Authors note:
This is a work of fiction. The ideas the characters express are not necessarily that of the author.
PM or email me at asuraheterodyne gmail .com if you have any objections to this story I will take it down immediately.
Thank you.
The paper stared at her accusingly.
"Are you implying something?" She asked her doctor.
"No, no. It's just procedural. We are required to give this to everyone." The kind-faced woman replied.
She turned to her paper.
Do you ever feel like life isn't worth living? Circle one.
Never. Sometimes. All the time.
She thought about how useless she was. She was a waste. Someone else should take her place.
Never. She circled.
Have you ever thought of doing away with yourself? If so, how?
She thought back to the ride here. She had dreamed of how beautiful her blood would look spilling from her veins. She thought of the plastic bag she had hidden under her pillow so that she could just go to sleep and never have to wake up again.
N/A she wrote.
What would happen after you were dead?
This very question stayed her hand every time she ached for release. Her Mom and Dad and Sister and Friends would all wonder if it was anything they said or did. If there was anything they could have done to prevent her death.
After all, it's what she would do in their place.
My Grandchildren would cry. She replied flippantly.
Seriously, could the doctor be anymore obvious?
She wasn't depressed. She wasn't suicidal. The word 'suicidal' was reserved for those who were actually going to commit suicide. She knew she wouldn't do it. She was too cowardly.
Besides, her life was too perfect to be depressed. She had a Mom and Dad who were loving and attentive, and she had a Sister who was beautiful and smart. She had amazing and caring friends who she laughed with and genuinely liked her. She wasn't bullied, she wasn't poor, by all rights she should be happy. Right?
What did she do to deserve the life she had? There were many people who didn't have the opportunities she had who would flourish in her place. They would go on to do things that she couldn't fathom. How was it fair for her to be here? She was wasting this. Seven billion people. They all needed air and food and water and space and love. Many didn't have what she did. So why was she here?
She knew that she was a vile creature, everyone in her life could only benefit from her lack of existence, she was under no illusions this was no It's a Wonderful Life, she had saved no one, she had not made lives easier or better. She was just a leech. She wished that she was never born.
That was what she wanted. To have never existed. She didn't want to die, not really, everyone that knew her already would be haunted by her death. She had already poisoned them with her existence.
She finished the Questionnaire with all the answers that they wanted to hear. She didn't dare say what was really on her mind. She wasn't one of the kids who just did and thought these things for attention. She didn't have anything wrong in her life, so she wouldn't belittle the people who really had depression by claiming that she had it.
She smiled at the kind doctor as she handed back the questionnaire. The Doctor scanned the answers.
"You said that you often feel overwhelmed by life. Would you care to explain?" The Doctor looked at her with concern.
Panic lanced through her. She could feel adrenaline constricting her world to this tiny room with two women, one young, one older. She was glad her Mom wasn't in the room.
"Oh. Uh- yeah, It's just normal stuff. I'm in Drama Club, Gay-Straight-Alliance, and I have friends, and AP classes, a-and it gets really challenging y'know? It's nothing to get worried about." She feigned ease and good humor. She was just a teen who was complaining about classes. She had answered the question in the limited perspective of teenager-y ness.
She relaxed as the Doctor nodded and moved on. Time for questions about bowel-movements. Fun.
She got on the bus the next morning. How painful would it be to slit her own throat?
She listened to her teacher lecture about limits. Would she really die if she put a plastic bag over her head before she went to sleep?
She laughed with her best friend in hadn't she simply never existed?
She played a game at lunch with a dozen chattering friends. She wanted to cease. She was done.
She came back home.
She understood now. Why they take knives to their skin. It's to dull the pain. It's to feel something other than their own failure. It seeps into the walls, the floors. It's crippling. the frustration of trying and trying and trying. It's never good enough.
She kissed her family goodnight. She started the water for the shower and stepped into the comfortingly warm spray.
She wanted to hurt herself. She wanted to scream and punch and kick the person who did this to her: herself.
She toweled off.
She was worse than useless. She didn't even want to do her life over. She didn't want to have to go through hell again.
She went to bed.
She just wanted the comforting darkness. She wanted numbness. She wanted the unknowing, the unthinking nothing. The cessation of everything. She cried.
She didn't want to wake up.
The she woke up. She didn't want to do this again.
The sirens called to her, unbidden.
She wished that she could put on armor. Or take a break from the constant siren's song. It caught her off guard. It was exhausting and annoying.
She walked on the sidewalk. She saw a car coming down the road. What if the car lost control and slammed into her?
She sat next to the window on the fourth floor in class. What if she leaned against the window and she fell?
She saw a bottle of bleach in the janitor's closet. What if she drank some?
Her lunch was in a plastic shopping bag. What if she tied it over her face?
She made it to Drama practice. She was practicing her lines. She was good. She knew why.
It was because she did it so often. Every day she acted as though she was happy, in order to cover up the profound inadequacy, sadness, fear, resentment, anger, and hatred of herself.
School was a masquerade, with people presenting their masks to the world. She saw the colors swirling around her, gaudy and beautiful. Everyday she put on a mask. She was no different in that regard. But hers was so thick that she didn't know how fool anyone into believing that it was her real face. She had no clue how people didn't recoil from her in horror.
Her Mom drove her home. She did her homework. She ate dinner with her family. She laughed at the movie they had put on for family night. She said goodnight.
