Phobophobia

School had become hell. No one trusted what I had said; I didn’t do anything. But Mom and Dad noticed my depression, my hesitation. Everyone assumed it meant I was lying, that I was guilty. They were right. I slowly faded into a shell of who I once was. I became everything I hated. All because of a mistake.

Those who had once been my friends began to bully me; at first it was fairly harmless. Just words. Soon, though, it became so much worse. A shove here, a foot sticking out to trip me there. Eventually that evolved to become punches, then kicks, and, finally, full blown beatings. The school administration cut in. They gave out detention to my tormentors, suspension became a regular occurrence. Even so, they would just follow me or wait until I was off school grounds where it was safe for them. Soon, nowhere was safe for me.

My final straw was after I found my cat, killed. She was hanging outside my window by a rope around her neck. Those sociopaths had finally started to hurt the things I cared about most. I went into my bathroom, locked the door and turned on the bath water. As it filled I stripped down, plugged my sister’s hair dryer into the outlet and walked over to the bathtub. It wasn’t even half full, but it didn’t matter. Just a little water would do. I stepped in and sat down. I turned on the hair dryer and plunged it into the water.

I felt a jerk, and I couldn’t control my body. It was horrible. Blackness took over my vision a few moments too late, and that was that.

Or, so I had hoped. I woke up in the hospital the next day. Alive. I had, supposedly, been dead for five minutes and everyone was worried about brain damage. Sadly, there was none. Mom, Dad and Julie came in two days later. We were moving. Not far, only across town, but far enough that I would be in a new school, a new area, where no one would know what I was suspected of. It was too good to be true.

It took all of a week to move. I didn’t sleep a wink, even with sleep aides, and the only rest came when I passed out from exhaustion. I always came into consciousness feeling less rested after that, though. I didn’t speak except when absolutely necessary during my waking hours. I threw out all of my clothes and got new ones. I broke all of my CD’s, trashed my phone and burned all of my photographs and pictures. I was no one, I had nothing, and that was just fine. If I couldn’t be dead, then at least there would be no proof that I was alive.

The only thing that bothered me, at that point, was that I couldn’t feel anything, physically or emotionally.

I was completely numb.