I Will Hold You When No One's Around

I called a maid to get the house cleaned and the laundry done. I could already see roaches walking around my bedroom floor. I paid a hundred dollars to that bitch and after one week it was all horribly dirty again. Hurray.

It was getting better. I was getting better, then, out of nowhere, went downhill again. I don’t know what happened. Now I was so weak, I wasn’t being strong anymore.

“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”

That’s bullshit. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger; what doesn’t kill you makes you wish it did. It makes you sad, tired and afraid of it ever happening again.

Trust issues. Depression. Anxiety. Self harming. Drugs. Wasted. Paranoia.

Memories never die. I was out of my mind and I wasn’t being very nice to my body either; now not only my arms, wrists, hands and legs were hurt, I was killing myself; on the outside and the inside. A doctor wasn’t an option. Right? They don’t fucking understand what is inside my head. I should stop thinking about it. I should just get my shit together, but I can’t.

I am a victim of my own mind. When I cut it’s not because I want to feel human, it’s not because I want to release the pain, it’s because I feel the physical pain would ease the emotional one.

I feel like it’s a duty to cheer up others, even if I’m the one who needs it. I try to make people happy, and it makes me happy; most of the time I am a pretty happy person, I truly am. These events don’t normally occur so often. But I’m getting fucking tired of situations like this happening every fucking time lately.

My parents aren’t near, my family is small and it’s broken, my friends left, and out of a hundred, there remained four. One of them was Alice; and I needed her to stay, because I need her. I have no one else to turn to.

I tend to screw the best things in my life up, and I’m so sick and tired of it, I am not sure I can handle this anymore. Everything is so dark now. She gave up on me, and I felt like giving up on me, too.
When you are dead nobody can hurt you anymore. When you’re dead you don’t hear the voices. When you’re dead everything is better. I've written a suicide note a hundred times on my head.

I’m not planning on killing myself at this moment, but the thought of suicide sometimes comforts me, I feel like I can decide whether to live or to die, I feel I have control of one thing, at least for a moment.

Things are complicated. I want to stop feeling this, I want to wake up one day and finally say “I am going to be totally happy!” and just do it. It doesn’t work like that, and I know it because I’ve tried. I am broken, but just because I want to be fixed it doesn’t mean it will disappear.

I never became close to anyone, and the few people I could consider my true friends wouldn’t understand my condition. Nobody would. Not mom, not grandma, not Jennifer and not even Alice. I liked to lock myself into my personal bubble, missing from people, in this case.

I was a good student and nice to be around, but for my whole life I had been a loner. I was bullied at school even by my “friends” and I also received death threats every day. At the age of 15 I really considered killing myself once, but in the end I forgot about it, because I knew it was going to get better.

And it did, in fact. I went to a great college; I got a great job and a beautiful big house in a fancy neighborhood just for me. I was pretty and finding a partner was never a trouble for me, I just didn’t like company too much. My only friends were my friends because they approached me, and I just didn’t go away, and I tend to get sick of people very fast, unless it's someone I really care about.

I was a successful 23 year old woman; anyone could tell I had an easy going life.

But it wasn’t easy, at all. My mental problems were always a concern. I was diagnosed with depression at 19 and I started hearing voices a little since then. After a while I realized I was schizophrenic. At 20 I was diagnosed with cyclothymiacs and Dysthymia, pills were the only thing they gave me, pills didn’t really help. Now they were my pretty little obsession; every now and then, a fine amount of them would take me to another word. That other self of mine wasn’t very normal moreover.

Cyclothymia is a mild form of bipolar disorder; it has a depressive phase and a hippomanic phase, with long intervals of normal mood in between. My score was between slight and moderate.
Dysthymia is a clinical diagnosis of moderate, persistent depression, who suffers from the dysthymic disorder doesn’t experience the extremes of major gloominess routinely, just seldom, and it doesn’t inhibit normal activities; tests said in me it was very high.

Mood changing very easily, hallucinations, major depression, torment in silence.

