Crumbles

The suicidal thoughts have become overwhelming. I’m not actively thinking about any long term or even short term goals for myself. I’m living in the moment-barely. I’m bogged down by the idea that I don’t belong here, everything will be better when I’m dead and that both my mental and physical suffering will end. I’ve lived with suicidal idealization and suicidal thoughts for almost the majority of my life, but now it’s to the point where it’s pretty much all that I am able to think about. It’s not only changed the way I function in my daily life, but changed how I view the world, everything in it and who I am as a person.

I don’t know when I stopped feeling okay. It’s all kind of muddled inside my head. Everything blurs together in an endless loop and sometimes I have trouble differentiating between what I’ve experienced and what I’ve watched. What part is me and what is not? Sometimes it begins gradually and snowballs. Sometimes it begins gradually and then fades out. Other times it happens within the blink of an eye. Regardless of how it happens or how long it takes to happen, I still feel the same. Tired, overwhelmed and weighed down, both physically and psychologically. I hate what this illness does to me. I hate how it affects the other issues that I have, magnifying them.

I step out of the house, ready to go to work, the moon is still suspended in the early morning sky; It’s an odd blue-grey colour with splashes of black. It looks more like a child’s painting than anything found in nature. I’m waiting for my ride to come get me. A gust of cool air hits me, rustingling the leaves of the trees and shrubs around me and all of a sudden I feel unease. I shouldn’t. I’m on my front step. This is my home. I should feel content and safe. I don’t. The gentle breeze hits me again, bringing the smell of damp Earth to me. It doesn’t make more than a quarter of a moment and I’m dropped back in 1998. It’s Halloween. Lanterns glow in the windows of the neighbours, the moon is round and full above me.I’m visiting my grandparents small, picturesque neighbourhood. Carved jack-o-lanterns decorate many of the steps, haunting facings glowing out into the night as the streetlights flicker under a full moon. It should be colder than it is for the time of year, but it’s warm, almost too warm. It feels more like a late May-early June night, not an October early November one. I’m wearing a costume, but I can’t clearly make out what it is. I’ve got a large sack of candy. My siblings are running behind me, my parents behind them with torch lights as I dash ahead with my own. The wind blows, caressing me and I feel unsafe. I know I am, but it feels like there are eyes watching me, evil eyes. Hidden danger lurks behind the trees, behind the shrubs and in the basements of suburbia. And then the film in my head snaps or I’m thrown back into the present, I can’t tell which. My skin is damp from sweat, despite it not being warm yet and my stomach is rattled. My ride pulls up to take me to work and I desperately try to shed the feelings and sensation of what just happened.

When I get to work the lingering feelings of the memory are clinging to my skin. I need to try and focus on something else, maybe that will rid me of the “film” of the memory. I breathe deep and look out across the carpark. There’s not a soul in sight. The buildings are still asleep from the night before. It’s completely soundess; no birds, no cars, no people, not even in the distance. The sky is a light candy floss pink with a milky purple haze in other spots. The moon is still hanging in the sky. She should be going to sleep, but she’s refusing. She’s feeling rebellious. It feels like I’m on an alien planet. I usually don’t think about the fact that I am on a rock floating through the cosmos of something bigger, that there is something beyond all that that I see and know, but today it hits me. It doesn't even look like Earth. It feels like I’m somewhere else, taking in the moon. She’s fuller, rounder and closer. Her pale colouring is even more pronounced against her pale periwinkle background. The night is disappearing, so should she. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

I know I’m alone but that unease is taking over again. It swells within the lower part of my stomach, climbing up into my chest and throat. I want to scream, but I don’t think I can. It’s a tension that has me on the verge of collapse. I need a new focus. I don’t want to be out in the open. I check the time. I have 45 minutes before anyone else will show up at the building. The coffee shop in the plaza is open this time. I dash for it. Well, speed walk. I’m not going to run like an arsehole across the carpark, my dinosaur keyring swinging madly, a sort of flag to attract unwanted attention. I make it to the building in no time. The brightness of the lights inside are slightly off-putting but the warm pinks, oranges and browns of the interior are oddly welcoming. Coffee will take my mind off one. I get an iced one to go and scurry away. I don’t know why I leave so quickly. I wanted to be somewhere else, not in front of the building, something inclosed, somewhere I can feel safe, but I suppose my anxiety at the thought that I’d be watched pushes me out the door. I pace for the remaining 40 minutes, sipping my iced coffee and listening to Oasis as the pink and lilac turns scarlet and gold and gives way to an icy blue colour. Clouds erupt as the sun rises over the car park. A new day has been birthed.