They make adversity seem like a business deal, a time share, with misleading- though well intended- words. They say, "It's okay, you'll get through it eventually", or "If you get through this now, it'll be much better later", they make promises, they make deals. You can't peer over the brick mountain like they can, you decide to trust them. Sometimes they are right, sometimes it just takes some patient perseverance, sometimes you just have to wait out the metaphorical storm, that the test of time can work away the throws of depression and insomnia, that a months wait can change your fortune. They say that it's "all in your head", like you actually have a choice about how you feel, about the chemical imbalances in your brain, as if you want to be stressed out, anxious, 'insane'. They make you feel like an outsider, like some piece of your brain is fueled by secret ambitions to conspire against you, you are a prisoner in your own mind. There's nothing wrong with you, these things take time they say. You don't want the stares, you don't want the attention, you want to be alone. You are alone, here. Your friends are all you have, they're the only ones you've told, but as you peer out behind a cloud of nebulous thoughts, you can't grasp what they have to say, there must be cotton in your ears, you don't understand their concerns, their advice.
You don't understand how you got from there to here. You don't remember when you started smiling again, when you started sleeping, when you could distinguish past from present, when you started to hope. You don't remember when your memories became coherent, linear, when drifting whispers ceased to reach your ears, when you could stop lying to keep your cover. You wish you could remember the nuances, so you could write them down for future instruction. You know that these things come and go, you know that you'll go through this again, you steel yourself, that was then and this is now. Your not sure what to do now, now that you spent weeks, months- years- battling your mind demon, time is inconsequential to you now. Your friends congratulate you, like you just won an award, like you won a marathon through asthma-ridden lungs. You're not sure if they get what you've just done, though you certainly feel that way, you've never felt this alive before. You face the universe, and you can see it's swirling colours.
There's only one direction to go, your back faces adversity.