She started the water for the shower. She looked at the razor in her hand. What if she took it apart? No. Her parents would see it and get nervous.
She turned up the heat of the shower. The pain was a relief to her mind. It was beautiful. She deserved it.
She turned it up again. The pain was sharp on her skin. Pricking her everywhere. She couldn't think. Her mind was fully occupied by her body. She reveled the lack of feeling, and presence of sensation.
The heat ran out. No matter. She shivered violently in the icy blast. She scrubbed her skin raw. She wanted something to occupy her mind. Anything.
Her mom told her to get to bed or she would be tired in the morning.
She emerged from the shower, skin raw.
She went to bed, hating herself. Why did she do that? She didn't want to be one of the people who self-harmed. They were attention-seeking little drama-queens every one of them. So she was a loathsome attention seeking drama queen. At least there were no cuts to discover. She cried. She didn't want to wake up.
She woke up. Her alarm was beeping. She couldn't stay in bed, she would wake up the rest of the house. She hauled herself out of bed. Her head ached, she felt heavy. She couldn't remember a time when she didn't feel this way. She wondered why this always happened. Was it dehydration? She always drank at least a liter of water in the mornings but the headache and lead limbs stuck around all day, as it had yesterday and the day before.
Did she really need to get dressed? Yes. She couldn't walk around in her PJ's at school.
Did she really need to go downstairs. Yes. She needed to eat breakfast.
Did she really need to eat breakfast? Yes. She was hungry.
Did she really need to make lunch? Yes. She would be hungry later.
On and on the day dragged, as usual.
At lunch she laughed and talked and played. Every smile weighed on her, every movement. She was exhausted.
She was in class reading Hamlet when she saw it.
To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
She read the whole monologue though. She read it again. And again.
How did he know? Every day she had seen the wisdom of this but never had she thought of it so beautifully, and so succinctly. How did he know that death was as welcome as sleep? Why did anyone ever endure life when they could easily end it? The only parts that she could not empathize with were the parts with religion.
She had no clue how someone could go through life thinking that death would be paradise, and not hasten their arrival there. It would be too much of a temptation for her. It already was, even when she understood that the only thing that lay in the 'undiscovered country' of death was the lack of being.
A lack of being that she so 'devoutly wish'd'.
These beautiful heart-wrenching words were written centuries before her birth. People had always felt this way. She took comfort. People had always felt this way. Her father hadn't died, nor had his ghost told her to kill her uncle, but she felt the same way as Hamlet. She felt like she was wrapped in a warm blanket.
She had to stop. She was going to cry. Right there in the classroom. Then she would have to answer questions that she didn't have the energy to lie about.
She needed something to focus on. Something other than the centuries old words. She fiddled with the rubber band on her wrist. Her attention latched onto it. Well, she did need a distraction.
She looked at the teacher, and allowed her eyes to glaze like she knew that the rest of the class was doing in reaction to the lecture. She nonchalantly pulled at the rubber band.
It hit her skin with a satisfying snap. She gritted her teeth at the sting. Her throat lost the ache of swallowed sobs. She did it again. Her eyes pricked for a different reason now. She did it again. She needed to stop. She did it again. People were looking at her funny. She fingered the rubber band, but did not do it again.
She came home. Her dad was in a foul mood. Her dad was snappy and short tempered. She didn't know that something had gone wrong at her dad's work. She was silent as her dad yelled at her for something. She went to her room. She cried.
She held the razor in her hand. Her blood would be so beautiful. Her life would leak away. She couldn't do this, her dad would never forgive himself if she did this. It wasn't his fault. She shouldn't do this now.
Blood welled at the shallow prick she had made. A single drop fell to the bathroom tile. A ruby on snow.
A drop of her life on the cheap and dirty tile. How fitting. Her blood did more good on the ground than in her veins.
She hid the razorblade. She cleaned up the blood. Her skin had already sealed itself. It was only a scratch after all. The itch continued.
She woke up. Her pillow was still wet from last nights tears. Her face was salty and her eyes were still swollen.
Why did she do this everyday? Why couldn't she, why shouldn't she rest? Her mind rested again on her family. How they would feel. How could it be selfish to do something that would benefit everyone around her, even if they would hate it.
It was foggy that morning. It swirled in a dancing dark haze. It made the streetlamps glow in an orange globe. The street was invisible. She listened to music. Her earbuds lodged firmly in her ears, as she listened to Adagio in G minor the lilting fairy-like cry of the violins she crossed the street. She was suddenly bathed in light. A car had come around the corner.
She had been avoiding this, but it was unavoidable. She had an appointment after all. Everyone did.
Authors note:
This story is based off of my experience. I have never told anyone about this. I did not self-harm, but I seriously considered suicide. Like the character in this story I knew I wasn't going to do it. Unlike this character I didn't get hit by a car. :)
The state of mind that the character expresses maps fairly well to the state of mind that I was in all of junior year and half of senior year. To this day I am still terrified of going back to that place. I still don't know for sure if I had depression, or if I was just being dramatic. That said, I do not take depression lightly.
Hopefully this story is therapeutic for myself, and for people reading it. I hope to give people a glimpse into the mind of someone who feels like this, and give them reference for friends, loved ones, and possibly themselves.
To anyone who knows me and is reading this, I'm sorry I didn't tell you.