Non Verbal

67

67(UM SORRY FOR THE SHORT UPDATE! i have covid and I promise I am also writing the rest of a proper update right now! But also I wrote this to describe what's going on with Roe now... i mean I feel like you all understand but I just thought it was fun to write. I hope you enjoy! Hope it's like not too weird and symbolic lol) Happy reading! Comment your thoughts at the end- just in terms of the writing?:)

Rowan's POV

For a long time, there was no point in telling anyone about anything that was happening inside of me. My family partly knew what was happening anyway. There was no need to verbalise it. And just like she always says, I am not very good at hiding the amount of despair I am in. I did try though. Before. To hide it. For a long time I didn't want anyone to try and fix it. I didn't trust them enough with something so important.

Everyone saw recovery as a way to try and stop the behaviours, the compulsions. I always saw it as life and death. I didn't think anyone would ever understand the severity of that. It was that assumption that kept me away from telling someone how bad it was...It was that or I was addicted to my despair.

I didn't want to stop feeling it. I didn't want to give up that control. I couldn't, not until I stopped being able to hold onto it anyway. Not until it grew so much bigger than what I could keep under control. Not until it drove me to the train tracks all those months ago. God, I was insane then.

I feel insane now.

Sat here soaking wet and staring at the crystals in my hands.

It's ridiculous really. How wrong I was. How wrong it was to feel as if I was getting better. It's ridiculous because it's almost as if I was drowning again. As if all those months ago I was trying to tread water in a sea that was being pulled and turned by forces so much greater than myself. It was as if the ocean was trying to swallow me up and take me away from all this misery.

That night on the tracks I thought I had been pulled out. That Lottie, particularly, had pointed the rescue helicopter straight to where I was drowning in the dark abyss and very quickly I was harnessed and heaved up from within the water and was rescued from the forces trying to suffocate me. I'd seen that night as a near-perfect end of my nightmare in the water. I had been pulled out. I was tossed into a facility, and I was dried off. My clothes were washed. I was redressed. I was spat back out into the world and told not to go near the water again. So I tried to stay away from the water.

I really tried to keep dry. 

Instead, I should have been learning to swim.

All this time I should have just been focusing. Learning. Coping. Breathing.

Because it's clear to me now, I never left the fucking water.

I hadn't been rescued and pulled out. I was still there. I was still in this ocean alone. The only difference is that for a brief period of time; the storm clouds had cleared. And with the sky clear all I did was float there in the water. I was stupid and naive, and I fell into the trap of feeling the warmth of the sun on my face and the fresh touch of clear water on my skin. I stared up at the beautiful sky and I forgot momentarily that the water was still surrounding me. The water was less threatening now, it was calm and peaceful and glowed in colours of blue and most significantly green. The water stilled and it gave me the chance to take in the beauty of the sky above. The sun. I always preferred summer. 

So, as I floated in the near-perfect conditions, looking up at the sky, I didn't take the time to practice keeping afloat, to practice and build the strength of my strokes. I should have practised how to tread water. Instead, I just basked in the beautiful fact that the sky was clear and I didn't need to keep from drowning for a while.

And then when the sky darkened again and the waves grew ever taller and wilder than ever before, I was not prepared. They have been trying and trying to drown me and I was stupid and I didn't prepare myself well enough.

I was not prepared to swim. To fight. To try and keep breathing.

But this time at least I knew that I liked the feeling of sunlight on my face. I understood now that although I knew not how to fight, I wanted to. 

Thoughts?