Silent Pantomime

Chapter 40 | Praise me

Chapter 40🌌: trigger warning: talk about bad mental health, suicidal thoughts, please don't read if it effects you, I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable🤍

I was sick. Something in my head had gone completely wrong, as if the switch of silence had destroyed any kind of rationality. My insides were screaming to come out for air, the nightmares just dancing on my lips. The only thing my mind could agree on was that they hated this game.

It wasn't even worth the attention anymore, all I could focus on was accidentally slipping up. If I messed it all up, I wouldn't even have had the time to experience enough attention, and all of my secrets would have been let out.

Everything was falling apart. But what could I have done? Scream and be killed, or be silent and a ghost?

The only thing worse than the silence were the thoughts that were overfilling that void - thoughts that could only have disappeared if I disappeared completely. After lunch at school, I had stormed out and definitely had no motive of returning. I couldn't let out the need to scream about my blackmailer. I couldn't destroy the urge to yell out my anger. I couldn't hide the memories of every bad thing I had done, that were crawling back and teasing me to admit to the world. My least favourite thought being that I deserved it.

My mum left me with this narcissistic mindset, and took away all of my love. Oliver filled that love back up, but that was gone too because him being taken away from me was all my fault.

This wasn't fate, this wasn't the stars, this wasn't anything I could twist to go my own way. I was the tyrant of my own life, sitting on the throne of other people's successes, and now one person messed that up, my tower was quickly crumbling down.

I was doing research, and I really was sick. I think, no, I know, I have a condition called histrionic personality disorder. I wanted to run away from my brain when I stared at my computer screen, all of the traits for HPD met me. I was sick.

There is some strange mnemonic for HPD that is shortened to "PRAISE ME".
Provocative behaviour.
Relationships are considered more intimate than they actually are.
Attention seeking.
Influenced easily by others or circumstances.
Speech and style, wants to impress.
Emotional lability, shallowness.
Make-up, physical appearance is used to draw attention to themselves.
Exaggerated emotions, theatrical.

Every single detail of this disorder matched me, which drove me crazy knowing I was crazy. I was shallow, I was an attention seeker, I was provocative - but I couldn't stop. All I ever wanted to do was put on a show and have the spotlight on me, whether I got applauded or booed off the stage, everyone would still see me. Anger, hate, compassion and love all meant exactly the same, because as long as it was directed towards me, it didn't matter what emotion. Love's hate after all.

I didn't want to just be some girl with a disorder, but that's all I was. All I am. A sick girl. You read all of these stories, watch all these films where people say they "are more than their disorder". But I was not more than any disorder. I'd said from day one that my life revolved around attention, I even made Ally do what she did just because I wouldn't have been able to breathe without attention. I made myself sicker by getting locked in that hotel room for three days, the only thing keeping me sane was whether or not people were worried about me. Now, here I was torturing myself to silence, just to save my reputation.

Yet I still craved more.

I was stood, looking at my trembling body in front of the mirror. It was so hard to comprehend how much suffering can happen to seven billion different piles of skin and bones, it was even harder to comprehend how tiny little minds can cause so much damage. My hair was flat and my eyes looked like their spark had been put out, all because of thoughts.