Everyday Moments:
Ive always been this way. I want the option, and I want to make the active choice of not taking it. I want the knife, the ledge, the gun, to be there and for me not to take it. I practice this everyday. I cut chicken to eat, I walk to the ledge carefully to take the perfect photo, I hold the gun carefully until Carla finishes cleaning her closet.
1. I can always be passive and calm if I need to be; even if it means im blunt, rude, and alone
2. I will always think before acting rashly; if i did not think, it was not me
3. In or Out of my body, I am never alone
4. You can never waste, when at some point you will waste away
5. I love my family
( not my writing )
AN: So the tone changes quite a lot in this chapter, and there's a reason for it. I tried to convey how dramatically my mindstate switches when I enter a depressive episode. My thoughts often feel like they're spiraling back on each other and everything get very disconnected and repetitive and introspective. If I did my job well, you'll feel that.
I'm just going to come out and admit that I'm very nervous about this chapter. I talk about things in here that I haven't really talked about to anyone. I also touch on topics that are really personal for me. However, there was something super therapeutic about getting it all down on paper.
Also: this is just your daily reminder that I love you and that you're all the best. Please take care of yourselves. Take a moment to list five good things about yourself. Do it for me, your #1 fan.
WARNINGS: suicidal thoughts and actions, sort of a suicide attempt (not really, but be aware of it), depression, self harm
"Among individuals reporting a lifetime history of suicide attempts, over 70% had an anxiety disorder."
-The Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders and Suicide Attempts: Findings from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions
Children will play tag even if no one ever teaches them the game. You see, there are things that you are born knowing. Things that are coded into your DNA. Things that are written in your stars.
Things you cannot escape. The inevitability of fate.
These are the things that Peter Parker has known since before he knew anything else:
He is lonely, but he is never alone. The thoughts in his head will chase him until his metaphorical legs give out. There is no rest for people like him, for people who have never tasted silence.
He is lonely, but he is never alone. He will never be alone.
He can try to speak but the words will get caged behind teeth. He speaks and speaks and speaks and no one hears.
Well, everyone hears but no one hears.
(He can speak and speak and speak but the words are never right. They do not fit. They do not sing. They are always the wrong words.)
Some people explode when they break. Peter Parker breaks, but he never explodes. Explosions are bright and loud and if he is bright and loud then people will look and when people look, people see, and there are things inside him that people cannot see. The echoes of his own insignificance. The damning fact that he will never be enough.
So Peter Parker implodes. He collapses inward like a dying star and the vacuum that has become the apex of his being swallows the screams.
Peter Parker knows only two emotions: fear and the absence of fear. He is like a computer. He functions on zeros or ones. When he is not fear, he is apathy. The numbness crawls between his ribcage and runs frigid fingers down his lungs. He cannot breathe, and he cannot fight.
They tell him to smother the fear until it flickers into nothingness. But Peter Parker is fear. If he is not afraid, what is he?
Without the fear, he is just a shell. An empty, hollow shell.
He is tired. He does not know if that is anxiety or depression or Peter Parker talking. Is there even a difference? He does not know. He's never known. They are tangled together like a forgotten headphone jack. He cannot find the ends. He cannot unravel the mess.
He does not know. He has never known.
But these are the things that Peter Parker knows. These are his unshakeable destinies. His future in the stars.
He knows that he wants quiet. He knows that silence is a sound he has never known. He knows that there is only one path to knowing.
One step. One fall. One ending.
Peter Parker stands on the roof, but Peter Parker never jumps. Depression says he should, but anxiety is afraid of heights. Peter Parker sits between the two, the rope to their tug-o-war.
He tips forward. He tips back. He takes in a lungful of frigid air and revels in the way it burns his lungs.
For the first time in his life, Peter Parker wishes he was afraid.
But he isn't. Instead, he doesn't feel anything at all.
He wonders if he is still alive. Can you be alive if you can't feel? He was out here last night. Did he jump? Was he already dead?
Was he ever even alive in the first place?
Peter Parker stands on the edge of the roof, thinking about the things he knows and the things he does not, with the toes of his sneakers just off the ledge, and wonders what it would feel like to jump.
What would it be like to snuff yourself out? Is it free will, or a predetermined fate? Is it something he knows, or something he does not?
Metal boots clang onto the roof behind him. They are rushed, off kilter.
"Peter!"
His mentor sounds afraid. That is something Peter Parker knows. He understands fear. Fear and the absence of anything at all. These are things he knows.
"Hi, Mister Stark."
"Hey, kid. What're you doing up there?"
