Torment

This is my reflection on a past experience...it is brief and I may add to it if people are interested to hear more. Sorry if it is bad.

 Allow me to fill you in on the events that lead up to me taking pills. Not pills like the medication or prescribed per se, but literally just swallowing about thirty or so paracetamol. I can start by saying I am one fucked up, selfish m**********r. I bathe in the thought of suffering and pain. It is almost peaceful for such a violent topic. See this is where people start to decide how they feel about a character, so I better get my impression across fast. 

      So, let's go back to where it all started. My damn parents best idea was to have another child, of which they already had two. I was born, happy, beautiful little baby etc. The doctors made a clear point of me being a healthy born but the reality was I really, really wasn't. Physically, all the stuff was more or less in the right spot, two ears, nose, mouth, nice pair of eyes and so on. But, mentally everything was very wrong. Where I should have had coping mechanisms, thought processes and a functioning system, I had a jumble of emotions and struggles, and pro-dominantly I had pain. Searing, insufferable pain.

       Fortunately, I was far too young to give a damn about that because even though my head was banged up beyond repair, my heart was in the right place, making me some kind of happy go lucky child of sorts. I pretty much just bounced around, not really noticing the irreversible despair that was beginning to cloud my mind. 

      Finally, at the age of eleven, I had started to notice the darkness that had subtly twisted into my brain and latched itself to my thoughts. Still, too young to actually understand what was happening I assumed it was due to the fact that I was being bullied that I felt this way. Anger represented the hurt inside and came out in relentless waves. The slightest things started to send me spiralling because well I wasn't processing what was happening inside so my mind referred to the only escape it knew, rage. 

      Things were pretty complex enough until I saw something that brought fear and a sense of uneasiness. I started to hear things that were not actually being said and seeing things that were certainly not there. I feel like I should be more specific, so leading back to how it happened, here was my perspective. 

             I had been tossing and turning all night and just could not for the life of me slip into the once effortless task of sleep. My head was racing and raging but I just couldn't understand why. I opened my eyes and lay on my back staring at the ceiling, my bunk bed bringing me very close to it. Then, giving me the near-bed wetting experience that I really didn't need, came a voice. It was mine, certainly mine, but it sounded older, darker perhaps. 

"You're never going to fall asleep when you're like this." It had said. I looked down at my feet tracing where the noise had sounded like it came from. As if I was not already questioning my sanity at that point, I saw myself sitting at the foot of my bed looking down at the floor. 

         As if seeing oneself talking to you was not enough of a shock, I noticed that I seemed older and in general just different. I was donned in a black leather jacket, torn black jeans a tight black crop top. I had really dark eyeshadow and eyeliner with ruby red lipstick. A silver ring pierced my lip and two studs stuck out on my left eyebrow. My hair was down but there were no curly mouse brown locks to be seen but light blond, straight hair. I looked to be nineteen or so. I wouldn't have believed it was me if not for the blue eyes, that shined like sapphires and were unmistakably mine.

        Whilst noting all of this I hadn't noticed my mouth was gaping open. This version of myself took no time in commenting on it.

"Close your mouth sweetie, you'll catch flies" she had said with a mischievous smirk. I snapped it shut and continued to stare. She, since I find it rather disconcerting to speak of it from my perspective, rolled her eyes and spoke again.

"See I understand why you may be confused here or maybe even scared but let's be realistic, I am just you in like a different form." She explained, watching her hands as she waved them in front of her own face. They blurred with movement but she was still scarily realistic. 

       She hopped from the bed and pulled her jacket off, throwing it onto the floor. For the first time since I saw her, I spotted the marks lacing her arms. I was a bit too young to actually understand what self-harm was so naturally my innocent mind pushed me to inquire as to the marks causes.

"What are those on your arms?" I asked. For some reason beyond that of my knowledge, I conducted this entire conversation as if I was talking to a human rather than a paralysis, pseudo, representative. She glanced down at her arm and smiled looking up at me. She gripped the rails of the bunk and hauled herself up, straddling me. Ignoring my question completely she said;

"Do you know why I look like you but I am not?" She cocked her head, holding eye contact with me.

"It is because the darkest, sickest parts of your mind have created me. To try and sound less like a cheap cut sci-fi movie, let's envision me as your future self. Your assumption that I was nineteen is correct. See this great anger that is consuming you currently? Yeah, it's not really anger that just doesn't make much sense now, does it? If it was just anger I wouldn't be here. Ask around and find out what it is, oh and by the way...you may not want to mention my visit, it's not what you would call 'normal'...talk soon." She had retorted and smiled a devilish grin before fading into the dark and disappearing. 

       So that was my first experience with her but certainly not the last. I ended up craving her presence because it filled up the emptiness and loneliness in my life. Which was concerning, to say the least, because to lust to see a pseudonym entity was quite impaired on my part. However, I still wanted to see her again, and I did.

