When I look back on it now, I know that Kody was depressed before I even met him. But we were in high school. When I met him, he was going through a really hard time because his parents were splitting up. There was a lot of drama at home. During that time period, we all just thought him being upset sometimes was pretty fair. He went through what we called “his moods” where he wouldn’t really talk to anyone and he would be very sullen when you spent time around him. Almost 15 years later, I see it as obvious, but at the time it felt like normal teenage moodiness.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Kody had gotten treatment for depression. Before he was eighteen, a parent could have devoted a bit of time in driving him to appointments and getting him prescriptions. But both parents were in their own problems. They couldn’t have seen it when my friends and I didn’t see it, as we spent so much more time with him.

Kody was always good at hiding depression even then. He started to shape habits that would become bigger problems the older he got. He skipped classes when he didn’t feel like going. He put in the minimal effort since his parents were satisfied with grades far lower than what he could have achieved as his sisters had so much more trouble with school. One of the moments Kody would mention again and again over the years was that in his last English class of high school, he opted not to do the final paper since he could pass the class and graduate without it.

The assignment was an essay about A Brave New World. Kody had read the book and had many opinions about it. He and the teacher had talked for long periods of time about the book and what different aspects of the society represented. He could have written the essay. It would have been a good one. But he didn’t do it. What he often remembered from that moment, was the teacher’s disappointment.

Once he graduated from school, the patterns were starting to get more engrained. He did the bare minimum after high school. Barely bothering to look for a job, more interested in hanging out with friends. It wasn’t until his father gave him an ultimatum that he actually bothered to put in a certain level of effort.

I remember Kody talking to me about his decision. It was in his words “the easiest thing to do”. He joined the Navy. For a while, this really seemed to keep him on a healthier path. Although he still often talked about how Navy school for becoming a Nuclear Engineer was easy for him, how watching other people struggle with it made him feel weird, I didn’t really see what was going on with him. I feel I can be excused at this point as he was states away and we had few moments in which to talk.

It was not until Kody’s grandpa died that I actually saw the depression as more than just “moodiness”. He told me that he had a dream that he jumped into the pond near his house on purpose, sinking beneath the water, and how drowning was an escape for him. This was one of his lies that he often told when he got into a depressive state. It wasn’t a dream, but something he’d actually consciously thought about. He said it was a dream because it was something he wanted to float by me, to see how I would react. He ended up telling his commanding officer about it and ending up on a 72 hour psych hold.

This began another problematic habit. Kody was able to get out of the psych hold without being diagnosed with anything because he told them he was just going through a rough time and just wanted to be with his family. He may have believed what he said at that time, I’m not sure. But I know it was a beginning point too. He’d learned how to convince others that he was not depressed.

I thought about this a lot when I learned that Kody decided to kill himself during his final stay in a mental hospital. He was able to get out of the 72 hour hold again, with new anxiety meds but without treatment anyone removing his freedom to do what he wanted to. He was always too clever about what he told doctors, too smart for psychiatrists who tried to talk him back to a safer space of thinking.

He said often that intelligence was the problem. He was too smart not to be doing something more important with his life. But it could have been more that he’d grown into the habit of trying at a low level, since nothing was too difficult for him. He started community college, but stopped actually attending class due to depression and anxiety. He would drive to the school and stay in the parking lot. Later, he would start an apprenticeship only to leave part way through.

This spiraled from him staying with the Navy for three years, to one company for two years, to another company for six months, to suddenly switching jobs at the drop of the hat. He would get a job, go for a while and soon he’d be sitting in the parking lot again, not able to go in. The depression was growing worse and the anxiety compounded the issue. He’d truly become trapped in the spiral of depression.

I don’t know that there is anything that could have saved Kody. I don’t know whether if someone had gotten him to get help as a teenager, he’d have been able to come out of the darkness. I don’t know whether if the Navy would have actually tried to treat him instead of agreeing there was no issue so they could keep him, it could have meant he’d still be alive. I do know that the spiral of depression caused him extreme suffering and left him looking only for escape.