Crushing Sorrow to Restore Hope
Author's Note
WARNING: This story contains serious and highly uncomfortable subject material. If you're looking for something funny and enjoyable, check out the comedy section. Read this story at your own discretion.
Crushing Sorrow to Restore Hope
Material possessions never meant a thing. Diamond had everything a child could want, but it just didn't seem to fill the emptiness inside her. Sitting under a tree with the prescription in her hoof, she could only stare out into the open field. How many times had she taken these unsightly pharmaceuticals? Trying to recount it all by memory was too draining for her weary mind. Sometimes, It was like being trapped in a world of shadows with them whispering horrible things into her ears. Others, it was similar to being eternally trapped in the darkest parts of the ocean. The scariest points were when the two mixed together. Regardless of which it was, Diamond had gone through the last twelve months of her life in a dreamlike state. Everything either passed by too fast or not fast enough. All she could feel remaining inside of her was loneliness and purposelessness. Her only hope was that one day, those feelings would be gone too.
Harmonic, Atmospheric, Melodic, and Hard Core were playing outside near the playground area. The breeze was calm and felt good against their fur. A few clouds had started to settle in, but nothing particularly foreboding yet. It took a while, but Harmonic eventually noticed someone under a large tree not too far away. He put his hoof on his wife's shoulder.
"Look..."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know, but it looks like a kid."
"Should we go check on them?"
"That's what I had in mind."
"Okay. Then let's go."
Atmospheric briefly spoke with her and Harmonic's children.
"Mommy and daddy will be over there, okay?"
"Okay, mommy," Melodic replied. Hard Core was silent, but he nodded in understanding.
"Honey, look," Atmospheric pointed to Diamond's hoof. She'd fallen asleep, the bottle of pills still firmly clutched in her grasp.
"You don't think she...!?"
Atmospheric examined the bottle more closely. There were still medications contained within.
"I'll try to wake her up."
Atmospheric gently shook the filly. After a few seconds, she was awakened from her deep sleep.
"Hi, sweetheart."
"Please leave me alone. I'm not supposed to talk to strangers..."
"We were worried about you."
"I'm okay..."
"Harmonic cut in on the conversation.
"Hey, kiddo. It's okay. You don't have to lie."
"I'm not lying. Please, go away..."
"Most kids your age aren't alone in the park with a bottle of pills. We know something's up."
"..."
"Can you tell us what's in the bottle?"
"Medicine..."
"Are you sick?"
"More like crazy..."
"I don't think you're crazy."
"How would you know...?"
"Your eyes tell me different."
Diamond sighed.
"They're anti-depressants or something. I get too sad sometimes and I have to take them. Can you please go now?"
"No. I can't, and i'll tell you why. I was on them for years."
"You...were?"
"Yeah. It was really tough getting through the day even with them."
"How did you?"
"Get through the day? Barely. You see the white Pegasus right next to me? she's my wife. We were friends when I started taking them. She kept me going when all I wanted to do was quit. If it wasn't for her, I'd be gone right now."
"Gone...?"
"Have you had any thoughts about hurting yourself?"
"...Yes...," Diamond admitted.
"Now you know what I mean..."
"Dead..."
Her own mention of death made Diamond cringe. It was the most terrifying thing that ever crossed her mind. Harmonic and Atmospheric sat down next to the filly. They'd broken through her wall.
"You're safe here," Atmospheric assured her, "Tell us what's bothering you."
"It's my family..."
"What about them?"
"My dad is always busy. Even when I was a baby, he never really had much time for me. It's almost like he's a robot. All he ever talks about is work."
"What about your mom?"
"There's something about her I really don't like. She always looks down on ponies who aren't as rich or high-class as us."
"Do you have any friends?"
"A few, but I've never told them about what's wrong with me..."
"Mind if I take over from here," Harmonic asked.
"Not at all," Atmospheric responded.
"There's nothing innately wrong with you. Your brain is trying to figure out how to solve hard problems. When it starts running out of solutions, you feel like there's nothing left to try. It's called narrowing the focus."
"Narrowing the focus?"
"Right. I'm assuming you've already tried talking to your parents, right?"
"Yeah..."
"If you can't reason with your family and you're afraid to talk to your friends, the obvious options are out. Have you tried talking to a teacher or somebody else you trust?"
"No. I'm too scared."
"Because you don't know what's going to happen."
Diamond nodded.
"Worst case scenario, you leave home for a while. Best case, you go through family therapy and it works."
"How do you know?"
"I've been closely watching the way the world works for a long time, and I've heard things I probably wasn't supposed to."
"Eavesdropping?"
"Sometimes, but it was mostly accidents. I'm not proud of it, but it's happened."
'You're kind of weird..."
