“I want you to close your eyes for me,” the low soothing voice began.  Rebecca glanced at the owner of the voice before taking a deep breath and slowing following the direction.  Rebecca was a 17-year-old girl currently in treatment for her mental illness.  At this point, she was open to just about anything that could make her feel even marginally happier.  This included the mindfulness visualization exercise her therapist was presently walking her through.  

“Now visualize your body, and picture what your depression looks and feels like inside of you,” he continued. Rebecca could see it; it was as if her body was a piece of machinery that had this indigo viscous goop tangled up in all of her bolts and gears.  This sludge was heavy, poisonous, and suffocating; she was allowing it to choke her and permeate every part of her being. The therapist gave her some time for Rebecca to fully wrap her mind around this idea.  

“Slowly picture this depression leaving your body and taking shape in front of you,” he said calmly.  Rebecca saw in her minds eye as she with great difficulty began to extricate the purple sludge from herself.  It wasn’t easy but sluggishly the slime seeped out of every opening of her body.  When she was finally free of it, the pile of sludge began to take the form of a little girl with a disturbing smirk upon her face.  

“Now can you tell me what this things name is?” asked the therapist. “Sylvia,” Rebecca answered immediately. The name had appeared in her mind and it fit just right.  Sylvia was the thing inside her that was always spouting negative opinions about Rebecca.  Sylvia was the one stomping down on everything that gave Rebecca hope or joy.  Rebecca felt as though a weight was lifted off of her as she began to fully grasp that the depression was not the person she was. Without Sylvia, Rebecca actually kind of liked who she was and even admired herself for having the strength to put up with Sylvia for so long.

“You are so, so much more than just your depression.  It does not define who you are.  You are the person who when she smiles it lights up the whole room.  I think you underestimate how extremely well-liked you are here, and the impact you have on others.  You have a lovely bubbly personality, you are smart, loving, and funny.  Never let Sylvia take those things away from you,” he urged her. 

Rebecca would always remember this moment of figuring out how to separate herself from her depression.  She still had a ways to go, and it wasn’t going to be easy.  There would be ups and downs, of course, but she now had someone to be angry at instead of herself; and that, that was a start.