I have woken up shaken like this countless times, glued to my bed, my gaze moving around the room and making sure where I am. It takes me a couple of minutes before I’m able to will my body to move. The first thing I hear is his voice billowing through the stairs to my room, asking as always when I was going to stop seeing my therapist. I have witnessed this argument before, and I wasn’t about to get involved another time. Both of my parents seem to think that there’s something wrong with me, except each one of them reacts to it differently. My mother thinks I’m depressed, my father believes it’s a hormones issue. Expected. I get up, wash, and without failing to notice that the sounds subside as the water flushes. Downstairs, my father is already getting ready to leave, he says a quick good morning with a look that says he’s fed up with this show of kindness and closes the door behind him. My mother starts her daily task, hovering over me in fear that I might take the closest knife and cut my wrists with it, or maybe drown myself in the sink. Still, I don’t let my thoughts show and I tried to be kinder to her today, like every single day, because if there was anyone about to break, it was her, and she does a very bad show of hiding it.

I make my breakfast quickly and try to glide unnoticed to school. Unnoticed, that’s how I want to live, and that’s how I survived all these years. Until last summer when I had an accident and the news got around that I was attempting to kill myself. I honestly don’t know what I was attempting, I don’t even remember getting into the car and driving fast, I usually stay below the speed limit. But they said that it was a miracle I survived with minor injuries, the car didn’t. It went straight to the dump. My father was furious, He still is in fact. But I guess that’s just the way he is, furious. But it’s not the only thing making my mother go off her hinges; not only did she witness her daughter being pulled on a gurney and into the hospital with no apparent gashes and a huge risk of internal bleeding. The month before the accident I was in my room, sprawled on the floor and trying to even my breathing. Tears were streaming down my face and it felt like dying, but I knew what it was, I knew it was going to fade away if I just let it get through me because there was no other way to do it. I was having a panic attack, not my first, but it was my mom’s first time watching her daughter on the cold floor, struggling for air as if some invisible hand was choking me and pushing down a huge weight on my chest. It was almost done when she came in, the worst part was already done and I was glad she didn’t witness it. I have learned to listen, lay still and listen for them, I have thought for a while that if I lay still long enough, they wouldn’t come, they would think I was fast asleep and just leave me alone for once. It never worked. 

They used to come at night, back at a time when they were nothing but an abstract little something taking the smallest space in the back of my head. And each night, that little something came out and ran through my skull, going round and round and round, dragging me with it along the floor of my exhausted thoughts. But now, they come at all times, they’ve morphed into tangible shapes that I can never describe, but can always feel, hear and see. They stopped waiting for me to be alone, they’ve grown so familiar with me, so comfortable that they’d come at all times, in all situations, and just linger somewhere I can see them. As if to let me know who is in charge. As if I would ever forget that I wasn’t on top of them. And then, when they’re ready for me, they’d come nearer and take my hand, and if I try to pull away, the grip would only tighten.  It’s for you that we’re doing this, they’d say, we only want what’s best for you, they’d repeat times and times over.

In the blink of an eye, we’re soaring up, leaving my body behind, and we’d go through spirals that neither have a start nor a finish line. Round and round the spirals we go, until I’m clutching my head and a scream forms in my throat but forever stays there. And I want to tell them to stop, to just leave me alone, I want to tell them that I no longer want to think, but they’ve taken away my voice and deafened their ears. I want to scream enough, but I can’t, because they’re not real, and I can’t scream at the void or everyone would think I’m a lunatic. They’re not real, I tell myself, please get a grip on your mind and my sole plead. And for the moment it’s over, only to restart some other time, some other day.

After the episode was through with me, I stayed in my position, stoned and numb from the effort. My mother needed an explanation and I briefed her on the situation, keeping out that it wasn’t my first. That’s when her concern for my mental health started taking root in our lives, roots that I reinforced by going straight into that tree.

It’s been four months now, and though everyone seems to have forgotten, I keep to myself. That’s how I’ve always been. I sit for class after class and it’s all I can do not to zone out, I do that a lot, zoning out. One moment I’m here, the next my mind goes to very unpleasant places. My therapist thinks it’s some trauma I have stored and I needed to dig for and get out of my system. She thinks that perhaps because it was too hard for me to take, my mind stashed it away like we stash broken machines and kept it at the bottom of my unconsciousness. When my classes are done and I’m out, I notice something very unusual about the air; it’s stuffy and bleak as if a paintbrush was taken across its canvas and as it went, took all color with it, leaving only black and white and everything on their edges. I must be delirious, or perhaps my medication was taking its toll. Far away, I see a big black shape moving toward me, I don’t move, not even the tiniest muscle, but I realize late that it’s not because I’m brave, I’m just transfixed to the spot as if by a magnet. There are others on the street but no one seems to take notice of the shape advancing toward me. In fact, it looks as if it’s giving itself a clear way right through groups of people. It doesn’t even have to make an effort.

