How I Met A Murderer

And how he continues to haunt me after more than a decade

We met in 2007.

It was a gradual acquaintance at first. It had been six months since my parent's divorce, and that event was in the process of turning my life upside down.

That’s when we first met. It seemed he set his sights on me just a few days after I learned of my parent's split. He wasn’t that bad at first, but as we became better acquainted, I began to see who he really was, and what my future held in store.

He didn’t really hurt me at first, either. He was just… around. Always there, watching, observing, often causing the hairs at the back of my neck to stand on end. He watched over me like a silent predator, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he decided to strike.

Less than a year later, he made his first kill.

Almost my whole adult life, I’d wanted to become a teacher. After really discovering and embracing music in high school, I knew that becoming a music teacher was my destiny, my ultimate purpose in life.

Until I met him, that is.

In 2008, he murdered my destiny. He murdered my love of music, my desire to be a music teacher. I don’t even remember when I knew that dream was dead; but all of a sudden, everything I had loved about music, every piece of me that had wanted it to be my purpose in life, was gone. Just, gone. Without a trace.

I haven’t cared a jot about music since. I sold my flute, which I used to practice every day, and I threw out all my sheet music. It was written in a language that seemed foreign to me now. Everything else associated with music in my life took a hit as well. My memories, my friends, my hobbies; began to fade into the background of my mind like a shadow. That entire part of me was gone.

Murdered.

If you haven’t worked it out yet, this murderer I speak of is not a person, but he does have a name. Many names, in fact.

Depression. Major Depressive Disorder. Chronic Depression. Clinical Depression. Treatment-Resistant Depression.

Whatever name you choose to call him, he is a pernicious bastard whom I can’t seem to banish from my life. And he is more than a murderer; after living in close proximity to him for almost 15 years, I believe him to be a serial killer.

It was not just my love of music he killed. After I lost that dream, I tried to study history, thinking at least I could still teach. I did enjoy history, after all. But that desire, that goal to become a teacher and pass on my love of history to new generations?

He murdered that, too.

And ever since that dream died, my life’s purpose seems to elude me. I’ve bounced around from job to job, career to career, from being gainfully employed to being a stay-at-home mom. But no matter what I try, no matter how much I learn to love what I’m doing, I always become untethered.

It’s as if that original desire to teach was my anchor, and now that it is gone, I’m doomed to float forever on a sea of insecurity and doubt. Yet another casualty of his killing spree.

Despite all the damage and havoc, he wreaked in my life up until then, he was not done. He still had a major target to eliminate.

That target, the biggest loss I’ve experienced, the most important thing he has taken from me, is my memory.

I used to have a brilliant memory. I could memorize book passages, poems, words, numbers, random facts, and useless trivia with ease. I also had vivid memories of early childhood, my teen years, and my young adult years and beyond. I distinctly remember meeting my future husband in 2006 and knowing he was the one almost right away.

But as soon as Depression took hold of me not long after, I could tell he was slowly and insidiously killing off precious memories.

I could no longer remember with clarity things that had happened just a few years before. My memory for words and numbers was still intact, but the important memories, the ones I truly treasured and was desperate to hold on to, were taken from me.

And as the years passed, the memories continue to slip away. Sometimes my husband tells stories of dates we went on in the first years of our relationship, or of places we went and things we experienced, and I look at him with a blank face. While I can usually remember the places we’ve traveled or the major events in our life together, like our wedding, the individual events that happened within, those small moments that make life joyful and unique, those are like blank spaces that have been erased from my mind’s diary.

Those memories have been murdered, and it is the biggest loss I have suffered since meeting this monster.

But of all the crimes he has committed against me in the past decade and a half, there is always the knowledge, the fear, in the back of my mind, that perhaps he seeks an even bigger kill. The most terrible murder of all. It is a fear that those who live with monsters like mine must be familiar with, must be aware of at all times, because far too many of these monsters succeed in the ultimate kill.

What if, after having lived with and fought against this evil for so long, he finally succeeds?

What if I lose the fight?

What if he kills me?

If you are experiencing depression or other mental health issues, I beg and plead with you to get help if you are not already doing so. Everyone’s monster is different, so don’t give up hope that you can defeat yours. Try everything you can to fight back, because letting these bastards succeed in making that ultimate kill cannot continue to be such a common occurrence.

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