Being diagnosed with a mental disorder is hard. It is liberating and yet life-altering. You have to come to terms with the fact that your brain does not function as it’s supposed to. You have panic attacks regularly. Sometimes you can’t talk or think or even walk. All you can do it withdraw, even though you know that is scary for you. But what do you do when your only friend abandons you due to this revelation? What do you do when he beings singling you out and blaming you for outside circumstances? What do you do as you observe him trying to find a way to incriminate you and end the friendship? How do you block out the hurt? How do you deal with the all-too-frequent rejection? How do you view yourself with love rather than as a problem that needs to be solved? How do you unwhittle the branch? How do you unchop your tree?

You begin by going neutral to the situation, but not withdrawing entirely. You make all the repairs you can, sifting out the good and bad attributes of both persons involved. You delicately handle those leaves and twigs – those imperfections that cause so much joy and so much pain, and you piece them back together ever so gently. You take the branches and you add them. You need their strength and support- the joy from memories past.  You draw boundaries for each other and establish rules. When your friend insists upon reading a therapy book together, you suck up your dissent and you do it. You agree that no one is villainous, nor has any one been victimized. There is just you and your disorder, and he and his experiences, in a neutral standing.

Next comes the trunk. He wants so badly for you to be happy. But he also wants you to be open. You know that at this moment, it isn’t possible to have both. You hope for a brighter future and make the changes to meet it. But you know you are not happy for this small moment in the span of your lifetime and you begin to realize that that is okay. You decide that it is okay to not be okay, and you need not justify this. It simply is. Yet still, he presses. So what do you do? You are a terrible liar. You wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye, you would turn your toe, and you would giggle and change the subject. He would catch you immediately. So you don’t lie – not 100 percent. You psych yourself up while you are talking with him. You play the part. You think happy thoughts and if he inquires toward anything being amiss in your life, you give a vague answer and avoid the question altogether with the assurance that you are fine. He doesn’t understand that fine is pretty low on the scale of esteem and you don’t remind him. You want to keep this friendship alive with all of your heart. It’s not that you don’t love him or that you aren’t happy around him; you are! You love him with the purest of heart. There is no romance to it. You simply love him in all his quirks and what he sees as “flaws”. But you are not happy all the time; your heart hurts sometimes and there are days when you feel like an empty shell. You are as much of a husk as this hollow trunk you are trying desperately to hold together. But there is a disconnect between the trunk and the roots, and you know you cannot hold the two together for much longer. He has put you up on a pedestal that rooted the friendship to begin with and now that you’ve fallen, you have shattered. There is not much more that can be done. The kintsukuroi you desire is not possible - not on your own. A shattered glass cannot piece itself back together with gold. It requires the help of another who is patient, loving, and who deeply cares about the work. This process is always worth the effort for the glass, for it is left more beautiful than before – and all for being broken! But is it worth the painstaking burns and cuts for the potter?

You let go. And it crashes back to the ground with the loudest and most desolate thud you have ever heard. You are forced to see what you most feared and had been avoiding. The moment you let go, the emptiness of the scene, the decay of the tree, the eyes filled with contempt, aghast with betrayal stare you in the face. The damage has been done and cannot ever be erased. It can only be forgotten to those who are too eager to leave it all behind. It can only be forgotten to him. The gash cuts deep, your heart bleeds, but you let go and you walk away – alone. You have learned that you cannot unchop this tree.

Works Cited

Merwin, W. S. "Unchopping a Tree." The Miner's Pale Children.  1st ed. N.p.: Atheneum, 1970. N. pag. Print.