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When I was a kid, I used to fall asleep to this CD/tape player I had. The cassette part didn’t make much sense for my age, I know, because it must have taken some searching to find a hybrid— I was an only child, it wasn’t a hand-me-down— but my parents had all these old chapter book tapes they didn’t want going to waste. Amazon was big enough by the time I was born that finding something niche wouldn’t be nearly as impossible as when they were kids.
In retrospect, it was a bad idea to give me the ability to read in the dark. Not that physical books were inaccessible, either; I used to sneak these little finger flashlights I’d get from my classmates’ birthday parties into my room so I could read under the covers. But, still, wasn't exactly the best idea for ensuring a good night’s rest.
I suspect the self-induced sleep deprivation was part of why I was such an awful kid; I’d lash out at other kids, teachers even, kicking and screaming and flailing my little fists, and, when I was older, fourth and fifth grade, I would even try to choke out other students for teasing me.
My explosions weren’t limited to school, but there’s only so much a kid from the ages of three to ten can do to its parents, so most of my fits at home were toward objects. I’d tear photos off the walls and tip over kitchen chairs and cut through loose electrical wires with garden shears. On one occasion, I pulled down the living room bookshelf, so my dad came over to pick up books from the heaps on the floor and throw them at me until I stopped screaming. Most were paperback, some were hardcover, but all of them were light enough to not leave any bruises. My dad was careful like that, like when I spilled my milk during dinner, so he threw a butter knife at me instead of anything sharper or heavier.
It wasn’t just my parents’ stuff I would ruin, though, just anything I could get my hands on. To contain me, my door got a custom job for its hinges and lock to be on the outside, so when I misbehaved, I’d be stuck, so I could only tear up my bedsheets and toys, or punch the wall until my knuckles bled— I never made a dent, because at most I was ten years old. The lock meant I was trapped in my room at night, too, so I couldn’t wander around and steal candy from the cupboards.
So that’s how I broke my tape player.
I screamed that I couldn’t go to sleep without my tape player, but my parents refused to buy another one just to have me destroy it during another one of my fits. I had to prove I was worthy.
Middle school was a weird change of pace. For some reason, the anger was replaced with anxiety; I’d start crying and run out of the classroom and hide in some back corner of the campus or the nearby creek, so staff would have to be on patrol for me in their stupid little golf carts. I was already in therapy as a kid— nothing effective, mind you, just a lot of breathing exercises and how was your week and when you get angry just stop and walk away, so a lot of flitting between adults I barely knew and didn’t care to talk to until eventually my parents decided to cut their losses and enroll me in free counseling instead of paying yet another person to play colors with me.
I could not tell you why I did all this. My dad suggested once I had ODD. Maybe that’s true. This is a deeply teenaged thing to say, but I don’t like authority. No one bothered to help me, I don’t see why I should help them.
Anyway, at some point my counselor asked how much I slept at night to which I responded like six hours I guess? Staying up til midnight and then getting ready to go to school by seven and I couldn’t go to sleep any earlier partially because of the workload partially because I just couldn’t and for some reason this actually led to a conversation with my parents, so they finally caved and bought me a little white noise speaker to maybe occupy my racing thoughts.
…My life really picked up from that point on. I couldn’t tell you how, but suddenly I was doing all my homework on time and falling asleep sharply at 9 and sleeping easily through 6 and getting up easily and going to school without complaint and talking to people and God, I was on the honor roll. I could not tell you how. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and decided to have a good work ethic, it just… happened. That white noise machine was all the exorcism I needed, I guess, so we’d take it everywhere, including on the little road trip we did over the summer to visit my aunt.
I did start having nightmares, though. Horrible, awful nightmares of my carpet suddenly becoming infested with worms or being chased by something I couldn’t see or falling for infinity— really, anything immediately distressing was fair game, and even when I woke up, I couldn’t… move. I’d be stuck staring at myself from up on the ceiling, and always there’d be something else in the room I couldn’t make out. Sometimes it was a sort of dog thing, sometimes the shadow of a person, but whatever form it took, it was ever-shifting, like I couldn’t quite put my eyes on it, or process what it was, in that dreamlike sort of way where something as simple as the color blue becomes nameless.
The monsters never did anything, though, which is why I never mentioned the nightmares to anyone. They were just dreams, after all, nothing that could hurt you.
You’re doing much better, my counselor said. Sure. Sure I was doing better, I had all A+s (I don’t remember doing the work), I had friends (I could not tell you their names), and I wasn’t angry anymore! I even looked a lot better; I was coming out of my shell.
My hoodies were gone, my skin was clear, my nails were neatly trimmed instead of bitten down. It was always such a hassle to get me to maintain my appearance; my long hair was knotty, and my mom would enlist my dad to hold me down while she brushed me. Formal occasions were the worst; I’d cry for hours at being told I had to wear a dress. Now I did so willingly, and my mom said how pleased she was to finally get some quality mother-daughter bonding in as I learned how to apply eyeliner. All the girls in eighth grade were wearing foundation to hide their acne, and that was only the bare minimum.
Life was good. I was good.
One dark Sunday morning, I was lying awake in bed, drenched in sweat. I’d woken up gasping from a dream where I was drowning in my own bathroom sink, and I was rather hesitant to go back to that dream. The white noise machine didn’t help either; I’d set it that night to ocean waves, and now, half-paralyzed with the remaining weight of sleep, I was coming to regret my decision.
It took some time to get myself moving, a long time spent staring at the ceiling, sort of expecting to see myself floating there, feeling my chest rise and fall, before suddenly stopping as I felt the presence of someone else.
There, at the foot of my bed, was what I could only call a big black dog, eyes gleaming in the dark. Any fear of pain wasn’t the issue; though I lay still as for it not to see me, what really threw me, more than any sharp teeth or claws could, was the way the room seemed to bend around it. Moonlight through my window grew dim, and I felt a tugging at my feet below the covers, as if gravity was pulling me in. I could not tear my eyes away, but sat there, staring, as it stared back at me, unblinking, unmoving.
My will was weak. I turned over and went back to my nightmares.
In the morning, I pulled out the cord to my white noise machine. When I went to bed, it was plugged back in. I disconnected it again.
No dreams.
I woke up late. My mom screamed at me to hurry up and get dressed, brush your hair and teeth, come on, you’re not a toddler, I shouldn’t have to remind you of this. My dad got up to yell at her for not getting me prepared in time, to which she said that I was the one wasting her time and why was it her fault anyway. To prove his point, he drove me to school.
The car ride was… tense. Silent. Though he never set his eyes on me, I can tell he was infuriated, though I didn’t know at who, and he wasn’t willing to elaborate on his emotions.
I have my suspicions, though.
Tonight, I’ll keep some garden shears beneath my mattress.