Thinking about the things I know. Wondering about the things I don't. If I know that I don't know something, is that something that I know?
"Thinking."
"Yeah? You maybe wanna try doing your thinking a little farther from the edge, kiddo?"
"Not really."
"Okay, then."
The Iron Man suit materializes beside him. A metal gauntlet grabs his arm and holds on tight.
There are things that Peter Parker knows. He knows that he has social anxiety. He knows that he is depressed. He knows that there is only one path to silence.
But he also knows that Tony Stark will never let him fall.
The quiet has to wait.
"So…" His mentor has flipped up the faceplate, "you gonna jump?"
Peter hesitates. Tony doesn't breathe.
"No." The roof is cold. "Not tonight."
"Okay." There is relief in Mister Stark's voice. That is something Peter does not know. There is also fear. That is something Peter knows very well. "Okay. That's good, Peter. That's really good. We can work with that."
He looks back over the ledge. Hears the way Mister Stark's breath catches in his throat as he tips his weight towards the drop. The fingers on his arm tighten.
They stand. To Tony, it is silent. To Peter, it is nothing of the sort.
(There is silence with a step. A path to the end. But Tony Stark is here and Tony Stark will never let Peter Parker fall.)
"Do you want to die, Peter?"
Someone else would have danced around the question, but Tony Stark does not. Hesitation is fatal. This is something Tony Stark knows. It is in his DNA. The blip within his stars.
"Sometimes."
"Can you tell me why? Do you know?"
Peter just wants silence. Peter wants to feel. Peter wants to forget the taste of fear.
"I want it to be quiet." Peter looks at Tony. "Make it quiet, Mister Stark. Please. Please make it quiet."
The suit melts away, and Tony pulls Peter away from the ledge. He does not resist.
(Tony Stark is here. Tony Stark will never let Peter Parker fall. This is something both men know. It is in their DNA.)
Tony is hugging Peter, but it is more than a hug. Tony Stark is trying to make the world silent.
It doesn't work. The thoughts do not stop. There is only one path to silence. One step to the end.
But for the first time in a long time, Peter Parker feels.
(Peter Parker loves Tony Stark. This is something he knows. This is something he feels.)
"We'll find you silence, Peter." The vibrations from his mentor's voice rumble through Peter's chest. They remind him that he's alive. "We will. I promise."
Peter Parker stands on a freezing roof.
He is warm.
"Do you want to die today?"
This is the first thing Tony Stark says to Peter Parker, everytime he sees him.
"Maybe."
"One to ten?"
"A six. Maybe a seven."
"Okay. Okay. We can do a seven."
Peter Parker makes a list of things he knows.
1. My name is Peter Parker.
2. I have social anxiety.
3. Sometimes, I want to die.
4. I have not died yet.
5. Tony Stark will never let me fall.
6. I want it to be quiet.
7. I want it to be quiet.
8. I want it to be quiet.
9. I want it to be quiet.
10. I want it to be quiet.
One day, Peter wonders if he can still bleed.
This is a bad day. He hadn't seen Mister Stark, but he has the conversation in his head anyway.
("Do you want to die today?"
"Yes."
"One to ten?"
"Ten.")
Peter does not go to the roof. There is no point. Peter Parker does not jump. If he did, Tony Stark would catch him.
(Is this a salvation or a sin?)
Peter Parker is not sure he is alive. He wants to know. If he knows, he can add it to his list.
People bleed. If he is alive, he will bleed.
Won't he?
He scratches at his stomach until his nails are caked with dead skin and sticky blood.
Peter Parker bleeds. Peter Parker is alive.
(He tests it again. And again. And again.)
He tells Tony about the blood on a good day.
"Do you want to die today?"
"Not really."
"One to ten?"
"Three?"
His mentor smiles. "That's really good, Peter. Do you want pizza for dinner?"
"Sure." Tony Stark will never let Peter Parker fall. "I bleed so I'm alive, right?"
The car jerks into a parking lot.
"You're bleeding?"
Peter lifts up his shirt. He chest is red.
"What the fuck, Peter?" Tony touches his chest. His stomach. Runs fingers down his spine. He feels the torn skin and shudders. "Did you do this to yourself?"
"I needed to know. There are things I know, Tony. I made a list. I need more of them."
"And you needed to know if you could bleed, Peter? Holy shit. Of course you bleed."
They are never the right words. Peter Parker can never say the right words. "I'm sorry."
"No. No, don't apologize. Just… don't do this again. If you need to know something, ask me. Okay?"
"Okay."
