Dementophobia • tyler joseph •

ten // tossing and turning awake in the night

Dedicated to one of my best friends, grapholagnia! Thank you for putting up with me and giving me advice when I need it. Hopefully, we can go to the bathroom again together at King's Island while listening to Alpha Dog by Fall Out Boy.

I would also like to apologize for not updating last night. I had a terrible migraine (please no jokes). My mom was actually thinking about taking me to the ER, but I'm okay now.

This update may also have a triggering event in it for some people.

--Courtney's P.O.V--

Have you ever just felt so overwhelmed that you wanted to cry? Or lonely? Maybe even depressed? Maybe you didn't feel anything at all?

For years I felt like that. For years, I wanted to cry and never stop until I couldn't cry anymore.

I still felt like that and I didn't understand why. The point of the mental hospital was to help me cope and learn to deal with these emotions, yet I still felt the same way as I did before. Maybe my medication needed to be adjusted after all, I honestly had no idea.

Happiness was a hard thing for me to accomplish, but I was trying so hard. I didn't want to be miserable and unhappy for the rest of my life. I don't think anybody wanted to be.

Tyler may be getting married and may have moved on, but I knew he wouldn't want me to bee unhappy. Tanner wouldn't want me to be unhappy, either would any of my family members. I was fighting for them.

A scream sounded from the television, causing me to jump slightly.

It was Nathan's brilliant idea to put in a horror movie, which he knew terrified me to no end and caused me to have panic attacks. I tried to protest, but it was pointless to even try. Both of my brothers and Tanner loved horror movies, so I guess you could say it was three against one.

However, I managed to drift off to sleep twenty minutes into the movie with my sock-covered feet in Tanner's lap. Surprisingly, he didn't push them off and either one of my brothers made comments about us dating. They must have grown out of that.

"What are you guys watching now?" I groaned, turning my head slightly to glance at the TV. Although I didn't see much of the first movie they put in called Halloween, I knew that whatever was on the television now was different.

Nathan's figure jumped as he noticed that I was awake. "I didn't know you were awake, Courtney. You scared the crap out of me."

Nathan was three years older than me and literally was the only person I knew that didn't cuss at all, aside from Tanner, who was a good boy. The only time I've ever heard my brother cuss was when he dropped a glass vase of my mother's. He yelled shi.t and I was the only one who heard. He paid me ten bucks to keep quiet.

"Sorry," I mumbled, my eyes falling closed once again.

"We are watching American Horror Story," Tanner responded, quietly.

"Well," Nathan added, "we all were until Elijah decided to fall asleep on us."

I opened my eyes once again and moved my head to see my eldest brother fast asleep on the floor.

My brother's apartment was quite big and the living room by itself contained two leather couches and a chair.

"Why exactly did he decide to sleep on the floor?" I asked.