Within A Year

Chapter 12

I had almost forgotten about the doctor’s appointment I had made to be tested for depression. I hadn’t had the courage to tell Fletcher about it due to the awkwardness that suddenly arisen between us. Nevertheless I still decided to go to the appointment which was at 5 o’clock. If Fletcher asked about it at all, I would simply have to make up an excuse.

Perhaps I would say I was studying in my room or visiting Rocky… I didn’t want to lie to him but this was something I needed to find out on my own. Depression was a huge thing and even though Fletcher had suffered with it himself, I just wanted to make absolutely sure that I had it before I told him.

“Lacey Hudson” The nurse called as I waited patiently in the waiting room. I had to admit I was nervous but strangely not as nervous as when I had gone to see Rachel. I think I was just becoming more confident with discussing my past and my feelings because of her. She had definitely helped me a lot through the past weeks, it was great.

I stood up from the horrible, plastic chair I had been sat on for the last half an hour and followed the nurse down a corridor of rooms. The doctor I was seeing happened to be right at the end of the corridor in a small, dingy room with no windows. I did not like it at all.

“Lacey, is it?” The doctor asked as I entered the room. He was a lot younger than I had imagined which made it slightly more nerve wrecking. I nodded as I lowered myself down onto yet another hard, plastic chair. They looked as though they had been made for little children and were certainly not comfortable.

“So I understand you have been seeing a counsellor?”

“That’s right”

“And you want to take the test for depression?”

“Yep.”

He began to shuffle around in piles of paper before pulling out a small pack that showed a picture of a sad face on the front, this place really was very childish.

“Now this the test” He said, pushing the pack in front of me, “It’s very simple, all you do is answer the questions and from that we can determine the how in which you mind works and whether or not you do suffer from depression.” Once again I nodded silently. It all seemed too simplistic, taking a little questionnaire and then that’s it? How could they possible determine everything for just a few questions? It was ridiculous.

“Okay so I’m going to leave the room now so you can complete it, remember answer them completely honestly. If you lie then we cannot truly help you, okay?”

“Okay…” I replied timidly, grabbing a pen from my school bag so that I could fill it out. I waited until he had left before gazing around the room. The wall was covered in charts and statistics and looked way too scientific for me, shame I couldn’t say the same about the questionnaire. I skimmed over the basic questions quickly, things like your age, gender and stuff. But when I came to the deeper ones, I felt slightly worried.

‘How often do you feel happy?’ How was I supposed to even answer that? What defined the meaning of happy? I was happy when I was with Fletcher and Olive and Rocky, but at the same time in the back of mind, I felt quite sad. I had felt something when I was with Fletcher in the lake, but could I describe that as happiness? I mean we had laughed a lot and had a reasonably amount of fun, but in the end I still felt weird.

I chose to just tick sometimes because I honestly didn’t know what else to say. The questions following that were of similar detail and I found it hard to answer them at all. I did my best though and that’s all I could do. After around, fifteen minutes the youthful looking doctor reappeared into the room.