Diving Into Darkness

A small drop of rain falls as a warning signal. It morphs into a drizzle. It fades into the background and is replaced by fog. It is apparent which path has been chosen for my destiny. As I set my feet upon the path I am unaware of what is in store for me. The clouds that once produced the drizzle silently begin to build up, slowly developing into a massive storm. The clouds expand to threatening proportions, thunderheads that cause power outages. The kind that causes thousands of dollars in damage and leaves many people homeless, sometimes with no where to go. The only question: are they prepared?

The rain begins to fall as a sinking feeling begins to cloud my consciousness. Electric currents dash through the sky and strike the ground. They strike inches away from where the soles of my feet touch the un-traveled road. A deafening boom resonates clearly through the valley as reality approaches. This disease, this disorder of the mind consumes every thought. The short, momentary revelations of the knowledge that it is physically possible to feel joy and serenity keep me alive in this empty shell. Time seems to be put on slow-motion as the day progresses by the seconds. Each moment passing with the clear sound, tick, one second, tick, and then another.
An onslaught of morbid thoughts invades every single cell that inhabits my brain. As my memories electrify the insults, the words they - the ones who adore me, the ones who have cared for me - had spoken, repeat through my head and linger with my own morbid thoughts. The questioning of oneself overpowers what the others have said. The questions I had created about my existence – my worth – and what has become of that smiling girl who skipped down the dirt paths of the Forêt De Soignes1. How much longer can I deal with this feeling of uncertainty, this feeling of worthlessness, and the overwhelming sense that this journey called life is always traveled alone? Am I really in control of my destiny, or is it already laid out by some God that controls the every movement of our bodies? Am I just a simple marionette that is being controlled by the great master, the author of this epic tale?

The questions of life have plagued my mind. Above all else I have continually questioned myself: why am I the one who is to bear this disorder? It is this that has shaped my personality into what it is today, the thing that created who I am – the illness that has possessed me for what seems like countless years. When did this mental cancer first come into being?

For me, its existence wasn’t known until the middle of my seventh grade, when I was twelve. The storm clouds had begun to develop – though it is impossible to pinpoint the exact day, or year, when this mental cancer began its unnatural development – during the early years of my life. Memories of this time have since then faded into my subconscious, locked into the filing cabinets of my memory. A few untainted moments from these earlier years can be obtained from this filing cabinet of memories, although the majority of my memories are locked away, deep in my subconscious. Whether or not I will ever be able to retrieve these memories is questionable, but the ones I can remember will stay distinct and crystal clear, so vivid that they block out many of the more pleasant memories of my past.

You have your good times and your bad times. Specific years may have more, or less, than others. Seventh grade was not blessed by a few pleasant memories. But you have to realize that there are also the moments, the events, that can completely change a person in the way the think and act, and even what, or who, they believe in. I was changed in seventh grade. Not only did it change who I am and how I act, it changed my perception on things, people, and just life in general.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday. A small, harmless notebook that circulated through my group of friends, or who I thought were my friends. It was a deception, a lie that I fell for. It shocked me how much a small notebook could do. It created my ignominy, these words that the pens recorded on the blank pages. These words repeat through my mind as I recall the day. Two of them in particular were discussing something in the notebook with their little notes. They were essentially my hidden enemies.

They wanted to kill me. They wanted to choke me till my body became motionless – literally an empty shell that held no life. This loss of friendship essentially made my life seem utterly pointless. There seemed to be no point in staying alive because no one would miss my presence. No one would miss my existence. It may have been this that helped create the dark void that consistently possessed me throughout the seventh grade. It was, and still is, the obvious explanation – in my humble opinion – of my fear of speaking, my fear of rejection.

Since seventh grade I have spoken to both of the people who wanted to create my demise. Both of them have apologized and said numerous times that they had lacked intelligence that year. But I still wonder. Do they know how much those simple words changed me? Do they really know who I am? They don’t.

The memory of the events from seventh grade plagued me at the beginning of eighth grade. The night before the first day of school I cried. I was afraid of tomorrow. I had no idea what was in store for – but I had a small hint.

If I can recall it correctly, it was the first, or second, day of school. The students shuffled into their classes, greeting one another with excitement before sitting down and waiting for the teacher to introduce herself. I turned my head in each direction to look for a familiar face but found none. A terrible sense of fear swept over me as I realized that I did not know a single person. At that moment a tsunami of thoughts crashed into my brain and began to flood every section. An overwhelming feeling of loneliness and uncertainty clouded my brain. I crossed my fingers and held my breath for a few seconds as I made a desperate wish for a friend, or at least a familiar face, to be in my next class. As the day wore on it became evident that my wish would not come true. Yet by pure luck I was greeted by a close friend in the last hour of the school day. My existence, once again, seemed to have value and purpose.

Fast forward a few hours and you have the evening of that day. This throbbing sense of dread fills my thoughts. The joy of having a friend in my sixth hour departed like a puff of smoke on the horizon. The depth of my despair was unimaginable as I lay curled up on the floor sobbing. The tears alone could not express the extremities of my emotions as the questions of life raced through my mind at the speed of light. The incredible emptiness I felt consumed me from the very depths of my soul. Life had begun to be what seemed like a dark forest with predators tracking me. I was being hunted, hunted by the thoughts of death, and destruction.

The world seemed so hopeless, full of an abundant amount of tortures waiting to sink into my flesh. The morbid thoughts of my demise cursed me relentlessly. The energy that possessed me as a child was now so depleted that it was not physically possible to go through with the actions that would cause my demise. I was exhausted, but I could not sleep. I was conscious, but I was not awake. Life had become a living nightmare.

My existence had a false illusion of being meaningless, worthless, and without purpose. Consequently, I had become an empty shell, a robotic instrument that performed the menial tasks of a middle school student. Obtaining information, processing it, and then spitting it back out. The words that the teachers spoke were placed into the locked filing cabinet of my subconscious, along with an entire collection of both memories of both misery and joy.

The illness I am condemned to have had consumed with. The extreme emotions that came with it overwhelmed me and engulfed me with despair. The thunderhead had done its damage, but the storm was still brewing above me in the sky. I needed something, anything that would erase these feelings of meaninglessness, worthlessness, and emptiness. The world seemed hopeless

I’ve taken care of these things for the most part. Of course I still struggle once and a while. That constant fear of being alone relentlessly eats gnaws on my subconscious. The storm seems to be receding but I know it will always be there, ready to attack. I wouldn’t have been able to do this alone. I have gotten help for my depression from a combination of my family, my friends, and a counselor. I force myself to remember these things. I won’t forget the past because I don’t want it to repeat itself.