Forgotten How To Breathe
Ever since that day, I feel like I've forgotten how to breathe.
There is something so visceral about being slowly suffocated to death in a box, where every breath you take uses up what little oxygen you have left, that alters your senses forever.
When I wake up in the night, every night, I am always gasping for air. When I sit at my desk, concentrating on my work, my brain is counting every movement of my chest. Even when I am arm deep in blood and guts out on a scene or in the Lab, each moment is defined by the very thought of breathing and what would happen if I just stopped.
From the moment I released myself from that traumatic hellhole and tumbled out into the hot summer sun it was as if my consciousness split in two. There is Nikki as was, the rational and relatively level-headed doctor and scientist, and then there is Nikki as is, the raw haunted mess traumatised by experiences that shadow her wherever she goes.
Every day my soul fights a battle between these two halves, but unfortunately for me the sprawling mass of fear that has crept into my very being and turned my lungs to concrete is winning a little more every day.
I used to curl up comfortably in bed, wrapped in a duvet cocoon appreciating every second of precious sleep. Now instead I lie flat on my back, counting breaths, reminding my body to do what should come naturally but no longer does. My overreliance on coffee and chocolate to get me through the excruciatingly long days after incredibly long, painful nights was becoming more than just a habit.
People had commented that I looked ill and I had continuously fobbed them off with talk of flu bugs, food poisoning and alike but in truth I could no longer hide the dark circles, pallid face and lank hair. No amount of cold showers and expensive make up could cover up a body that was rebelling against itself. My muscles ached, my skin positively hurt, and my bones felt like they were working at odds to the rest of me, and yet still my only focus was on keeping myself breathing.
I had met many people in my line of work who had wished their loved ones had been given a second chance at life, whereas here I was squandering mine. I had always assumed traumatic experiences would force you to count your blessings and make you push life to the max, but instead I was living a slow death.
In that box all I had wanted was to survive, until that epiphanic moment where I made the decision to sacrifice myself to save others. Somehow in that moment I had seen myself as expendable and whilst I was grateful not to have died, it was as if my life now seemed far less important. Not worth the trouble fighting for.
And it was in rating myself insignificant in this world that my mind, body and soul had united in a decision to break. In becoming so abjectly focused on breathing, to the point of it becoming all consuming, the only thing I now cared about was the very thing I used to be scared about.
What happens when it all stops? What happens when there is nothing left except me?
What happens when the only thing that you have left is reminding yourself to breathe?