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It’s a horrible, slow, painful build up. You try so hard to ignore it until it’s too late to stop it. It’s something that you never see coming even though you can see the signs coming hours out. You ignore it and ignore it until your hands are shaking so badly you can’t hold a pencil.
You try to work so hard. You ignore the signs that come in favor of trying to finish your work. You go and you go and you go, without stopping for a breath because if you do, you’ll stop and you won’t be able to start again.
It’s something that, once it finally catches up, makes sense that it choose now to come. It doesn’t make it any less terrifying. It doesn’t make it any less shocking. But, it makes sense. You understand why.
It starts in your fingers and toes. A stuttering coldness. It’s not fear or terror itself that it starts with, like most people think. It’s shaking hands and legs. It’s your own body rebelling against you.
Possibly the worst part is the achingly slow thought track building up to the moment of consumption. Like poetry that doesn’t rhyme.
How many days have you gone without sleep? Do you sleep? Can you sleep?
It asks. The shivering cold asks.
*You start hyperventilating
Did you eat today? How long can you go without eating? How many hours? How many days? Weeks? Have you tried to go months?
“What motivates you?” A friend asks
“Spite.” You reply.
*Your entire body shudders. It shudders as though it’s trying to rid itself of something inside of it.
Are you happy. Think about it, it’s a statement, not a question. Are you happy. Happy is such a strange word, the idea behind which is equally strange. It relates directly to the chemistry of our brains, and how our brains choose to motivate us to survive. Because of this you should have a desire to be happy. That being said, happiness is a lie, don’t fall for it.
*You can’t move. You're frozen in front of the work you were doing, trapped within yourself.
People are strange, aren’t they. How they think, how they act is all strange.
You don’t understand emotional hurt, but you know what it is to be lonely. You don’t understand depression, but you know what it is to be sad. You don’t understand anger, but know what it is to be mad. You don’t understand definition, do you know what it means to be defined?
*You’re gasping and choking, but you can’t breathe. You feel your soul begin to leave, to sink.
How they perceive you is a completely different story. You know how you seem exactly. You know how you are. People think you’re weird. People probably think you’re stupid. You know exactly, yet, there’s nothing you can do about it.
*You hear strangled noises escape your mouth but you can’t understand them.
“Do you like your life?” One of the psychologists asks.
Psychologists don’t help. Because there’s nothing wrong. How can you be broken if you work perfectly? Dealing with psychologists is easy, you’ve been doing it since the third grade.
Truth be told, you don’t even understand the question anymore. Truth be told, you think you do like your life, whatever that means.
“Yes.” You respond without actually thinking about the answer and the psychologist moves to the next topic.
*You want to scream. You try to scream but you can’t. Your voice won’t work. You won’t move.
Psychology has asked so many questions of you over the years.
“ADHD?”
Mabye.
“OCD?”
Mabye.
“Learning disability?”
Mabye.
“Autism?”
Mabye.
“Asperger's?”
Mabye.
“Sociopath?”
Mabye.
You don’t think the psychologists help. You think it’s a waste of time. So you decide to dismiss it.
*You twist and you writhe. No, wait. You’re not twisting and writhing, your body is.
That’s what you live off of, you. You call all the shots for yourself in one way or another. You won’t let anyone else. You won’t even let anyone else help. No one wants to help you anyways, so you work. You try so hard, to work so well.
“Homework? You mean watching movies on your computer?” Your mom says as she drives you home from work.
“She wants to take math classes over the summer, but I can’t believe she thinks she’s going to pass this year.” You hear your parents talking while you try and you try to sleep.
“I don’t want to take her, She’s not smart enough for this.” Your debate coach says to some of your other team members when she thinks you’re not there.
The comments bother you. You find yourself choking sometimes.
This is called hurt.
This is called pain.
These are feelings that inspire depression, sadness and anger. You try harder, and oh god it hurts so much. They don’t get it, what they imply with words like those. They don’t understand.
