i’m on vacation but i’m clinically depressed. even when i’m on a nice vacation, in a nice house, with a nice pool, spending time with nice people. i’m depressed. i don’t even know what clinically depressed means but it sounds smart and/or right. right as in accurate. like, i accurately have clinical depression. i brought a book with me with the word ‘vacation’ in the title. it seemed fitting. i like when things fit and/or make sense. i told the guy who wrote the book that i’m saving it to read on vacation and he said, ‘don’t save it, just read it now.’ but i didn’t listen to him, i saved it for vacation. and i read it on vacation and it made me feel a little less depressed for the hour it took me to read it. there were stories in it that made me laugh and i like laughing when i’m feeling clinically depressed. i have been known to dissociate. on this vacation i have been clinically dissociating to clinically read to cure my clinical depression. it has been hard to read because i find myself wanting to eavesdrop on the conversations happening around me even though i do not want to contribute to those conversations. i want to dissociate. i think it will make me feel better but really it just makes me more clinically depressed. i’ve been rereading infinite jest this summer. i’ve enjoyed it. i love infinite jest. it’s clinically my favorite book. i don’t give a fuck what you think. clinically, you don’t know me. no one here knows i’m depressed. i have to keep it a secret. i think if they knew, they’d be like, ‘why are you depressed? that’s so stupid.’ and i’d be like, ‘yeah, i know it’s stupid. sorry.’ i tried to call a therapist today to set up an appointment. i thought that’d make me feel better. the place had no male therapists. i need to call another place, i guess. one of my neighbors is a therapist. i kind of want him to therapize me and clinically fix me. is your neighbor allowed to be your therapist? i don’t know the rules. i’m new to this. therapy.
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md wheatley is a husband, father, and sometimes a writer
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image: Amateur photographer and author Andrea Damic (Sydney, Australia) has words published or forthcoming in 50-Word Stories, Paragraph Planet, The Dribble Drabble Review, 50 Give or Take (Vine Leaves Press) Anthology, Spillwords, The Centifictionist, The Piker Press and elsewhere with her art featuring or forthcoming in Rejection Letters, Door Is A Jar, Fusion Art’s Exhibitions, Welter at the University of Baltimore and elsewhere. You can find her on TW @DamicAndrea or linktr.ee/damicandrea.
Rejection Letters 