11. There are things that I will never know.
Two days after Tony sees the blood, he picks Peter up from school and sits him down on the couch in his lab and kneels in front of him. His face is full of an emotion that Peter cannot recognize. Then again, Peter only knows two.
"You need to see a psychiatrist, Peter. I've talked to May, and I have someone lined up. It's really, really important that you do this."
Peter blinks. "Because I'm broken?"
He phrases it as a question, but this is something Peter Parker knows. He knows that he is broken. He needs to add it to his list.
"No, Peter. No." Tony's hands hover his stomach, his shoulders, his face, as if the man cannot decide where he needs to touch. What he needs to fix. "Remember what we talked about? You're not broken. You just… you just need a little help."
Tony Stark will never let Peter Parker fall. "You've been helping me."
"And I'm gonna keep helping you, buddy. That's never going to change. But… but some of this is a little beyond me. And that's why there's professionals. People trained to deal with this stuff."
"I want it to be quiet."
"They can help you with that."
"No." Peter says, and his voice is the strongest it has been in a long, long time. Tony flinches back. "No. No one can help with that."
Peter Parker implodes. He feels fear and the absence of fear all at once. Zeros and ones. It does not make sense, but that does not stop it.
It does not matter what Peter Parker knows. The things that he does not will still swallow him up in the end.
"Oh, Peter."
"I don't want to change." Always the wrong words. He speaks and speaks and speaks. "I don't want them to take the fear. I thought I did, but I don't. I am fear. If I'm not fear then I'm nothing. Do you understand? I can't be nothing. I don't want to be absence. I don't like it when I'm absence."
Thewrongwordsthewrongwordsthewrongwords.
Tony's palm lies flat against Peter's cheek. "Listen to me, Peter. They aren't going to change you. Your anxiety… there isn't a cure for that, okay? God, I can't believe I'm telling you that to comfort you, but here we are. You'll always be a little afraid. And, buddy, that's okay. We're just… we're just going to learn to deal with it a bit better, alright? No one is going to change you."
Peter pauses. "Would it… would it be better if I changed?"
"No, Peter. I don't want you to change. I want you… I want you to always be you. This isn't about becoming something else. It's… it's about learning how to be you. Your anxiety? Your depression? None of that is you. It's about finding who you are outside of those things."
"Like… untangling the me from the other stuff?"
They are the wrong words, (they always are), but Tony understands them anyway because Tony always understands. Because Tony Stark will never let Peter Parker fall. "Exactly, Peter."
"Okay."
"Yeah? Okay? You mean that, buddy?"
Peter looks at Tony. He looks sad. He looks afraid. He looks like his entire being might shatter into oblivion if Peter does not choose his next words very, very carefully.
He sees this, but his mouth does not care. His mouth only knows how to say the wrong words. "What are you afraid of?"
Tony flinches back. His mouth purses. "What do you mean?"
"You're afraid. Of what?"
His mentor seems torn, as if he is unsure of whether to pluck his answer from the pools of fact or fiction. "I've been afraid ever since I found you on that roof, kiddo."
"Why?"
"Because I'm afraid of what you're going to do. Something… something's not right with you, buddy. It hasn't been for a while. Can you tell?"
Peter thinks. He runs through his list. "My thoughts are big."
Tony is being surprisingly patient. Peter knows his comments don't make sense, and yet his mentor is trying to navigate them all the same. "Too big?"
"No. Not too big. Just big. Different. Wide. Vast, maybe? I don't think little, anymore. I just think big."
"You're having a hard time focusing on the moment?"
Tony takes his words and makes them right. "Yes. I'm… above."
"I… I think I understand."
"I want it to be quiet."
His mentor makes a small, keening noise. "God, Peter. I know, buddy. I know."
Peter curls into himself. I implode. Some people explode but I do not. "I don't like this. I'm trapped."
"You're not trapped."
Tony's running a hand up and down Peter's spine. Up and down. Up and down. Zeros and ones. Computers. Fear and the absence of fear. The absence of anything at all.
"I am. I am. Everything is circles and I can't untangle it. I don't like circles, Mister Stark."
"Then we'll change everything into squares. And if you get sick of squares, we'll do triangles. And if you get sick of every shape in existence, we'll make you a brand new one. Okay?"
"Okay."
His mentor's hand slides to rest against the back of Peter's neck. He squeezes. Once. Twice. Zeros. Ones. "I'm going to make you an appointment for tomorrow morning."
"Okay."
"Don't worry about school, by the way. I'll get you an excuse."
"Okay."
"You mean a lot to me, buddy."
Tony Stark will never let me fall