*You can’t feel your body. You can’t feel anything at all. You are not your body. That’s not where you are. You are exposed, somewhere far worse.
Which is why it’s no surprise. It’s never a surprise when that feeling finally works its way into your chest. The cold, black numbness that signals something. Something in control of you.
It’s no surprise when at 3am you can’t go anymore, can’t push anymore and the cold spreads over your body. And you still try to solve one more math problem, but you can’t. You’ve been hyperventilating for the past half an hour but only now does it catch up to you. It’s to late to stop it, you knew when it started creeping up on you, like a miserable, morbid, time bomb.
Your hands finally freeze. You go numb and you feel your soul collapsing in on itself and the thoughts flash by in absolutely, devastatingly painful clarity.
“Who do you think you are? You can’t. No.
Your body spasms and your eyes are open but unseeing. The unholy terror that takes you, takes you but not your body. Your body is left, curled in on itself in pain, gasping for air, tears leaking out of it’s eyes.
You sink into unfathomable depths in an endless inky black chasm. There are no thoughts now.
Just fear.
Just terror.
You stopped trying to call for help long ago. No one was coming. You’ve heard of people that can be soothed out of their panic attacks by friends or family. No one was coming for you.
Your body will remain curled in on itself in a vague attempt to defend itself from the psychological attack.
You will remain drowning in the pit until such time as you simply don’t.
There is no one coming.
No one to save you.
You are alone. You have always been alone
You finally let go.
You let it take you. Let the fear, the pain take you. You open yourself to it. You relax in fear. You focus on the dark. You stop trying not to be afraid and let terror consume you.
No one is coming for you. That’s okay.
You’re scared. That’s okay.
You accept it. You move beyond all feeling, all need to care. You take it all in and you let yourself fall.
Breathe.
Breathe.
They say, at every level of schooling, that it will be harder than the last. You’re going to have to be more independent and responsible than last time.
In Middle school: “This isn’t like elementary school. You have to be responsible for yourself. No one is holding your hand anymore.”
In High school: “This isn’t like middle school. You have to work for yourself. No one is holding your hand anymore.”
“No one is holding your hand anymore.”
No one is holding your hand anymore.
No one was ever holding my hand. Did other people get their hands held? Did other people get guidance and help?
You can feel your body breathing. You can feel your body.
Breathe.
Breathe.
At every graduation or milestone: “Thank all the people that got you here. Your family, your teachers, role models, friends. You couldn’t have gotten here without them.”
That’s always confused me.
My family didn’t go through four years of high school.
My family didn’t take advanced calculus.
My teachers weren’t there for me.
What the fuck’s a role model?
What’s a friend?
Everything that I’ve done is something I did. I had the consequences of my actions thrust onto me. Everything I chose to do I delt with. They ask you to give credit, to people when you achieve something, allow them to share and revel in what you’re responsible for. No one asks you to give credit when you’re sentenced to jail for murder. No one asks you to give credit to whomever helped you get there. “They dug their own grave.” People say.
Breathe
Breathe
A lot of the older generation: “Kid’s these days think the world owes them something.”
What? Since when? What the fuck does that even mean? How can a heap of rock hurtling through endless space and this thing humans call “time” owe me anything?
No, the “world” as you say, or society rather, owes me nothing. But I don’t owe it anything either. I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t ask to exist. I didn’t ask to be the way I am. I didn’t ask to live in a universe so narrow minded, they create loopholes to prevent each other from advancing.
I saw a post on 4chan the other day. “18 year olds in 1943 were storming beaches. 18 year olds today need a “safe place” because they’re being “harassed.”
Make up a war then.
Give me a reason to storm beaches.
I am not afraid to fight.
I am not afraid to die.
Humans create their own conflict because they lack conflict to drive their lives. That’s not going to change. Not ever. Even in times of peace, we fight.
Higher concepts like philosophy, science, and math are thrust aside on a daily basis. People have a need for conflict, that will never change.
Breathe.
Or don’t breathe.
It doesn't matter.
No one's coming.