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Fatigue comes in many different forms. After a hectic, exams filled day at school, after an extremely busy day at work, after a night out with friends, after too many drinks and too many laughs shared, watching the sun go up together, not bothering to go to sleep yet.
And then there´s the fatigue that comes with mental illness. The bone-crushing, soul-eating, I´m not able to fucking sleep even if I wanted to fatigue. The my meds need meds fatigue. The I don’t wanna be fucking alive anymore fatigue. The why am I fucking alive anymore fatigue. The just leave me the fuck alone fatigue. It eats away at you. Ever present. Little by little. Until one day, you don’t care anymore.
I lie on my bed in my boxers only. The windows are wide open. Night. Winter. I ´m still too hot. I don´t know for how long I´ve been staring at the same page, unable to process anything the book is trying to teach me. I throw it away with a resigned sigh and get up to start on that sixpack waiting in the fridge. I haven´t slept in three weeks. The marks have faded. Time for iteration.
Six beers, a bottle of wine and my favourite album later I sink the blade into my skin. This time it actually hurts, the pouring blood fascinates me. It´s worth it. I do it again. And again. I sink into blissful, restless sleep.
Next morning I finally take the much needed shower- no fucking bandages in the whole damn flat- and head out to my parents to help with the Christmas dinner preparations. I laugh and joke and act like my arm isn´t burning like fuck. Like I don´t wanna scream my lungs out. Like they all haven´t betrayed my trust. Like they hadn´t swept my last suicide attempt (the only one they knew of) under the carpet. Never to be mentioned again.
Gemma gives me a ride, telling me to take care of myself and I enter the empty flat. Throwing away my jumper. Checking my left arm. Tracing the lines with my fingers. Only four cuts will leave scars. I look around the room. The couch where you love to snuggle up to me. The carpet where we had sex a couple times. Made love a couple times. Where we cried into each other’s arms once. I keep standing there, unable to move for a while.
The fact you can´t be here for me right now would break me if I were still able to feel something. I wish I could cry. Numbness. Grey. That´s all there is.
I do some laundry, some groceries ‘shopping and am actually proud of myself, which is fucking pathetic. I shouldn´t have to be proud of doing some basic fucking shit.
Next time I see you it´s all distance and numbness and grey and hurt coiling somewhere really deep down, barely recognisable anger that would´ve set me off if I´ve never agreed to take those meds. We hold each other; I kiss your long faded scars, while you trace my new ones. “I can´t “, you say, and I understand. Always have. Always will. You´ve got your shit. I´ve got mine. Sometimes it just doesn´t mingle. I´d love to tell you it wasn´t fucking okay to abandon me for weeks at a time. That I needed you. That the only reason I was still alive was you. You would retaliate. Telling me I couldn´t leave you. That you were unable to keep doing this crap without me. That you needed me. That you couldn’t let me go. Tears would´ve been shed. Promises of I´d never leave you. I love you. I´ll stop. I love you too much.
Instead, there was silence.
I´m busting with energy. Redecorating, studying, dying my hair, shopping, cooking, cleaning, all within the time span of a couple hours. I´m untouchable. I´m bouncing off the walls. I´m beaming with happiness. I can´t deal with it. I wanna peel the skin off of my face. I go for a run. Only to get shit-faced and run a blade across my skin a couple hours later. Blissful, restless sleep.
When did I turn into this broken shell? When was the moment my brain decided to shut down on me? When will the disappointment leave my parents eyes? When will my sister stop acting like I physically hurt her instead of myself? When will I be able to feel close to you again? When will I be able to lock into a mirror and like what I see? Will I ever? Did I ever? Will there ever be a time again where I didn´t wish I was dead?
The next time we have sex I can barely feel myself. I go through the motions, hear your moans, moan myself, get us both off. I entangle myself from you shortly after you finally fall asleep.
I burn through a whole pack within twenty minutes.
Hypertension at its finest. My chest aches. I feel like needles are rammed into my thorax every time I try to catch my breath. I claw my nails into my arms. The professor rattles on. My lab partner never glances my way. I pack up my stuff with shaking limbs and make a run for it. Holding back the tears that won´t come.
I stand in front of my full-length mirror poking at my tummy and my arms and my thighs and my hips and my face and my bum and I just hate it all. Fat disgusting piece of shit.
I can´t deal with people today. At all. Just get the fuck off my back. Leave me alone. I can´t even stand you. Lou.
I spend the rest of the day trying to read my favourite book, listening to music and sipping vodka. Trying to ignore the pictures of us from a couple years ago. Louis and Harry. Harry and Louis. Us against the world. Against ourselves.
I drag you to one of the clubs we loved as teenagers. It´s still as dark, as dirty, as LOUD. I can feel the basslines thumping through me. My heart misses a beat or two. We get hammered in the matter of what seems like minutes, flailing our limbs around to beats I thought long forgotten. I cut my finger on a beer bottle I smashed accidently. You suck on it like a madman. Pupils blown. We make out in the smoker area, without a care in the world. Random strangers have a smoke with us, offer us beer. How I missed this crowd. Unfazed. Not judging. Welcoming.
“What do you wanna do with your life?” my therapist asks me again.
“I don´t know.” I say, as always. I have a couple good days in between. Days, when I´m able to get out of bed easily, do some chores. Can laugh and smile and have a good time. But they are rare. I know it won´t last. It never does. So what´s the point of planning a grand future I know I´ll never have? I´ll be proud if I make it to my next birthday.
“How´s Louis?”
“Better than me.”
“Don´t.” he says. We are snuggled up on the couch after a day of doing nothing but reading and napping. He touches my arm lightly. Tracing the lines. Moving up to my wrist.
“Don´t go.”
“I won´t.” I answer automatically.
“Promise?”
“Promise.” I say, after a moment of hesitation.
He pretends he didn´t notice.
I´m sat at my desk, staring at the wall. Taking a drag every now and then. My mind is an absolute clusterfuck. I know I´m thinking but I don´t know what about. I scratch away at a scab.
I´m trashed. Utterly trashed. I´m sitting in my dimly lit living room just gulping down beer after beer to stop the empty feeling in my chest. I know it won´t work. It never does. It never did.
I haven´t eaten in two days. I am proud of myself.
I remember the keys out of a sudden. The keys to my father’s clinic. I get up from the couch, put on pants, snatch them and leave my apartment. It´s only two blocks.
“Lou?” I whisper.
I can´t remember picking up the phone. I´m lying on my bed surrounded by a shitload of painkillers, syringes, scalpels and beta blockers. I must have passed out.
“Honey, what´s going on? Are you alright?” I hear the panic in his voice.
“…No… I´m not......... I went to dad´s clinic and…I have so much stuff here, Lou.”
“Can you promise me to not use any of it?”
“…No.” I breathe.
“I´m there in 15. Stay on the phone with me. Please. Don´t leave me.” His voice cracks.