Thirty-two: Cement Walls

Temperance

Anxiety. My anxiety can go from one to ten in a matter of seconds.

One minute I can be fine. The next, I'm on the ground shaking, trying to get the oxygen into my lungs.

Anxiety is like a monster. It's a monster that doesn't go away. It's a monster that attacks you whenever it wants because it doesn't care about what you think.

I say I need to go to the restroom for stomach problems. It's not the stomach problems everyone is thinking about.

It's the anxiety making my stomach churn. Making me fall to the ground holding my stomach while I break out into a cold sweat, rocking back and forth on the ground.

My heart feels like it's going to burst... it's all I worry about. Wondering if it's going to explode inside my chest and kill me slowly because it's beating so fast. Because it hurts so much.

It's the thing that causes me to lose my breath and causes me not to form a simple word.

It could be wonderful. Then the anxiety knocks on my door.

I stay quiet, so it won't know I'm here. So it won't know I'm home. And I'm hoping it will just go away.

But it doesn't go away. It knocks harder and harder, trying to get in until it finally opens the lock by itself, and then it's in.

It's terrorizing me and causing me to lose control.

When you have anxiety. You're not in control. You might think you are... but the truth is that you're not. The truth is that there's a monster that's in control.

This monster isn't the kind that hides in my closet or under my bed, causing me to keep my feet on the bed because I'm scared it will come out and grab me.

It's the kind of monster in my head that will take me by the hair and yank me back. It's the kind that can get me whenever I'm in the light. Whenever I'm in the open, it's the kind that will terrorize me no matter what I'm doing because it doesn't care.

Others feel like they are drowning and they can't get up.

I feel like I'm trapped in the middle of four cement walls with little cracks in them, letting a little light in at the time.

I don't know what's behind those walls. I have a hint. And it scares me. It scares me more than I can even explain because I know if the walls all break at once, then I could take my very last breath at any moment.

These walls, you see... they are hiding a lot of darkness behind them. A lot of pain. A lot of secrets.

Sometimes instead of the light that comes through... it's the darkness.

I get so depressed that I don't want to eat. I just lay in my bed and cry, not being able to move. Not being able to talk. I lay in the dark and think about suicide. Thinking about ways, I would kill myself.

I could slit my wrists.

I could take a bottle of pills.

I could lay out in the middle of the road at night when everyone goes to bed waiting for a car to run over me.

Whenever darkness comes through those cracks, it's not just one or the other. It's not anxiety or depression.

It's both.

And it hits me like a train coming at full speed, not going to slow down or stop for me. Instead, it goes faster and faster until it hits me.

When it hits me, I fall backward, losing my breath as tears roll down my face as I lay under the train that's still moving. Like the conductor under the train wanted me to feel like this.

After the train is gone, all I can do is lay on my back. I'm supposed to feel all the pain. All the broken bones. And I do. And I cry there. Why does this happen to me?

But if I really think about it. Why wouldn't it happen to me? I'm nothing special. I've learned that a long time ago.

Even if I did have the chance to pass all of this pain and misery off to someone else, I wouldn't.

I know that most people cannot handle the pain I face every day. I know most people can't be as strong as I am.

I feel like the cement walls surrounding me get smaller and smaller every day, closing in on me. It's suffocating.

I can't breathe.

I can't think.

Sometimes the wall breaks a little. A few pieces of cement fall in front of me then the darkness and misery come down and consumes me.

Coming in through my eyes and mouth, making a hurricane inside me.

When I scream and cry, no one listens. And I don't know why.

Maybe it's because the screams and cries aren't out loud but internal?

Maybe it's because they aren't listening.

Maybe it's because when they look into my broken and sad, dull eyes, they can't see the storm happening beneath the surface even though my palms are sweating and I'm shaking while not being able to form a sentence.

Maybe they look past that all because they really don't care about what I feel.

They are more worried about their own problems and not mine.

Which is fine with me.

If anyone reached below my surface, they'd get too far sucked into the madness. They would look at me funny and leave while being so disgusted by what they saw.

That's what I imagine, at least.

No one sees the girl cowering inside of the four cement walls.

No one sees the girl shaking in pain and throwing up in the toilet because everything is too emotional and physical.

No one sees that girl because I don't let them.

I don't want them to see that.

I don't want them to see the train that hits me while it's going full speed.

But that's ok. I've been dealing with it for a long time now.

By myself.
A Thousand Lies
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