When my dad told me that I wasn’t depressed because he knows the symptoms of depression and I don’t show any of them, it felt like a slap on my face. Looking out of the car window, tightening the lump in my throat, and blinking back tears, I suddenly felt all alone in my sadness, which as I’d just learned, did not qualify as depression. “Depression is only when you cannot eat. When you cannot get out of bed. I’ve faced depression; this is not it.” I wanted to ask him why to bother going to a therapist if they’ve already decided on my diagnosis. I also wanted to say to him that I felt an unexplainable urge for him to validate my feelings. He told me I should learn to tame my mind to think in a positive light. All I kept thinking was, that’s funny, coming from the most negative man I know. What a hypocrite. While returning home from the therapist, my parents loudly speculated all the lies we’d have to spin about whom we’re spending two hours visiting so far away from home. What will we tell my dadi and my uncle? Obviously, nobody wants to say, “we went to a mind doctor,” the most embarrassing doctor in the world.

Somehow a tale about a dermatologist or a gynecologist would be less of a problem.

When you affirm taking medication for a cold, nobody is going to feel uncomfortable or be worried about what to say next. Follow up questions come easy. But the moment you say ‘therapist,’ people don’t know how to react. The modern generation will show textbook sympathy and probably share their own experiences. The older generation will scoff and tell you how they tackled even bigger problems in their time, through sheer will power and without going ‘mad.’

Apparently, their generation had a level of endurance that my generation can only dream about.

Sometimes I can feel myself getting sucked into that kind of thinking, that slippery slope.

Maybe I don’t need to spend so much money on my mental health!

Everyone around me has problems, if they can deal with it without help, then so can I!

It’s all in my mind, right? Which means I can change it if I want to. I just have to be stronger and increase my will power.

“We have to think of lies to tell my dadi.”

Skin doctor.

Dandruff treatment.

Can’t let people know.

Sshhh.

What will people think?

She can’t go back to college because she’s sad? Pfft.

You can’t take everything so personally and feel sad. You’re just 20! You’ll face even bigger obstacles in life, what will you do then? (This one always takes the cake.)

We should tell them she has sinus; dandruff treatment sounds a little too dramatic. Sinus is more believable.

But how many days will sinus hold for? That’s too suspicious.

Finally, it was my mom who came up with an ingenious cover-up. We decided to tell my dadi that I’m going to ‘classes.’ That way we don’t have to be too specific, and I’ll be doing something ‘productive’ while missing college, so it’s all good. It’s settled then.