Cold. Monochrome. Blurry. The beauty of life just didn’t exist in my view. Everything just stopped seeming important. I couldn’t find the meaning in anything. Flight school didn’t matter. The bullies didn’t matter. Even my own family didn’t matter. That was my world before she came into it. I just went through the motions every day, but with her, things were different. My world had color.
Rainbow Dash. It was Rainbow Dash who gave me the strength to get out of bed every morning; she was an attribute my life needed more than anything else. Mom and Dad always give Zephyr the attention he needed on account of his acting out, but that ended up being so much that I was just cast aside. I’d feel invisible even to my own parents. I didn’t know if there were any words in the Ponish language that could describe what a chilling realization that was. I was just assumed to be fine because I behaved myself? I wished it was that simple. From the bottom of my heart, I wished it. For their sakes, I wore a mask of false happiness as my head and chest grew heavy with the weight of excess emotions that I had little control over.
There was no standing out when it came to me. I would feel like I wasn’t special, and I even started to tell myself that at some point. I didn’t need to be a unicorn with some invisibility spell. I just needed to exist, and life would leave me in the dust all the same. I would live unnoticed and pass on just the same. These thoughts would slowly eat away at me, hollowing out my heart. That’s how I felt.
I felt so painstakingly alone, social anxiety crippling me to the point where I barely functioned as a pony. I never felt happy unless Rainbow Dash would take the time to remind me that I do have place in Equestria and I wasn’t just watching life from the other side of some imaginary plate of glass.
I couldn’t stand the way I felt when she wasn’t around to keep me in reality. Or was it my living fantasy? Whatever it was, I felt out of place when I wasn’t there. And of course, one day all of my problems and misgivings came to a steady boil. With a heavy heart and a muddled mind, all I knew was that I was suffering, and I wanted it to stop. I needed it to stop.
I had finally broken down when I was staring in the mirror, contempt for what I saw growing by the second. I couldn’t take it anymore. Before I knew it, the medicine cabinet was agape, and I swallowed as much of my father’s medication as my little muzzle could hold.
What happened after that was a blur, but I survived. I was hospitalized for the next few weeks, diagnosed with clinical depression. Looking back now, that diagnosis made all too much sense. In the time I was hospitalized, they had a really nice psychologist named Dr. Sunny Skies come in and talk to me. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her at first, but when she showed me a photo album of the places she’d been to on the ground below, I was amazed. The land holds so many more flowers than what my mother grew in her garden.
The varied petal shapes, the vivid colors and patterns; they were beautiful! The animals were so cute, too! We only got to see flocks of birds pass by Cloudsdale every now and then. Never any foxes or butterflies or deer or bunnies. Little had I known then that all of those creatures and more would become my friends and charges when I got older.
But I digress. There was one photo of flowers that always stood out to me in my memories. A picture of red amaryllises. They were such strong and bold lilies. They were like Rainbow Dash in that sense. Bold, confident and beautiful. Amaryllises became my favorite flower during my stay in the hospital.
“Do you think when I grow up, I could see all of those plants and animals, too?” I would ask.
“If you work hard and believe in yourself, it’s all worth it,” she would answer with a wink. With that bit of encouragement, I tried coaching myself to strive for a life on the ground, where I could interact with the wildlife as I pleased. I had spoken with Dr. Skies every day when I was in the hospital.
After being released from the hospital, I had more to say to Rainbow Dash than ever! I told her all about how a nice psychologist showed me pictures of the land and all it has to offer. I specifically remembered the animals and the amaryllises. I would visit Dr. Skies in her office once every two weeks, and I was always excited for our appointments. It just felt good to talk to somepony who, at the very least, validated my feelings and helped me work through them. Dr. Skies was almost as much of a positive influence on my life as Rainbow Dash. I was able to open up to Rainbow more than ever before.
“The bunnies were so cute and fluffy! They have such floppy ears and innocent, dark eyes! When I grow up, I really, really want a bunny! Isn’t it cute?” I exclaimed, showing her a picture that Dr. Skies let me keep.
“Hehe, yeah, it is. I’m surprised, Fluttershy! You have more to say than ever! It’s kind of a relief. I was getting worried that you were intimidated by my awesomeness,” she replied to me, beaming cheerily at me. “I missed you. Where have you been? The teachers wouldn’t tell me.”
“You…really missed me?” I asked, taken aback. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I wasn’t sure why at the time. Looking back, I could tell you that they were tears of gratitude. I threw my forelegs around her body and held her close.
“Uhh, yeah. Of course, I did. You’re my buddy,” Rainbow Dash responded, taken aback herself, before returning the hug. “What happened, anyway?”
“I…I’d rather not talk about it, but don’t worry. I’m back,” I promised, silently thanking her for thinking of me. I thought nopony would have missed me, or even notice that I was gone, but Rainbow Dash did. The colors of my world were back. There was no one like her in my life and I wanted to be able to cherish her forever. I wasn’t certain if she could ever understand how much her thinking about me meant to me, but it didn’t matter. She cared, and that was enough.
That was just one of many examples of how I learned I could always Rainbow Dash. She deserved to be the Element of Loyalty. We’d stuck together for years, leading up to this very moment. She and I were sitting on a peaceful little hill on the outskirts of Ponyville. Ponyville was able to give me what I needed better than Cloudsdale ever could. Feeling my hooves in the soil was somehow rejuvenating for me. The trees and the flowers always brightened my day. The animals had become my passion, one that I could never sustain in Cloudsdale.
A breeze gently tossed my mane and combed through my coat. Seating myself on the grassy hill, I closed my eyes and breathed in the spring air.
In the darkness of my lidded eyes, I felt Rainbow Dash’s muzzle tuck something in my mane, just behind my right ear. It was soft, but undoubtedly strong. Feeling blood rush to my cheeks, I opened my eyes to see her brilliant smile. In the reflection of her eyes, I saw a brilliantly shaped flower. A lily.
“It’s an amaryllis, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash informed me. “A red one. You said they’re your favorite, right?”
“Y-yeah…” I mumbled, amazed that she remembered. “They always reminded me of you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. They’re proud, bold and beautiful.”
“Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash murmured before giving me an affectionate nuzzle. “Gosh, it’s amazing how kind you are. How do you do it?” I merely gave a modest shrug, my muzzle adorning a small grin. Those rosy eyes sparkled back at me.
“I could never thank you enough, Rainbow. I…I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” I informed her. Her smile softened a bit and she took a place beside me, wrapping a foreleg around me.
“What matters is that you’re here, and I don’t want that to change,” Rainbow claimed, holding me close. It was fortifying. She didn’t want me to disappear, and knowing that sent my heart aflutter.
I leaned on her as she held me close. We locked gazes and I could see tomorrow, and every tomorrow after that, in her eyes. I softly cheered, “Yay!”
Author's Note
I know some may argue that Fluttershy isn't a good candidate for depression. While I disagree, this is just an interpretation of her character from my point of view and it's okay if yours is totally different. Part of the reason I wrote this is because I wanted it to stand alone, apart from What She Doesn't See, but still have the same elements of how meaningful it is, especially for someone who struggles with depression, to have someone close to you and who will stick by you, in spite of your faults, for the long haul.
I actually struggle with depression myself and my girlfriend of three years (as of this post) has stuck by me and helped me through a lot. It's hard to talk about having such an awful, sometimes severe downswing in your mood without seeming self-indulgent, but I don't have control over my brain chemistry and people like me don't have control over theirs. I know this started off heavy, as it was supposed to, because I want those who struggle with depression as I do, those who may feel like no one understands them, to know that others don't have to understand you to stand by you and love you as an important part of their lives.
