Twister

The game of twister involves difficult movements, while trying to maintain a stable
balance. These movements put someone in precarious positions, possibly resulting
in them falling. After falling, one is eliminated and the game will end after the last
person is still standing. Being eliminated from this game causes one to think of
tactics to keep themselves afloat. Boom. My head hit that mat to the infrasonic
sound of the gun going off. A sound that I wasn’t near to hear. This day in 8th
grade, I played left outfield in my softball game and saw my family get up and rush
to the car. My left hand moving to the first red dot…Thinking nothing of it, I played
just knowing that they would come back. I was hot and sweaty and my coach finally
called, “Time-out.” Yes! I was happy, I finally got a break. As I look at my phone, all
I see is, “Chloe.” That’s a word that brings a nervous feeling to me now. That word
is tainted with the blood of what happened. My left leg moves to the middle green
dot, “Your brother shot himself.” I instantly started pouring my eyes out, not
knowing what my neighbor meant by that. All I could say was, “What, Is he ok?”
Nobody told me anything, nobody took me out of the game, nobody came for me. I
was confused, sitting in the dugout drowning in my tears with an overwhelming
swarm of my teammates asking me, “what’s wrong.” Struggling to stay afloat, I
move my right hand to the top, yellow dot. I couldn’t handle myself or even picture
what was going on, the train of thoughts never stopped. I wanted to go back out
and play so bad because in my eyes I still had a full game to get through. In my
mind, regardless of whatever happened, I thought, “I’m playing this game for him.”
I had to stay strong with my body spread out on all four dots at each corner. My
brother had attempted suicide. In a twisting form, my two legs are crossed on
opposite dots. Life became different for me after this experience. Daily hospital
visits. Phone calls instead of face-to-face talks. Not seeing him before I go to bed at
night. Faking a smile. Bottled-up feelings. I faced a lot alone, not wanting my
feelings to be a burden to my family. This new word, “depression,” was suddenly
added to my vocabulary. This was a new chest of difficulty being opened up, hoping
that there was some treasure to be found. I learned that depression can be referred
to this way because the headspace is filled with so many different thoughts and that
one piece of treasure at the bottom is something that is so hard to get to. Mentally a
person will struggle to get to it, knowing the way but not being able mentally to
push their arms to reach it. My legs were giving out and I was really close to falling
on this mat. Multiple episodes, multiple psych visits, and multiple watching of what
I leave out. At one point, I had to walk on eggshells not knowing what would occur
next, but became prepared for the worst. I started to understand what life is like for
people that go through depression. After seeing the pain my brother went through,
it opened my eyes to realizing depression needs to be taken more seriously. It’s a
hard situation, but it made me grow as a person by continuing to learn and be more
alert to the people around me. I catch onto the signs better and I’m able to help
people now because I’ve experienced this with my brother. Through it all, the way I
was able to win that game of twister is because I didn’t fall no matter how
excruciating the turns got.