Lying in bed should be relaxing. The human species has decided that it likes comfort, and a little too much. It likes comfort so much that it will even abandon its compulsive need for conveniency and will put itself through lots of turmoil to leave their own shelter and buy a mattress. It’s all about the comfort. But for me, this bed is doing anything but putting me to sleep.

It’s the first day of school tomorrow, and all I can think about is how I’m losing myself. I am not the person I used to be.

Spontaneous, funny, loud. Happy, endearing, caring, proud.

I am in my eighth grade science class, listening intently on what the teacher is saying. I listen so hard my ears almost burst. I am waiting for the next opportunity to throw my hand in the air, so I can show everyone how much I know, without looking like I am better than them.

My teacher looks around. Her eyes purposely ignore mine. She is looking for someone else, because I can answer every question she asks. It’s only fair to give other students a chance. Because, sometimes, they know what I know, too. But I know that I know a little bit more. And I know that science is fun.

I am in my ninth grade english class. My teacher is probably the kindest teacher in the world, and I sit surrounded by friends. We are hilarious and annoying. The teacher hands each one of us our stories back to us, the ones we most recently had written and proofread and printed and turned in. Except for me. I did all but one of those things. I had felt confident enough in myself before completion not to proofread, and now I’m second-guessing it. Just because words flow easily onto the page for me does not mean those words were the best words to write down. On the other hand, every time I proofread, I never feel the need to change anything. I’ve always been very good at getting what I want to say out onto the page.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter. It’s already been turned in, long done, and graded, and nothing I worry about now will change it, if it even needs changing. (I’ve never felt the need to redo an assignment, so revision is far out of my mind at this point.)

I suck in my breath. I receive my paper.

An A. Perfect score.

I shouldn’t worry so much. I’ve got this in the bag.

I am in eleventh grade. I’ve finally realized the importance of caring for people, even those whom you don’t have to, and it’s starting to show. All of my teachers at the very least like me, and most of them I have befriended.

Unfortunately, I have also realized how satisfying and rewarding making a group of people laugh is. So, naturally, a small majority of my time has been taken up by being funny. I set myself some ground rules; everyone has to have their own morals. Rarely will I jest at others’ expense. I want to say never, but that will eventually happen, by mistake. Sometimes I teeter on the edge of becoming annoying to the crowd around me (and sometimes I do spill over to that point, but let’s not talk about that). But that’s okay, because I’m likeable. Obviously not everyone is going to like me. Some people just don’t click. But when the sense of humor and easygoing attitude I show to my friends combine with the respect and interest I give to my superiors, those qualities intertwine to create a whole person within myself. I’ve wanted to become this for so long, and I worked hard at crafting that person, and I finally fit that description. I fit. I am the people’s person, and I love it.

Tomorrow, I will be a senior. That knowledge has faded in and out of my brain; every once and a while it will hit me, and every once in a while it won’t. This summer I was gone. Something had happened to me, and I think it affected me up in my head as well. I am not the same person anymore. I was there, and then I was gone, and now I am back, but completely changed. And I can’t tell if I’ve changed for better or for worse. I hold myself differently, I walk slower, I think differently, I speak differently. I like different things, I enjoy less things, I don’t interest myself the way I used to. The only things that have remained constant are my experiences. And I want myself back.

My surroundings have become muddled in a mist of black fog, and this registers in my brain, but not in my head. Only this room exists, the fog tells my brain. Inside my head, I am just falling.

Usually I have to make a conscious effort to cry. I don’t have to try hard to do it, but sometimes I can feel the tears coming; they tell me they’re on their way. They tell me so I can lift the guardrail, so I can allow them to pass. Tonight I am the tears, I have fallen asleep at the wheel, and there is no gate I have to wait for.

But when there is no gate, there is no filter for what goes out, and what comes in. When things are not monitored, you become vulnerable. And you can be attacked.

The fog begins to speak to me.

TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.

The lights…?

There are two glowing pinpricks across the room. One is blinking and red and belongs to my microphone. The other is brighter and green and is bound by wire. Getting rid of the lights would mean sitting up, and aching, and my body resisting, and I am just too tired, too physically and emotionally drained, to do anything about it. Besides, I can’t even see the glow if I’m not facing that way. I pull the blankets over my head.

Tick. It is hot under my covers.

Tock. I throw them away from me.

Tick.

One light is blinking and red.

Tock.

The other is brighter and green.

Tick.

I don’t worry about the lights.

Tock.

One is angry and laughing and evil.

Tick.

The other is loud and yelling and happy and painful.

Tock.

TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.

Though the two dots of color, emanating from my computer desk, are as small as needle points, as small as fruit flies, they rip holes into my flesh, into my eyes, into my brain, until I can’t stand it anymore. It’s the thing, the one thing, that’s able to push me up and carry my legs which bring my body to those lights and that’s when I swing my arms and knock them down. They fall to the ground, helpless.

That little action fills me with exhaust. I immediately return to my bed, and after surveying the room and seeing the room finally, completely, utterly dark, I lie back down.

The black haze caresses my ears, saying,

GET USED TO THIS, HONEY, YOU’LL BE HERE A WHILE.

The darkness is comforting. I am both slowly and quickly realizing that my life, my character, has been damned.

I have suffered trauma in the summer, and some nights it’s all I can think about. Tonight, the reminders are overwhelming. Those thoughts are filling my existence to the brim, and I am scared. I am terrified. I am panicking, and I don’t even notice it. I am too busy trying to breathe,

trying to get more,

more,

more,

more.

But the only “more” that the universe will bless me with is more of distress and more of dysfunction.

I am panicking, I am panicking, I cannot breathe, I cannot think, ALL I CAN DO IS THINK.

ALL I CAN DO IS sink.

Sometimes all you can do is sink.

But the longer you sink, the closer you get to the bottom,

and once you reach the bottom, well,

you can stay there for a while,

but you might as well take the first step in swimming back up.

I jolt upright.

Swimming back up will take a long time, and there’s nothing better to do than to begin that journey.

I breathe. I breathe deep.

“I’m okay,” I hiss. I don’t realize I’m saying it until I’m hearing it.

“I’m okay,” I repeat, catching my breath.

A chant. Sometimes, that’s all you can do. Just speak, however loud you can be, however quiet you need to be,

“I’m okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“I’m okay...”

“I’m okaaay.”

“I’m okaaaaaaayyy.”

“I’m okaaaaaaayyy…”

and then you can relax again,

and that’s when I lie down again.

F*** you, I tell the fog. Lights are not evil.

Lights want to help you.

I turn on my phone.

Sometimes you have to be vulnerable and live in the darkness, because the light can be overbearing. The light can meddle at times, it will stay longer than you want it. Other times, however, you have to open the door, and let the light in.

I keep my phone on. I pull up my contacts. I text my boyfriend. “The lights are evil.”

I am living in darkness but I am okay. For so long I’ve taken on such an assertive role in my own life that I crashed. It was inevitable; at one point or another, I had to fall down. Sometimes you have to be passive and you have to let things happen to you, and some of those things will be horrible. There will be terrible things, but you will live through them.

I am living in the darkness, and it is dark, but I am living.