Inside a children’s book, Dr. Seuss gave us a map of depression.
And we’ve been reading past it for years.
I remember that night clearly.
My son was small.
Tucked in.
The kind of small where they still smell like
something sacred.
I was reading him a bedtime story
“Oh, The Places You’ll Go.” book by Dr. Seuss.
Big colors. Big streets.
Big impossible things to achieve.
And then, halfway through the book we got there…
The Waiting Place.
I slowed down.
My voice dropped a little.
The words felt eerily familiar.
My thoughts scattered.
I read the words again
not for him.
For me.
“You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.”
Dr. Seuss said it like a list.
I felt it like a mirror.
Because…the world just keeps moving
with or without you.
I sit with many people
in the quiet of a therapy session.
People with full houses and empty chests.
who smile at dinner
and disappear inside.
People who look fine
perform fine
but who haven’t felt alive
in longer than they can name.
And when I ask them:
What does your life feel like right now?
They almost always say
some version of this same thing…
“I’m waiting.”
Waiting for their life to begin
as if it hasn’t already started without them.
Dr. Seuss called it a place.
I call it a prison
with no lock on the door.
What the Waiting Place Does to You
It doesn’t arrive as a storm.
It arrives as contentment.
A Tuesday that looks like Monday.
A year that blurs into the last.
A new year’s resolution list painfully familiar.
The quiet decision not to try, but wait.
The safe choices.
The soft excuses.
Not yet. You’re not ready.
Wait a little longer.
It’s safer here.
It wraps around you like a fog
and calls itself timeout.
It numbs you.
Slowly.
The way cold water does
you stop feeling it
right before the damage is done.
And you remain.
YOU…
Dormant. Frustrated.
Watching your one life
move past the window
like a train
you were always about to board.
That’s the look of depression in our daily lives.
Depression Doesn’t Always Look Like Darkness
Depression seldom roars.
It whispers.
It deceives.
It looks like a person
who is perfectly functional
and completely absent.
Present in the body.
Gone in spirit.
The Waiting Place is where so many live…
But waiting does not heal you.
It preserves you
in the exact shape of your wound.
What the Waiting Place Steals
It steals your truth.
It slows your time.
It weakens your backbone.
In small surrenders.
The conversation you didn’t have.
The boundary you didn’t hold.
The dream you filed under later
as if later is a real place people go.
Every year you wait,
the distance between you
and your own life
grows wider.
Until one day
you are a stranger
to yourself.
And that is the loneliness
no one speaks of
not the absence of others,
but the absence of you.
Step Out
Not when you’re ready.
Not when the fear dissolves.
Not when the timing feels divine.
NOW
While the trembling.
With the half-formed courage
that barely fills your chest.
Because here is what I know
Your life is not on the other side of readiness.
It is here.
The Waiting Place was never your home.
Step out
…………………………….
Healing is not about waiting for the fog to lift.
It’s about learning to walk through it. Now.
Contact me if you recognize yourself in these words
and want to live more, wait less.
This conversation changes everything.
Dr. Ardeshir Mehran
Learn more: Therapy & Testimonials
A psychologist, depression and trauma expert, and leadership coach. Many see depression as an immovable cause. Ardeshir busts this myth and focuses attention on the real culprit: unfulfilled lives and the denial of our inner truth. Depression can be reliably healed.
BONUS:
Her Pain Is Real. Do You Know Why? About 50 million Americans live with chronic pain, and women are disproportionately affected. Why? Learn the reasons and a better path forward.
Depression in the Bedroom. People openly talk about burnout, depression, struggles, or trauma. But when depression enters the bedroom, silence and distance enter too. Learn the reasons and a better path forward.
Love Always,
-Ardeshir
Dr. Ardeshir Mehran
hello@ardeshirmehran.com
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Bestselling Book: You Are Not Depressed. You Are Un-Finished.
