“You Look Melancholy and Tense,” Said My Therapist (but That’s Just My Face).

My History of Mental Illness and Health.

This was a while back. My hair isn’t blue and white anymore, but that tight, defensive look on my face apparently is how I always look(?) because I’ve now had two separate therapists tell me I appear stricken when I’m feeling calm. Cool, cool. Resting stress face, we’ll call it.

I’ve been to several therapists over the decades.

My first was when I was sixteen. I think I was sent because I was clearly in trouble- smoking, trying some of the substances offered in the woods on Friday nights, and my grades were plummeting. I was trying to figure out who I was and who I was in relation to everyone else on the planet (read: in my immediate friend group in my medium sized suburban high school). I’d always been a hyper, anxious, perfectionist kind of student- getting stomach aches and staying up all night in middle school to get homework right, but by sixteen I was just sad and mad and my peers thought school was dumb, so I did, too.

Also, this was three years after my sister died, after being sick with cancer for seven years, and I’d taken it upon myself to manage everyone else’s grief but my own. I was a good little helper and was convinced people in my life were too bruised or busy to shoulder my pain…