Sometimes being self-aware is a curse. It creates an anxiety around every action and decision. Some of the first memories I have involve me restraining my excitement. I didn’t want people to notice me. I remember thinking ‘people will think you want attention.’ Now I ask myself: is that a bad thing? Isn’t that a normal thing?
I remember as a child not wanting to feel joy. I associated happiness with disappointment. I thought happiness was foolish. It meant I trusted something enough to allow it to affect me. I thought I was being smart by denying myself happiness. If I didn’t feel hope I would never have that hope dashed to pieces. I was preparing myself for the worst possible outcomes.
I didn’t tell my parents I was skipping school. Eventually, the school stopped calling when I didn’t show up. I didn’t tell my parents I was staying up all night because waking up alive devastated me. I didn’t tell them that some nights, I would drug myself with massive doses of headache pills so I could fall asleep without having to lie awake in silence for too long.
I didn’t tell them I exercised at night because I was afraid of gaining weight or that I didn’t eat for days at a time or that I loved that feeling of hunger. I didn’t tell them that sometimes I would inflict pain upon myself. It made me feel like I was receiving punishment I deserved. It made me feel a physical hurt that was preferable to the mental agony I couldn’t give up on.
I didn’t want my parents to think I just wanted attention.
I finally sought help in my second year of university. I had started sleeping with the lights on because I was imagining demons in my room when I closed my eyes.
The antidepressants made me dozy and unable to focus. I was dizzy and my mind felt cloudy all the time. It was a different kind of numbness. Vegetable-like. I couldn’t hold a conversation. I was an English and History major but I’d lost my ability to read. I slept constantly. I stopped making eye-contact.
Absently Searching 