You Cannot Rest Here.
Some nights, I cannot breathe. I sit gasping at my windowsill, letting the early morning air filter through the cracks, as if that will wake me from my panic.
I wish it were that easy. I don’t know what I am so afraid of, the impending doom of adulthood or the inevitable realization that I have wasted my childhood, I do not know.
It comes from out of the dark, the panic. It sneaks like a shadow you cannot hope to fight, latching on, and draining any hope, any ambition that you once kindled inside yourself.
I once read that anxiety is like walking through the dark wilderness with the thought that there could be an axe murderer intent on killing and then every noise becomes that murderer. But that metaphor fails
To describe the aching panic in my chest or the violent shake in my hands, or the labored breaths that come in my throat when I have managed to see the worst in the world.
It does not touch the reality that in a normal, everyday situation, I cannot function alongside my classmates because I dread everyday situations.
I don’t let myself sleep at night, out of fear that I will wake with a fire in my chest or fear that I will not wake at all and then that will be the end.
I stay up too late into the night, and I drink too much coffee with bitter espresso shots, and I find myself lying awake for completely different reasons;
Too much caffeine, too much excitement, too much dread, not enough rest or relaxation, thoughts hammering out staccato beats too ceaselessly.
How can you develop and evolve when you don’t fully understand who you currently are? How can you journey when you don’t know where you are?
I haven’t taken a risk in my life, I can tentatively admit, the world is too big and too vicious for wandering.
Not all those who wander are lost, but not all those who wander are found, either.
You take trips to clear your mind, but end up more lost than you were before.
I falter in taking steps outside of my building, scared that I will get lost and won’t find my way home. I can’t just follow my feet anymore, they do not know the way to the stars.
I don’t trust myself to find the way home if I were to leave. I don’t trust my sense of direction any more than I trust my ability to read a map.
What if you get yourself even more lost than you are now? What if you get so lost you can never find your way home?
What if you get someone else lost? What if they can’t find their way home either and everything is all of your fault?
Everything is all of your fault, no what ifs, no ands, no buts about it. Everything is your fault.
Do not step outside your door, do not leave your room, do not risk anything, not a single thing. You will ruin everything you touch.
The voices never stop, never quiet, never tire, never leave, never, never, never.
Some nights, I don’t sleep, I can’t sleep, I can’t even lay down out of a fear so deep-rooted in my chest I will never dig it out.
I don’t know how to sleep anymore. I don’t know how to lie down, how to close my eyes, how to shut off my mind long enough to doze off just for a moment.
But some nights, I close my eyes, I curl under my blankets, and I don’t fear the dark. I don’t think about the hole where my security used to be.
I don’t worry about the future, and what it has in store for me. I don’t worry about letting down my friends and family. Instead, I dream.
I dream of small birds with fast beating wings buzzing overhead, I dream of joining them in the clouds. I dream of escaping to fictional lands with dragons and wizards alike, where my words become charms used to capture, create and categorize, the worst of my living nightmares, titled anxiety.
I dream of a world where there is no limits, physics don’t exist, and if you can think it, it can happen.
I rest easy, and I don’t worry about a thing, except maybe if that cloud is made out of cotton candy, and whether or not it’ll be edible (it normally is).
I wonder if maybe that mountain has a secret underground tunnel that leads to a secret cavern full of buried, ancient treasure.
I worry that maybe I didn’t pack enough marshmallow pillows, but I remember that I can just dream up more in case I haven’t.
In these small escapes, I live in a magical realm of possibilities and capabilities and I never want to come back down.
On the nights when I rest my head on my pillows and the pillows don’t hit back, I can do impossible things.
But those nights are few and far between, sometimes a distant memory too vague to feel real, and I ache for the time when I was too young to know what a nightmare was,
When I was too young to know that the worst nightmares don’t happen when you’re asleep, but with your eyes open wide as you watch the terror unfold.
Because sometimes the monster under your bed is not the villain you thought he was, and he is not the only Boogey Man you will face in a day.
Sometimes you are your own worst enemy, I know because I am my own and I cannot think of a time when I have hated someone more than I hate myself.
On nights when you get a reprieve from the onslaught of your own worry, you seek out a monster to slay, something you can put your self-hatred and bitterness onto,
Like it is the cause of your defects, and the way to save yourself is to save the princess, or the prince, or the townsfolk.
Maybe it’s not the best coping mechanism in the world. Maybe I should talk to someone, and admit that I don’t trust myself to wake up in the morning, so I don’t sleep at night.
That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I have coping mechanisms for not dealing with my coping mechanisms,
A dizzying circle of defensive actions to defend my defensive actions, so dizzying I don’t know when this even started.
I don’t know when I became this person too afraid to take a risk or two, because I used to be the most outgoing little kid in the world, and I wasn’t afraid of anything.
When did that little girl become me, become a blithering mess of insecurities who doesn’t sleep, and hardly leaves her room?
When did she disappear and I took her place? Because I need to go back and to fix this, if I still can.
