over my shoulder at the list I was writing with the notepad and pen she had given me about 50 minutes back, when I first arrived. I did my normal shrug, and she did her typical sigh.
"What else is required for me to do?" I ask.
"Now, Jazmine," she begins, putting a hand on my shoulder. "I don't want you to feel locked up, now. I just want to find the root of your… problem, per say."
"The roots of my clinical depression run deeper than the roots of Blacks in this very country," I respond, and she sighs once again, trying to find a different approach.
"Tell me, Jazmine, when did your depression start? When did you notice it?"
"I don't know… I just woke up one day, and felt… heavy. I looked in the mirror, and saw emptiness. I looked society in the eye, reality struck, and what other people thought started to matter."
"And when was it you turned to self harm, and began to have suicidal thoughts?"
"May I please just go?" I ask her, forcing myself to look into her eyes to further convey the need.
"Very well."
I couldn't tell her that everytime I see a sharp object I want to cut myself; I couldn't tell her that I simply didn't care if I took my own life because small things spiral into big things, and suicide is truly not a long term solution to a short term problem, but rather something more.
"You're out early," my mom comments, but I know she's gonna give it to me in the car, and this is simply an act.
"No, she didn't solve my depression," I say quickly, answering the question I know is gonna come, as I buckle my seatbelt—something my mother's made me do because she's scared I'll attempt to jump out the car.
"YOU HAVE THE PERFECT LIFE, JAZMINE!" She yells at me. "The monsters gone, you have kids' parents calling me, wanting to hang out with you, yet you still want to crawl up in a corner and cry and tell me something's wrong?"
She continues to yell at me, telling me everything that's wrong with me, how I'm ungrateful, and that I'm too young to be sad.
And when we reach home, I do exactly what she told me I'll do: crawl up and cry. I cried my heart out. At first I would cry softly so no one would have to hear me and pity me, but after some time, I learned to let it all out.
I walk to the bathroom, slowly, contemplating if it's time to upgrade from a razor blade to a rope—one that'll look lovely around my neck.
If I did know how to get out of this trap, I would've by now. I wish I could just look at a clock or calendar—and go back to a time when going with the flow of life wasn't a sacrifice, but rather a pleasure—instead of just crying and reminiscing. I wish I could get out of this box I'm trapped in, full of anger, sadness and disappointments. I wish people could stop pitying me, and think I'm ungrateful—not knowing that it's clinical, and here to stay, rather than situational—but then I'd be a hypocrite as well, for I, too, pity myself.
Why can't she see? Why can't the person who birthed me adjust their lens and see my mind as it truly is?
If only she knew, I think to myself, taking out my favorite blade, preparing myself for the shock that's about to occur. If only she knew.