I remember what it was like to be afraid.
Not the kind of fear that kept me awake at night, begging my mom to leave the light on so I could chase away the monsters that hid in the corners. Not the kind of fear that made me wake up and cry, waking my parents up and looking for some semblance of comfort from things that I knew didn’t even exist. I remember being afraid of things that most people would laugh at, call ridiculous and pass me off as insane or seeking attention. I was terrified to open a book, to pick up my pencil and do my homework, to stand up and leave a room, to eat a snack. I was scared to take a shower and wash my hands, scared to touch the doorknob, scared to go to sleep, scared to open my mouth, scared to pray. I knew, each time that I did any of those things, that my mind would run away with me, leaving me struggling to catch up to the things that I would never understand.
I still don’t understand.
I remember standing for what seemed like hours next to my parent’s bed, tears streaming down my face as I fought against myself, part of me longing to wake up my mom and beg for her comfort, another part of me terrified of what my dad would do, what he would say, not wanting to hear him raise his voice again when it was directed at me. And each time it was the same; a heaved sigh, the shifting of weight and the creak of the bedsprings as my mom got up and sat next to me on the couch, listening with what I now see as infinite patience as I tried in vain to describe to her what was bothering me and why. I knew that I was pulling too hard on her, relying too heavily, but I was utterly alone. I was terrified of my own mind, my own actions, as though I were a puppet on strings, being pulled on by invisible hands. She would take my hands in hers, reaching out for help from the one Person I knew we both could depend on. It was the thought of Him, of finding myself in His arms and hearing Him tell me to rest, to be at peace, that let me fall asleep on the nights when my tears wouldn’t stop. But after a while, that part of me that I hated with every fiber of my being, the part that I wanted more than anything to simply cut out, began to touch that part of me, to fill it with something that it never should have become.
Fear.
I don’t know how many times I said the same words, either on my own or with someone else, my heart trembling with fear and my lips quivering with unshed tears. Over and over again I said those words, until that was all they were; words. Meaningless, useless, just hanging there around my neck like a weight tethering me to the ground, making it impossible for me to move, even if I had had the courage, if I hadn’t been so weak. Prayer became a burden, something that made me terrified rather than peaceful. I was afraid of what came next, what would happen when I closed my eyes and never opened them again, when I was still a child myself.
Cold rooms, empty words, they meant nothing to me. No one understood me, no mater how much they tried. My mom loved me, but she never understood, either. We were all treading on fragile ground, trying not to break the fragile girl who only needed a slight nudge to be pushed over the edge again, into a hole that would take hours to pull her out of again.
I remember the way it felt to scrub my hands raw, passing off the blood and raw skin as just the cold, nothing more, to my friend. I remember when her mom handed me packets of vaseline to sooth the pain, how it felt to take them with a smile on my lips and try not to run away because I was a liar. I remember what it felt like to be unsure that I was even /myself/. I learned before I was even a teenager what it felt like to question your very existence, your very name, your very face. I would look in the mirror and the person staring back at me felt like someone else, a stranger, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She looked like me, she talked like me, but she wasn’t me, and she never could be. I wondered if she even was the same person.
I remember breaching these thoughts with my father, the way he had tried to make me feel better but somehow looked past me, the way I left feeling the same as I had when I went to him.
I remember having what seemed like no control over my own mouth, whispering words that would have shamed me in anyone else’s company, all to satisfy a demon inside of me that didn’t even have a face, a name.
I remember it all, even years later when the pain has been soothed, the thoughts pushed away by drugs and time.
The imaginary blood on my hands never seemed to go away, no matter how many times I ran them under the sink, scrubbing until it hurt just to move them. I felt a weight on my chest, words running through my head until they had no meaning anymore, just a heaviness in my stomach that made me feel sick every time I tried to speak. I remember the way my mom would begin to lose her patience, watching me and telling me to spit out whatever it was, not knowing that I couldn’t. I remember the times I would go to her in the night only to find her door locked, and would stand there and listen at the door to their soft breathing, tears in my eyes as I wondered why he was doing this, why I couldn’t find solace in the one thing that made any of it better. I remember knocking in vain and then sitting on the couch for almost an hour, crying until my mom finally opened the door and came out as I woke her up, sitting down next to me and asking again what was wrong.
It was a never-ending battle, both within me and outside of me. I couldn’t fall asleep because my mind was a battleground, strewn with thoughts and actions that I never did, that I never would do but that I was convinced I already had somehow. The blood flowed free as I destroyed my own life, my own memories, my own mind. Nothing was the way it should be; everything was hidden underneath a lie or half-truth, buried deep in the ground where nothing could ever reach it again. I threw away my own belongings because I was convinced they weren’t really mine, got rid of everything that could possibly remind me of what never was.
The small things, the big things, they all had the same ends. I remember the peaceful sleep that came when my eyelids were too heavy from tears to possibly keep them open any longer, no matter how much I might have wanted to. I remember finally finding some semblance of peace when I fell asleep to the sound of a stranger’s voice, telling me how to breathe, how to think, how to live.
I remember what it was like to be afraid.
Sometimes, I still am.
