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Like Mashed Potatoes

A little bit to know about Admin Ronnie before letting you all read this essay, I have struggled with bipolar depression for a good number of years and when I was assigned a personal essay for school, it was something I chose to write about. This essay really means a lot to me and I want to share it. So here it is.

Like Mashed Potatoes

The hardest part of a story is the beginning, the where and why and how you start, all of those things. For now, I'll start in Topeka, Kansas. The apartment had three rooms, one of them converted into an office space. Five people and a dog shared those two available rooms, but that is not where the conflict started. Conflict began with the realization that I am not like anyone else in my family and that I would be left to deal with it completely alone.

It's difficult to explain exactly what happened in Kansas that caused this revelation, but it was a slow process. Gradually, everything began to taste like mashed potatoes. Depression is like that. Let me explain. Over a period of time, you begin to realize that, no matter what you eat, everything taste like mashed potatoes. At first, it's fine, you don't mind it all that much. But then you realize that you miss pizza and cake, and that's when you start to have a problem. So, you ask around for help. "Season your food," they'll say. "Try and not think about it" and "just get over it" repeat in your ear like a never ending chorus. They don't understand that the seasoning does nothing to change the flavor.

Because no matter what you do, everything you eat still taste like mashed potatoes. Despair fills the void where the wonderful taste of pepperoni once was. (Dramatic? Maybe, but it's accurate enough.) With a pause, you finally accept that there is no going back now, no return to a world of flavor.

It's an odd metaphor, or more accurately an extended simile, to say that depression is like mashed potatoes, but it's one that everyone seems to understand. Realizing that I had depression was a life changer for me and for many of the people around me. I became guarded and my friends became guarded. Gone were the jokes that ended in "Oh my god, just kill me" and "I just want to die." They claimed to treat me all the same, but in a group of kids from Gen Z, it's noticeable when no one makes a death joke.

Because I am not like Stephen King and I do believe in happy endings, I will also share the turning point of my seemingly dire situation.

The turning point came when I realized that I can change the taste of the mashed potatoes, but it doesn't come for free. Changing the taste of the mashed potatoes requires changing the recipe, which includes your attitude towards the potatoes, the way you make them, the time put into it and the people willing to help you out when you need it. When I went through this process, I wanted to do it all on my own. I was wrong. People need people.

Attitude plays a bigger part in the recipe than I had realized in the beginning. I had to be willing to put in the effort even if I was forcing myself to sit there and eat food that still tasted like pulverized starches. Gordon Ramsay wasn't going to fix it for me. A positive mental attitude was required for any sort of progress when it came to the recipe. Things would taste better eventually, I just had to remind myself of that.

Time has a way of making things more manageable, whether it be grief, anger, or even depression. Patience goes right along with it. They are, in a way, the base for the new recipe and without them I was destined to fail. Sometimes waiting is difficult, but I do my best to remember that I should save my fork because the best is yet to come.

All analogies aside, fighting depression and trying to come out of it by yourself is difficult at best. There were times when I thought trying was useless and functioning normally was impossible for me. I was wrong. Among the unhelpful chorus of "just get over it" there are words that are useful and people willing to give advice and to listen. (These people I met after the realization in Topeka.) I can and will change the recipe with their help.