"Yeah. I am. But when you've gotten used to being desperate to stay alive every day, it changes you. Even if there was a magic cure for depression, the changes would probably stay."
"I wish there was a cure. I hate feeling like this..."
"I do too. Trust me. You're far from alone here."
There was silence for a time.
"...I'll tell you how bad my head got messed up. Maybe this will help in the future."
Diamond listened intently.
"Have you ever heard of a disorder called PTSD?"
"No."
"It means Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's something that happens to your brain after you live through something really bad. It causes stuff like flashbacks and nightmares, so it's like living the same thing over and over again."
"What happened to you?"
"Me? Nothing. The kid I found wasn't so lucky. She was about your age. I found her after she'd already passed away."
The rain started to come down over everyone.
"She died."
"Yeah..."
Even though Harmonic appeared calm, tears began to trickle down his face. He'd already accepted keeping them back was impossible.
"...Are you okay, mister...?"
"Sorry. You can call me Harmonic."
"I'm Diamond Tiara."
"Nice to meet you, Diamond. My name is Atmospheric."
"Anyway, she didn't make it. I never found out why she died. I'll never understand it."
"So that's how you got PTSD?"
Harmonic nodded.
"I practically woke up swimming in my own tears on more than one occasion."
"I'm sorry..."
"It's not your fault. Nobody could've done anything at that point. I'm telling you this though so you can understand something. Everyone around us has some kind of effect on our past, present, and future, but it's up to you to create your own reason for living so you can get through the hardest times in your life. I think the second half of that has been forgotten by most of us. We need to make our own purpose so we can leave our mark long after we're buried under the ground."
"But I don't wanna' die..."
"Nobody does, but I'll tell you a secret; death isn't something to be afraid of. It can actually be peaceful."
Diamond was feeling both confusion and discomfort towards the morose subject.
"I know it's hard to understand for some ponies and other creatures, but if you've lived your life doing the best you can, you can die knowing you've accomplished a lot. A good heart and a good head; those are the things that really matter."
Diamond started crying. She wasn't sure what to make of this situation anymore. Atmospheric quickly wrapped her forelegs around the filly and pulled her in for a tight hug. Her hoodie was soon soaked with the child's tears.
"Shh. It's okay."
Diamond continued crying for a while before calming down. Harmonic made his way over to both of them and gently stroked Diamond's mane along with Atmospheric.
"Did you notice the two little boogers over there who were playing around in the rain?"
Diamond sniffled.
"Uh-huh."
"Those are our children; Melodic Death and Hard Core. Hard Core has some of the same problems as me. For five straight years, I've been fighting back against my own destroyed brain so he could grow up happy and healthy, and Atmospheric seems to think, for whatever reason, that I've done an okay job. Having them was our purpose. Do you know want to know what our son's purpose is?"
"W-what?"
"Finding love."
"Finding...love?"
"That's right. He wants the same type of love me and his mother share when he grows up. No matter how long it takes and how hard it is, he wants to keep searching. That's what he wants to live for, and he figured that out at only five years old. You have plenty of time to find what gives you meaning, and I think I know where you can start."
"Where?"
"Creating hope through hardship. Now that you've been as scared and sad as you can be, you can use that to be nicer and kinder to everyone around you. Chances are they're feeling bad about something themselves. Talk to them and listen to them. Help them feel better about their problems. It's gonna' be exhausting and painful, but it's also gonna' be worth it, because you made someone else just a little bit happier than they were before. That's the best thing any of us can do for each other. "
"I can make someone else...Happy?"
"You can. And guess what? That happiness might just come back to you tenfold. You could meet someone you really like or be recognized as a hero."
Diamond Tiara stared Harmonic dead in the face.
"I think I've seen you in the paper before," she suddenly blurted out.
"You saw me?"
"You saved someone in our school from being squashed! Everyone was talking about you all day after that!"
"They were?"
"Yeah! We were trying to figure out who you were! We never saw you before!"
"I only went out during rainstorms for a while."
"Everyone was checking up on her and asked her about you!"
"Well, I was just glad I could help. I never really liked the papers much."
"Now I get it! You were scared too, weren't you!?"
"Yeah. I was terrified out of my mind."
"Honey, I think we should get back to the kids," Atmospheric interjected.
"Yeah."
"Can I come with you," Diamond asked.
"Sure," Harmonic replied, "Maybe you guys could end up being friends. They're starting school soon anyway."
"Really?"
"Yep. Kindergarten."
"Home of the baby blank flanks," Diamond joked. Harmonic laughed a bit.
"Come on," Atmospheric insisted, "Let's hop around and be insane for a while."
"I'm game," Diamond agreed.
"Yeah. Let's lighten the mood a bit," Harmonic advised.
All five of them met up and started playing around.
"Maybe things aren't as bad as they look," Diamond thought to herself.