Trigger Warning: Depression, Self-Injury, Suicidal Thoughts
I am the shadow lingering over your head, the nightmares you feel during your days. I am the voice screaming what a failure you are, how worthless you are, how you will never amount to anything, how everyone hates you. The voice that wails on no matter how many kind words others might have for you, the voice of painful persistence. I am the tears soaking your pillow, the uncontrollable thoughts of sorrow that make it difficult for you to even raise yourself from your bed in the morning. The apathy as to what happens to you. The want to disappear, to fade into non-existence, to simply check out. I am a song of disappointment and fear, a hammering in your head, a self-doubt and self-hatred that won't go away. I am what makes you distance yourself from friends and family, what makes you begin to abhor comfort from others because it is no longer comforting -- it is now a sting to your soul, a mocking force more painful than the numbness you feel. I am your nightmares, causing you to toss and turn during the night, creating bags around your reddened eyes. The nightmares that follow you throughout your monotonous days.
I am the thoughts of the past that come back like stealthy ghosts, reminding you of every negative word that has ever hit you. The taunting you experienced in grade school, the poor grades you got in a class, the scolding of your parents, the lack of attention from friends. How your things were once vandalized. How you were part of a "reject group" before moving, at which point you had no friends. I am this reminder, always with you, of everything that has alienated you. I am the reminder of everything you've ever done wrong. The time you ignored a friend, only to find later how much they had been needing to talk, how much they had been hurting. The time you teased another, even if they didn't know it, even if only behind their back, even if only in your mind.
I am the driving force behind your bruises and cuts, your meager attempt to release me from your body, to get rid of the anxiety that I cause. I am what makes you secretly love the pain, turning your attempt to free yourself from me into an attachment all the more difficult to separate yourself from. I am what causes your own self-destruction, your horrific growing love for me, your addiction. It feels good to hurt.
I am the "what ifs" and the "hows". The thought each time you take your medication, the medication meant to free yourself from me, of downing the bottle of pills instead. The thought each time you're cutting up your vegetables for dinner of the knife's blade, lightly dragging it across your wrist not even enough to leave a mark but enough to provoke all sorts of thoughts as you continue to slice the onions that bring your eyes to tears. I am the thought that causes you to feel fear and intrigue in ropes, belts, even your own bed sheets. That causes you to look at the bar of your closet. The thought that, each time you wait for the cross signal at the corner of a street, teases you to step out in front of a car. The thought that makes you sit on the window sill and look down with a slight spike of adrenaline. I am the thought that makes you wonder if you should -- would, you mean to think -- leave a note for your family and friends. The thought that makes you wonder even what you would want to wear or what time of day you would want to do it. The thought that makes you wonder and worry who would first discover you and how long it would take for you to be found. The thought that makes you wonder if others might think it was an accident, if they feel you would have regretted it had you not succeeded. The thought that makes you worry about not succeeding -- not that you would ever try, you tell yourself when you think I'm not listening. But if you did try. If you didn't succeed. What then?
I am the thought of your own funeral, of who would attend, of what they would say about you. I am the thought that tries to fight against your natural instinct to think of your family and how much you would have hurt them. I am the thought of the grave, of the afterlife should one exist, of hell.
Does it matter if this place others call "hell" exists?
For that is what I am.
I am hell.
Nightmare Pherret
Laur