– Hello there! It took me a moment to find my voice, and what came next was unintelligible even to my ears.

– Uh…Hello?

– You must be wondering who I am, I will make this short and save us both the trouble of an awkward introduction. What do you say?

And without waiting for an answer:

– I’m darkness; I promise you a safe haven, calm, and protection from everyone. I’ll take you in and let no one come closer.

– But… my parents. I can’t leave them behind and just give up everything.

– I’m not asking you to leave your parents. I’m only offering a sanctuary inside your life. You get to keep everything you already have.

– But?

– Well, yeah. My offer comes with rules. I take over your soul because you see, that’s how I can keep you safe. I numb you, keep you away from hurt and by default keep people at bay. What do you say?

– I say we have a deal.

Darkness then took me in, it engulfed me from all sides, it wasn’t just obscuring my sight, it made everything around me bleak, things that I used to know and love no longer made sense to me in their existence. It was like falling down an abyss, so long I lost count of how many breaths it took me to hit the ground, but when I hit it, I felt no pain; it was like floating on my back in an endless dark sea. I’m calm, or the ground is (or is it water?), doesn’t matter as we are one. My head rests on the clouds, my hands plunge in what must be velvet; I make a water angel. This substance carrying me is a curious one, I hold a handful of it, and when I look closely at it, I find myself holding words and letters, I’m floating over a whole sea of them, and they’ve never felt better. I remain in this state for days on end, darkness has kept its end of the bargain, but I’ve grown weary of it, I am tired of the shadow that’s been keeping me company since that day. I slowly drifted away from everything, strings falling apart ever so slowly, no clean-cut was done, and it was all so rubbery. Every night, there’s a back and forth of pulling between us, I end up winning but falling, and it doesn’t end, it’s a black hole I don’t want to get out from, don’t want to be saved from. It’s my friend, I tell myself, my comfort; it lulls me to sleep every night, weighs down my eyelids, and takes control. “Rest your head”, it has repeatedly told me, “I’ll take it from here”. You don’t have to think, nor feel, close your eyes and let me take you in, I am safe, and I am protecting you. It says.  It’s a veil between me and everything else, between me and myself, it’s thick but transparent, I can’t get through it, though unsure if I really want to, but I can still see everything happening around. I’m constantly detached, looking from above on a body trying to find a way to live, and I pity its state. I feel sorry for it, only to remember it’s no one but me.

Today, I gathered what power I had and looked my mother in the eye, and whispered: Help me! But the shadow saw me doing it, and that night, darkness overwhelmed me, it dragged me to the center of my existence and started spreading seeds all over me, littering them with fertilizer every now and then, they grew up fast, and ugly. What I was seeing weren’t ordinary plants, they were vicious, a dark green color, they tangled around one another, and before I realized, they were all over me, grabbing my limbs in a tight grasp, cupping my face so hard not a voice could have escaped me. It hit me at once that the plant I was tousled in was the devil’s snare. I remembered then that what I needed to do was let in some light to make it loosen its grip on me.  I saw then the shadow coming at me with a pick, I foolishly thought at first that it was coming to save me, but the look in its eyes told me otherwise, it then started hitting at random, not aiming at anything in particular, just wanting to destroy, and from below the plant, I felt the tip of its weapon go right through my heart. I never thought breathing would be so painful, every intake of breath seemed to release from within me an incredible amount of light, yes, light, and something fiery red with streaks of gold that I recognized as my phoenix.

But that was the last thing I remember, I don’t know how long I laid here, I don’t know what happened afterward, all I know is that when I opened my eyes, it was gone, to my relief, but there was so much debris left, so much I had to sweep and toss away. I went straight to my mother and told her I wanted to see my therapist if she could maybe get me an appointment. And I don’t know why the look of incredulity in her eyes and the tears she failed to hide from me hurt me the way they did. But it was alright, I could feel something at last, though hurt wasn’t the perfect way to resuming my feelings, it was something.