SHADES OF RED
Life is like an old film—grainy and silent, black and white. Red was the only color that stayed for me. Not love. Not passion. But pain. It showed up in my thoughts, in my skin, in the things I used to escape. Everyone has their own shade of red. Mine was sharp. Something was so satisfying about taking a blade to my skin,
as if I deserved it.
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They said I’d grow out of it. I didn’t. Actually, as I get older, I keep hearing “it only gets worse.” I guess over time we all just get better at hiding. Better at pretending everything is okay. It’s not, of course—I’m hurting. Depression builds walls around me, turning the world into something I watch from a distance.
I am the observer looking through a window.
I. Shades Of Red
I learned early on that the world is heavy.
I didn’t have that many loved ones by my side. I mean, I did — grandparents, aunts, uncles, mom and dad — but not in the way that stays. Some of their lives ended before I had the chance to know them fully, before their voices could become permanent in my memory. What I remember are fragments: I hate hospitals.
It's like being surrounded by too much red.
Red was me, I was angry, it was too soon.
Red was the clock, ticking louder than hope. Red was the hallway light, sterile and bright. Red was cancer. Red was a heartbeat ending. Red was a virus spreading. As I grow older the silence grows louder without grandma, papa, and nana and i've learned that nothing lasts forever.
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Red stains everything it touches. It’s the color of absence, of grief, of blood. But red was also anger. I carried it with me as a child. I'd think, deadly. Even when I didn't know the damage I could do. I thought about mine and other people's pain. It's isolating thinking about hurting. I want to hand the knife to someone else, but I'm afraid it would hurt them more than it hurts me. Everyone has their own shade of red. Why would I hand it to them?
II. Stained
High school was supposed to be a new film, a fresh film in color, but it was just another black and white film scratched by red. Childhood shifted into adolescence, and suddenly the walls of depression grew taller. I wanted to fit in but red followed me. It was in the way I tried to reshape myself, to fold into someone else’s idea of normal. Adolescence was supposed to be discovery, and yet, even then, red remained. Not love. Not passion. But pain.
III. Red Remains
It got to a point where the pain was too hard to bear. My family noticed. It honestly felt too late. I went away for about 7 days. It felt like a trap when it was supposed to be a relief.
A trap, but also a barrier. It was safe. Over those 7 days I was supposed to learn coping mechanisms, but most of the time it felt like I was just trying to survive. The food was limited, but it was good in its own way. There weren’t endless choices, and sometimes I wanted more, but it was consistent. Bedtime, though, was too early. The lights-out rule pressed down on me like a weight. Lying there, I felt the red. The color remains.
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Each morning, I took a quick shower—too quick, because if we stayed in there too long they thought we might kill ourselves. After getting ready, there were tasks we had to do—activities, chores, group sessions.
Through private therapy sessions and clinical assessments I learned I have IED. It makes everything feel explosive—the smallest thing can set me off, and then I’m left with guilt and shame. The anger feels red—sharp, overwhelming.
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This place slowed me down, forced me to sit with myself. It didn’t erase the red, but it made me notice it. It made me see how much of my life is painted in that color, how much of my pain bleeds into everything. Red. The color remains. On my last day I cried. I felt like I was leaving something behind, something safe, something not so red.
IV. Seven Days
For months after, everything red was hidden. Sharp objects went away, no more red they said. The world felt padded, stripped of danger. Drug tests came often, the humiliation of proving I was clean. It wasn’t about trust—it was about control. They wanted evidence that I wasn’t escaping that way. Part of me understood: they were trying to keep me alive. Everything bad was hidden, but hiding doesn’t erase the red. It only teaches you how to live without certain tools, how to carry pain in silence. I hated it.
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I started going to different therapists in hopes of connecting with someone I could talk to, and it took three attempts to find the right one. I did find her—she’s nice, and she reminded me of lavender, finally a different color. It wasn’t my own, but her practice gave me a little color to mix my red with.
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V. Everything Red Was Hidden
My junior year was where everything seemed to turn around, because suddenly I had more colors. Art, music, film, and photography began to fill the spaces that once felt empty, and for the first time in a long time, they made me smile. I had support systems, people I could trust, and places where my voice felt like it mattered. For a while, it felt like the film of my life had shifted into something happy. But in my eyes, everything comes to an end—because it does. People change, I change.
I still see red. The color remains. I can't escape it. Every day started to blur into the next.
The colors I had mixed began to slip through my fingers. What once felt vibrant dulled into shades of gray, and red crept back in, staining everything I touched, like a leak that spread until my whole canvas was ruined. Red. The color remains. Each time red comes back it comes back stronger, deeper, darker like a crimson. The blade returned, sharpened. Blood. I'm sorry, anger got the best of me. That same feeling I dread. I’m left with guilt and shame every time. It was the fact that I had been here before that's most embarrassing, that I had promised myself I wouldn’t return, and yet the red pulled me back.
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I lashed out. I lashed out on myself, on my family, on people who I care about. Words came out sharper than I intended, actions heavier than I could control. It hurts. It hurts to know I’ve hurt the ones who matter most, the ones who only wanted to help.
At this point it felt too late again. I was brought to the ER. I hate hospitals. I'm surrounded by too much red. They placed me in a small room that felt more like a cell than a refuge. The walls were blank, the bed stiff, and every movement was watched under twenty‑four hour surveillance. No freedom. A simple walk around the hall was my exercise. Every room I passed was a different shade of red. A different form of pain.
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VI. Relapse
For months, everything red was hidden again. Home was not an escape. It was a reminder.
A reminder that red follows me everywhere. Summer came, the days felt longer and brighter, night time felt safer and everything was fine. But I felt numb. I was still guilty. Medication became an anchor. It kept me afloat, but the medicine also reminded me of how fragile my color palette is. Each night I swallowed them with water. I wondered if this was living—depending on something small and white to keep the crimson away. At night, when the house was quiet, I thought about escaping.
Not the kind that meant running away, but the kind that meant being free from the palette altogether. One hit or one pill would help. Maybe if I took enough pink pills, I could feel good for one night. No wonder my parents drug tested me. It felt shameful but I guess anything is better than taking a blade to my skin or worse, taking my life. I just needed a push.
After some therapy, I decided to add color again. Going back to school for my senior year felt like a reset. The hallways were familiar, but I walked through them differently this time—less like someone hiding, more like someone trying to belong again. Home began to change too. It wasn’t just a reminder of red anymore—it became a place where I could rest, where I could talk about what was happening instead of hiding it. My parents are still worried, but now I let them. Worry meant they cared, and I was learning to accept that. Slowly, I began to see that the red didn’t have to define everything. It could exist alongside other colors—moments of laughter, small victories, even quiet days that felt ordinary. I wasn’t cured, but I was moving forward. And in that movement, I found something close to peace.
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Slowly, I began to see that the red didn’t have to define everything. What I learned was that the red moves in a loop: it rises when something triggers it—loss, shame, exhaustion—then I react, sometimes with withdrawal or self‑harm, and for a while the world narrows to that color. Relief follows in different forms—medication, distraction, connection—and then the loop starts again.
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VII. Coming Home
Endings are better than beginnings because they tell the truth. They don’t promise, they don’t pretend, they don’t disguise themselves as hope. They come, uninvited, and demand that we face what is left behind. And yet, in the endings, there is a strange kind of clarity. I see the red for what it is—not just pain, not just grief, but proof. Proof that I have lived, that I am still here. Red is pain, yes. But it is also survival. It is the color that stains, but also the color that remains. I am alive. And maybe that is enough.
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