All I ever was has been nothing more than a big lie. My disease burns me now, and I wasn’t doing the right thing. I didn’t need to do drugs, I didn’t need to get drunk either, and those two things were going to lead me to the end of my life soon.

I remember one day at morning work, one of the guys said something like “We’re all damaged somehow.” It was a joke, and I started laughing, but all I wanted to do was cry, because no one is damaged as I am. Depression is like a war, because you either win or die trying, it destroys you. Now you are aware. On the outside it was all perfect, and I was getting tired of it.

I’m not doing well and I’m so filled with sadness I’d just like to lay down and sleep for 10 days. This was like a rollercoaster.

I wanted to scream, yell and shout, but my voice was as weak as my heart was. My body was tired, effete, outworn and doleful. I felt impotent. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t do it anymore; my eyes were already dry.

At this moment I felt like the most disgusting monster ever... My lips didn’t have their natural reddish color, now they were pale and dehydrated. My smile was not real. My legs and my arms weren’t white and tender like porcelain, now they were full of scars. My hair was a mess and my nails were broken.

Anyways, that’s no more than a little matter here; this is just a love story.

…I think.

Weeks passed. I stayed there. My other self wanted to argue and I didn’t listen to her. I had been to the hospital to get the cast out of my hand. I don’t even eat more than one or two slices of pizza; all I had been satisfying my stomach with were pills and alcohol. I was supposed to start working on BMI today, but I didn’t even bother to show up to the office.

I wonder if they even give a damn about my existence. I can’t help thinking about the people who could care. Maybe someone’s been trying to get in touch with me but I’m just so absorbed by this black hole that I can’t notice? All these days I’ve been missing and away from everything, just listening to music and trying to survive... I’m sort of lost in time and space; I don’t even know what day it is.

I had quit my other job at the computer store even before my job interview with Mr. Nolan, but I didn’t know my ex co-workers were absent like this. I mean, I really thought they appreciated me… Not even a text message? I couldn’t believe it. Those people were nice to me; at least to seem friendly they should’ve called me.

But now, I’m thinking, where have I been? My cell phone was shut down and I hadn’t touched the computer for months. I was so busy doing nothing and being no one. Was I on my deathbed?

“I know you’re tired, and I am tired too.” –I heard. “But you are not going to end with your life because she doesn’t want to accept you.”

“What do you mean?” –I asked me.

“You are not stupid, I am not stupid. We can make a lot of things.”

“A lot of things? What for? Alice won’t be near me anyways…” –I felt one tear silently rolling down my cheek.

“That’s her problem. You already suffered enough. It’s her turn.” –I didn’t say a thing. “You are as beautiful, funny, smart and gorgeous as Ally is, okay? You have a good job and these problems are
going to disappear.”

“Really? When? I can’t stand all this bullshit anymore! Can’t you see me? I cut myself. I get drunk; I even do drugs because of these fucking problems! My life is shit and the only person who I really care about left me!”

“That’s not true. She loves you, she’s just confused. And you can’t do anything about it. Give her time.”

“TIME?” –I snort out. “It’s been months and she hasn’t come here! She hasn’t even called me! She doesn’t even know I’m alive! She hasn’t tried to!”

“Cut it off.” –She sounded annoyed now. “If you keep like this, by the time she tries, it will be too late. You will be dead already. You will be dead and she will blame herself again. She will be sad and she will start with her suicidal ideas again. Do you want that?”

“No… I don’t.” –Just thinking about her in that state made my heart skip a beat.

“So? Will you keep doing this?! Will you continue with your so called life by getting sloshed and cutting yourself everyday for the rest of your days?”

“No. I wouldn’t stand the pain.” –I said, cleaning my red eyes and getting off my bed.

“That’s my girl.” –She said, appearing in front of me. “I knew you were going to do it for yourself… I mean, you would eventually get out of pills and booze… but you know what I mean.”

“I know, and you’re right.” –I said. “All of this has to stop.” –I muttered as I stood up and directed to my bathroom to prepare the shower that would wash my despair away. I’m done with this laziness and dumbness. I had made a choice. I’ll stop crying myself to sleep and finally let go.

