1. You said you had depression. On the rainy days I brought an umbrella for you to walk under.
2. You had OCD. I counted all 288 heartbeats with you until we both fell asleep.
3. You had anxiety disorder. I held my breath until you finally took one.
4. When I felt sad and you couldn’t comfort me because you had Asperger’s, I understood what your shaking hands meant anyway.
5. When you were so frustrated and bored because of the ADHD, I held your face in my hands and made you look into my eyes for thirty seconds straight, until you could see how much I loved you.
6. The bipolar disorder picked you up one minute and threw you down the next. For the mania, we celebrated with cake. For the depression, I held you until it passed and you were okay again.
7. You wouldn’t eat anything for breakfast, lunch, or dinner because of the eating disorder. I fed you your favorite kind of chocolate when you were ready, bite by bite, and we went for a run afterward.
8. The door always scared you when it slammed too hard because of the PTSD; I covered the edge with rubber so it wouldn’t bang against the wall so loudly.
9. Your self-destructive tendencies made it hard to breathe sometimes, so I hid every needle, razor, and pair of scissors in the house, then made you pinch me as hard as you could very time you had the urge to hurt yourself.
10. Despite everything, I still loved you more than I’d ever loved anyone else in the entire world.
Beautiful.