       I had done research on my father's laptop to see what explained how I was feeling and responding to things. The page instantly loaded lists upon lists of information on depression and anxiety, followed closely by emotional disarrangement and pseudo psychosis or schizophrenia. The last one intrigued me the most and I read the article out loud to myself; "Schizophrenia or psychosis is the visualization or the like of beings and characters who are nonexistent. Examples of this are sleep paralysis, pseudo psychosis or more commonly referred to as 'hearing or seeing things'." I read it over and over trying to understand the words. It had sounded like what I experienced. I saw and heard someone talking to me who was certainly not there. 

           I studied deeper into the sleep paralysis and decided it was not that since I was very much able to move around and respond to stimuli whereas this article stated one would be completely paralysed during the experience. I reloaded the page and checked some of the other website's topics. Depression and anxiety seemed to hit quite close to home as did emotional disarrangement. The eating disorders were just skimmed through because I knew my diet was normal. A flashing banner at the bottom of one of the websites caught my interest as I trailed my eyes across the screen. 'How to help someone struggling with self-harm' it had said. Now, I was not all that aware of what that really was at the time but I was still inquisitive to it.

       'Self-harm is the intended physical damage or mutilation to oneself. Common examples of this are starving oneself, burning one's flesh, pulling hair out, hitting oneself and cutting any part of the body intentionally. Most cases are hard to detect but a self-harmer can be identified by certain behaviour and will seem to experience more 'injuries' than usual or have an excessive amount of injuries on the flesh such as cuts, bruises or burns.' As soon as I finished reading it made sense why she had marks on her arm that night. I obviously had some level of awareness of self-harm since I was the one who envisioned her but now I had an in-depth understanding.

               I closed my eyes and pushed the laptop aside, rubbing my temples. This was so frustrating. How was I supposed to understand myself when everything that happens makes no sense? 

"Annoying isn't it?" Rang out a voice beside me. I jumped in surprise and whirled around to see myself yet again, leaning over my desk. 

"Hello, sweetheart." She said with a smug look. "I'm back!" She teased and before I knew it she threw me back onto my bed and pinned me there. It felt so real it was terrifying. She slapped me across the face hard and I yelped. 

"Get off me!" I yelled as I struggled. 

"Now that is not a polite way to talk to someone, is it? Mind-your-manners!" She said between slaps. I caved to her whims and apologised, repeating my statement kindly. This control that she had over me was overpowering. 

"Sorry, can you please get off of me?" I mumbled cautiously, rubbing my now very red cheeks. She wasn't real so I had I been slapping myself subconsciously?

"Yes, I will. See where politeness gets you?" She hopped off of me and brushed herself off as if slapping the s**t out of me was a dirty job. I inclined my head to the right and stared at her. Her facade displayed innocence but she was an evil pseudonym creature. 

"So you're probably wondering why I am here again." She suggested. Then her lips curled into a smile.

"You missed me, didn't you?" She cackled at her statement. It was unfortunately 100% true and as she was a creation of my mind, she knew it too. I turned away from her to disguise my embarrassment.

"Admit it, you crave me. You think I am desirable so you wish for more of me. Well if you want more you'll get more." She smirked and grasped my hand tightly. 

"I missed you too." She giggled. She was diabolical. She was downright evil. I sighed and faced her again. 

"I did miss you. I'm lonely. I need you to function. For me to survive. For me to feel alive." I confessed abruptly. What was the point of hiding it? She knew it anyway.  I shook my head to clear it so that perhaps she would disappear. I didn't like hearing that I was dependant on my schizophrenic entity. Perhaps she would scatter if I screamed for help. I screeched at the top of my lungs to ensure my mother and father would hear me. I sprinted to the door and lunged for the handle but it melted away before I reached it. The entire door melted into the wall and the window too. The furniture disappeared and I was trapped in a room with blank, white walls and her. I called out for help again, pounding the wall where the door should have been. Tears were streaming down my face at this point as I thumped the wall. 

"Something wrong?" Her voice echoed around the room and when I turned around the walls were black with her face on every surface. 

"Scared?" She quizzed as she laughed maliciously, her eyes popping with every word. 

"You deserve pain! You have done bad things! You are a bad person!" She boomed across the room. 

"Hurt yourself! Hurt yourself! Hurt yourself!" She chanted and the furniture reappeared with scissors on the desk. I felt cornered, trapped in my own emotional instability. 

"Make it stop!" I demanded as I picked up the scissors and whipped it across my flesh to silence her. As the blood began to drip from my wrist she faded away into nothingness and I felt intense relief. Was this my life now? Had I become everything I had feared becoming? Was she gone for good? Or was I destined to be haunted by her forever? These questions ached for an answer that I could not provide as I was still too young to know any better. What she wanted from me was suicide...

Reviews

[ZakLeonRamsey]

Bloody hell, this story is emotional and all the way through, it makes me feel sad, uncomfortable and upset. Ah, the power of writing...
:)

[Armrose]

Thank you for your feedback i appreciate it :)

[ZakLeonRamsey]

No problem :)

[SRMarx]

I really like your story and idea. I'd focus more on showing instead of telling. In some parts of your story, you do this well, but in others you don't. Showing the trauma of your protagonist will make the story more engaging.