This decision was hard and very important, because I knew that this sort of things don’t work out that
fast, but I was going to try. I was going to face my worst fear. I was going to see a psychiatrist. And I’m sure I’ll get this well done once I tell the whole truth about my situation. It’s the best. If I fail, I’ll start again, and again, and again until I finish with all this mental strain and cynical thoughts that have me fucked up.

Even though I had been only eating crappy junk food, I was pretty slim by this moment; maybe because I had barely been eating one slice of pizza per day. I felt dizzy and drained, but this wasn’t going to stop me. My steps were feeble but firm. I was taking all my clothes off and wiping off the small but still numerous blood stains on the bathroom counter with them.
Not only the bathroom mirror, the faucet, the sink, the toilet, the floor and even the ceiling were covered by little drops of gore that came out of my own veins, my bedroom blankets and most of my garments were also very tainted with dark red. I had lost several of it. How is it I wasn’t dead already?

Naked as I was, I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of cold water. I could see the abundant empty bottles of different alcohol beverages; vodka, whiskey, rum, gin, tequila, red and white wine, port, sherry, beer cans and even champagne- some of them broken. Gross. I didn’t even like this kind of things… I had alcohol in my house only because everybody does and some of my acquaintances liked to come over and drink a bit sometimes. On the hallway there were some bottles of booze thrown around too.

I immediately started to think of what I’d do for the next hours; cleaning, mopping, sweeping, washing, swabbing and tiding up all that mess. I didn’t know how my blood could get that high, I mean, why the hell was the roof smudgy? This was going to be a long, yet good day.
After that shower I felt pure, like all my poisonous thoughts and feelings were gone. I put on my underwear and a pair of shorts and a tank top, despite of the cold temperature; it would help me to feel awake. I also put one of my favorite CDs to play in my stereo, it was “Waking the Fallen” by Avenged Sevenfold, it was one of their first albums ever, and I loved how it sounded. I think it was some kind of metal, hardcore? Maybe hard rock… I don’t know. I was never good recognizing musical
genres.

However, I started by looking at the living room, one of the couches was stained with guess what.
“Damn. Even the sofa…” –I thought. What had I been doing? I can’t remember.
With the lounge free of evidence, I went to the kitchen again. I finally had ended with the laundry and dishes. I cleaned the floor and soon enough my whole home was totally beautiful again. I got hungry in the process, so I ate that last slice of pizza on the box that was lying on the table. I took a big garbage bag to trash out all that shit. It was hard, I have to admit.

It was already 5:00 PM, and I still needed to fill up the fridge and the kitchen shelves again. I walked to my bedroom to find something appropriate to use to the grocery store. I was changing clothes when I watched myself in the mirror.

I saw both of my arms and wrists, my legs, my belly and my breasts, injured.

“Oh my God…” –I whispered, softly tracing the shape of my scars with my fingers. Some of them were long and thin, some others were short and thick. Most of them were shallow, and the ones that hurt the most were not already healed; these were placed on my right thigh, the most profound ones.
There was one on my right calf, also. It was deep and it didn’t hurt until I poked it. I just couldn’t help it. It was almost healed, but I don’t know when I did it, in fact, I didn’t know when I did any of them. Whatever the case was, it looked more like an accident, because there were little scratches around it, there’s when I thought I may have just tripped over something sharp, like an open shelf or something like that.

I bandaged them how I could, and then I dressed up and went to Publix and bought some real food, spending almost three hundred dollars. By the end of the day my house was flawless and perfectly ordered as it always used to be.

“I’m glad you could finally understand how things really are.” –I heard inside of my head. And even though I shouldn’t, I smiled wide and said out loud: “Me too.”

I was going to live again, either with or without Ally. It doesn’t matter anymore. However much I cherished her, I wasn’t going to keep myself from triumph just because of a damn heartbreak. I wanted Alice, I loved Alice… but I realized I didn’t really need her.