Guest contribution: "Dirt"

By Joseph Snyder, former student and intern

The following is a reflection of Joseph’s time here as a student. It is an allegory of his battle with depression and how his counselor helped him face this battle.

Growing up I lived on a very big farm with a lot of freedom. I had many different brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles. The farm was so big that I would see some family every day, while others I might see only once a year. When I was little I was quite happy, nothing to complain about, because I loved all my family and they loved me.

However, there began to be times when some of my family would leave this farm and I would never see them ever again. Every year people would leave, sometimes one person, other times several people. So it began to affect me, and I began to be sad, but I didn’t know what to do.

Eventually some of my closest family left, and that really affected me. I began to close myself off from the rest of my family, because I didn’t want to be hurt by more people leaving.

So I started wandering around this farm by myself. I would do this a lot. Out in the forest one day, I found this old well that was very deep. It was so dark that I could not see the bottom. It was intriguing. So I started coming back to this well every day.

One day I leaned over too far over the edge of the well and I fell in. I fell way down and landed in some water. When I looked up all I could see was total blackness, because not only was the well immensely deep but the trees blocked out the rest of the sun as well.

So I sat in the well. I was so far down that I could not hear anything on the surface. The silence was oppressive at first, but eventually I got used to it and grew to enjoy it.

I do not know how long I sat in this well, but it felt like years.

Every once in a while I would hear a voice from above calling down. I would look up and see a tiny face way up at the opening of the well. Sometimes the person would call down and ask me if I needed them to throw down a rope so that I could climb out. But I refused, because the well had become my new home.

Then one fateful day I experienced something a little different. I looked up and saw a light and another face. A man called down and asked me if I was okay.

I said that I was. But this time the man stayed and talked more with me.

He left that day, but he came back a few days later. Eventually he started coming every day and asking me questions about my life down in the well. So I would tell him.

Over a time something began to change, but the process was not noticeable at all. You see, somehow I began to notice more details. I began to see the leaves of the trees above me. I began to see the features of the man more clearly, as well.

There came another fateful day when the man came to visit me, as he had been doing. This day was very strange indeed. For when he came to visit me, I looked up and the man was only about an arm’s length away from me. He saw that I noticed this, so he asked me if I wanted him to pull me out. I thought about it, and I said, “Yes,” because I trusted him.

So he reached down and pulled me out. It was quite easy. I stood next to him and admired my freedom for a moment. However, I was a little confused. I turned to look back down the well. It was now quite shallow.

I asked the man about the well, because I had thought that it had been very deep. This is the answer that he gave me: “Indeed. The well was deep. However, every day that I came and visited you I threw down a handful of dirt.”

Ah, now it made sense. Smart guy. For the first time in a long time I smiled.