Hiding From The World.

When notes are writing themselves in your notebook, documenting every move you make and then telling that your existence isn’t real, is it wrong to bury yourself in whatever you can find – clothes, blankets, pillows, whatever – and hide from the world?

The problem with darkness is that renders mostly useless. When you can’t see or hear, your thoughts are amplified. As mad as I felt already, each passing second alone I could feel my sanity slipping further away. One of the things I pride myself on is having the ability to look at my emotions and actions objectively and knowing exactly where they came from. It doesn’t mean I can change the things I do or ways I think, but it’s at least a slight relief to know why I am what I am. At this point, I couldn’t look at anything objectively. Ideally I’d avoid all thought, though my brain would not desist with its think-cycle. The only logical explanation for all that was happening was that I was losing my mind. Not one of those in-the-midst-of-depression “I can’t get lower” deals either, but a for real dip into madness. Maybe I’d been convincing myself I was depressed the whole time, because the way I felt then was a way I’d never felt before. Grasping anything was an impossibility I had a million thoughts running through my head at once and none of them were clarified.

Pressing my hands against my ears and closing my eyes as tightly as I could, nothing helped. Nothing could stop the flood. It had washed in and was taking me, not away, but into myself, where I could disappear for all time, unable to escape, kept silent by unyielding thought. A tear streamed from my closed right eye, and then one from my left. Violently, I threw everything off me with a flailing of my body. With my right hand, I hit myself as hard as I could. My cheek ached as I hit it again. And again. When your mental pain is affecting you, drown it out with physical pain. This is the morning after Hood’s party all over again and I’m completely numb to physicality. It must have been ten or more punches before I realised my hand was covered in blood. It was gushing out of my nose. How wood feels after its been reduced to a pile of splinters is akin to how my nose felt in my hand as I cupped it and tried to prevent blood from covering Damo’s couch. All I could feel was the madness, other than that I was still out of myself. Just seconds following the action, I gave up on hindering the bleeding, flinging my hands away and rubbing the blood onto the clothes that lay atop the pile in my crate. I saw the remote sitting on top of the television. Quickly, I was out of my seat. Quicker, the TV was on.

I needed noise. Images. Anything. Whatever could numb the hurting in my mind. What I needed was something to stop my sanity dripping away like the blood from my nose. Turning the volume up as high as it would go, I sank back into the couch and tried to allow the problems of a woman who’d just found that her identical twin was evil absolve me. I tried to absorb myself in this world, this myth, this lie. Though as hard as I tried, I couldn’t. When you can’t stop to focus on one thought you can’t convince yourself of anything.

I was bleeding, the TV was blaring, my eyes were fixed, yet still I felt it slipping away. Every little lie I’d concocted, every fallacy, I felt it fleeing. The blinds were opening, the light of truth was seeping and all I wanted to do was hide. All I wanted was to escape.

Through my cavalcade of thoughts rang one name. One solution. Katya. My abluent saviour. What I needed was her comfort, her answers. What I needed was to grasp that happiness of love. That feeling that so many are afraid to clench because they know it opens them completely up to disaster. When you’re insane, the comfort of depression doesn’t apply. It just adds melancholy to the madness. Happiness is the answer, I thought. Love. It was like a lighting bolt from the hands of God himself, sent to shock me into awakening. Into reality. That one name rang over and over. Katya. Katya. Katya. All at once, I was clarified. I was saved.

I found the phone and dialed her number.

“Hello?” It sounded as if I’d just woken her up. I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t. My thoughts had overloaded. The overwhelming lucidity of the previous moment had disappeared and now back stronger than ever was my fading sanity.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“Katya” I managed to say before erupting into tears. I was bawling uncontrollably. Reverting to infancy. All I wanted was for my angel, my saviour to come and protect me. I had become the child who never stops crying until he is in his mother’s arms. It seemed like hours before Katya spoke.

“Owen?” She sounded worried as hell. In between the choked up tears, I managed to grunt an affirmative noise. As I continued to empty myself on Damo’s couch, Katya said “Wait for me, Owen.” Her voice was desperate. “I’m coming Owen, quickly.” She declared as my tears grew fiercer. Hearing her voice, I ached with longing. I needed to feel her warmth. And she said “I’m on my way. Don’t do anything stupid.”

And it wasn’t until then that doing something stupid had entered my mind.