if I could fly...

I

Los Angeles, at the beginning of 2k17:

Louis:

When did things start to go wrong? Why did they go wrong?

I was sitting at my kitchen table, a can of beer and an ashtray in front of me. Normally I wouldn't smoke inside the house, but today nothing mattered and it was just me, so what the fuck!

My Mum had died a month ago, I was about to fight for the custody of my son and one week ago, I had broken up with Danielle.

Since the hiatus had started, but no later than Freddie's birth, I had lost the ground beneath my feet. Danielle had just been a distraction and I dumped her as soon as it got too exhausting. I was sick and tired of women!

I looked down at the printed article and the two bottles with pills beside it.

Today I went to see a psychiatrist.

I had done some research on the internet and one term kept yelling at me every now and then: "Burn Out Syndrome." But reality looked quite different, obviously.

At least, that's what the doctor said.

And he gave me the article. Out of nine diagnostical criterias, I fulfilled six.

I was suffering from a personality disorder.

Emotionally unstable personality disorder – borderline type. With the subtype "self-destructive"

One by one I went through the criterias:

First: since the hiatus had begun, I had tried to avoid being left alone. Just because I felt abandoned by Harry, Liam and Niall. They left me on my own in a very different stage in my life, at least that was how it felt for me. And because of that feeling I had made efforts to get Danielle as my girlfriend and surround myself with people.

So the first criteria was fulfilled.

The second was nonsense to me, so nope, it wasn't a yes.

When I reached the third criteria, I had to admit that it matched me. Yes, I definitely had a different vision of myself than the rest of the world. So far I thought I was a cool guy and people where happy when I was around. But looking at a mirror showed me a totally different person. I looked fucked up, pale, circles underneath my eyes, staying awake with coffee only. I wasn't really a pleasure to be with. I looked old. Not like Peter Pan anymore. I just felt like an old man, years ahead of my age. And I was in a foul mood most of the time. Forgetting all manners I ever had learned and treating people like shit – that was what my days were about. I had no one to talk to. My family didn't understand the impact the hiatus had on me. Suddenly it felt like I was on the bottom of the food chain again, like nobody gave shit about how I really was.

Regarding to the fourth criteria I had misjudged spontaneity. It was impulsiveness in a potentially self-destructing ambit. Hell yeah, this was also true. I bought way too much stuff, drove too fast and I fucked, hard, to say it in the words of Christian Grey. And I had been smoking and drinking too much lately.

Fuck!

Out of four criterias three matched so far...

Number five was self harming behaviour. The psychiatrist added beer and cigarettes to this point. Getting drunk to feel miserable on the next day and smoking too much to cough extensively – both were unconsciously used to harm myself. But I did hurt myself with full intention. After I had found out that neither sex nor wanking could ease the strain, alcohol didn't work either, I started to burn the inner sides of my thighs with the burning cigarette stumps. A coincidence showed me how delicate this pain was. A little ember had fallen from my cigarette and landed on my bare skin and although I had had sex right before it, this was much better. The pain helped me to relax. That made me drag the glowing cigarette over my skin.