I cannot continue to spend my nights worrying about living and surviving when I cannot bring myself to live and survive in the first place.
I wish it were that easy. I don’t know what I am so afraid of, the impending doom of adulthood or the inevitable realization that I have wasted my childhood, I do not know.
It comes from out of the dark, the panic. It sneaks like a shadow you cannot hope to fight, latching on, and draining any hope, any ambition that you once kindled inside yourself.
I once read that anxiety is like walking through the dark wilderness with the thought that there could be an axe murderer intent on killing and then every noise becomes that murderer. But that metaphor fails
To describe the aching panic in my chest or the violent shake in my hands, or the labored breaths that come in my throat when I have managed to see the worst in the world.
It does not touch the reality that in a normal, everyday situation, I cannot function alongside my classmates because I dread everyday situations.
I don’t let myself sleep at night, out of fear that I will wake with a fire in my chest or fear that I will not wake at all and then that will be the end.
I stay up too late into the night, and I drink too much coffee with bitter espresso shots, and I find myself lying awake for completely different reasons;
Too much caffeine, too much excitement, too much dread, not enough rest or relaxation, thoughts hammering out staccato beats too ceaselessly.
How can you develop and evolve when you don’t fully understand who you currently are? How can you journey when you don’t know where you are?
I haven’t taken a risk in my life, I can tentatively admit, the world is too big and too vicious for wandering.
Not all those who wander are lost, but not all those who wander are found, either.
You take trips to clear your mind, but end up more lost than you were before.
I falter in taking steps outside of my building, scared that I will get lost and won’t find my way home. I can’t just follow my feet anymore, they do not know the way to the stars.
I don’t trust myself to find the way home if I were to leave. I don’t trust my sense of direction any more than I trust my ability to read a map.
What if you get yourself even more lost than you are now? What if you get so lost you can never find your way home?
What if you get someone else lost? What if they can’t find their way home either and everything is all of your fault?
Everything is all of your fault, no what ifs, no ands, no buts about it. Everything is your fault.
Do not step outside your door, do not leave your room, do not risk anything, not a single thing. You will ruin everything you touch.
The voices never stop, never quiet, never tire, never leave, never, never, never.
Some nights, I don’t sleep, I can’t sleep, I can’t even lay down out of a fear so deep-rooted in my chest I will never dig it out.
I don’t know how to sleep anymore. I don’t know how to lie down, how to close my eyes, how to shut off my mind long enough to doze off just for a moment.
But some nights, I close my eyes, I curl under my blankets, and I don’t fear the dark. I don’t think about the hole where my security used to be.
I don’t worry about the future, and what it has in store for me. I don’t worry about letting down my friends and family. Instead, I dream.
I dream of small birds with fast beating wings buzzing overhead, I dream of joining them in the clouds. I dream of escaping to fictional lands with dragons and wizards alike, where my words become charms used to capture, create and categorize, the worst of my living nightmares, titled anxiety.
I dream of a world where there is no limits, physics don’t exist, and if you can think it, it can happen.
I rest easy, and I don’t worry about a thing, except maybe if that cloud is made out of cotton candy, and whether or not it’ll be edible (it normally is).
I wonder if maybe that mountain has a secret underground tunnel that leads to a secret cavern full of buried, ancient treasure.
I worry that maybe I didn’t pack enough marshmallow pillows, but I remember that I can just dream up more in case I haven’t.
In these small escapes, I live in a magical realm of possibilities and capabilities and I never want to come back down.
On the nights when I rest my head on my pillows and the pillows don’t hit back, I can do impossible things.
But those nights are few and far between, sometimes a distant memory too vague to feel real, and I ache for the time when I was too young to know what a nightmare was,
When I was too young to know that the worst nightmares don’t happen when you’re asleep, but with your eyes open wide as you watch the terror unfold.
Because sometimes the monster under your bed is not the villain you thought he was, and he is not the only Boogey Man you will face in a day.
Sometimes you are your own worst enemy, I know because I am my own and I cannot think of a time when I have hated someone more than I hate myself.
On nights when you get a reprieve from the onslaught of your own worry, you seek out a monster to slay, something you can put your self-hatred and bitterness onto,
Like it is the cause of your defects, and the way to save yourself is to save the princess, or the prince, or the townsfolk.
Maybe it’s not the best coping mechanism in the world. Maybe I should talk to someone, and admit that I don’t trust myself to wake up in the morning, so I don’t sleep at night.
That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I have coping mechanisms for not dealing with my coping mechanisms,
A dizzying circle of defensive actions to defend my defensive actions, so dizzying I don’t know when this even started.
I don’t know when I became this person too afraid to take a risk or two, because I used to be the most outgoing little kid in the world, and I wasn’t afraid of anything.
When did that little girl become me, become a blithering mess of insecurities who doesn’t sleep, and hardly leaves her room?
When did she disappear and I took her place? Because I need to go back and to fix this, if I still can.
I cannot continue to spend my nights worrying about living and surviving when I cannot bring myself to live and survive in the first place.