Our Path of Freedom {HYYH, Wings, Love Yourself}

#2 Lie. Jimin

                   

My parent's house made up one realm. This realm was familiar to me in almost every way. Mother and father, love and strictness, model behavior and school.

Back then my world was small. Do you know those people who say things like: how would you know better if you've never seen anything else? You know what I mean? Well I've never seen anything else... I've never seen the world, I've never breathed in fresh air, I've never seen foreigners, I've never went to play outside. And I was totally fine with it. Because I thought that was normal, because I didn't know that there was anything else out there. I thought that it was just my small little world, that there was nothing else to see. What I didn't know was that I was caught in a lie.

My name is Park Jimin and I am 22 years old. I was the only child in my family. My parents were strict, but can you call it strictness when there's nothing funny you could do anyways? I never doubted their love for me though. I just didn't know better back then...

Everything I knew was the inside of our small house next to the woods where I lived with only my parents. It was filled with the scent of pinecones and resin. The walls were white and the windows were small. They told me to never go outside because it was too dangerous, because I could die out there. One time I asked what was waiting beyond the horizon. They told me that there was nothing else, that everything I could see when I was looking outside the window was everything existing. There was nothing else. And I believed them, I trusted them. How should I've known better? So, I stayed inside my whole life. Not knowing anything about the real world outside. I grew up becoming a weak and sad human being. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I didn't understand. I didn't know why this huge pain and sadness were growing inside of me. All I wanted was to run, run away to the end of the world even if it was yet so close, I just wanted to get rid of this pain. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout at somebody. I wanted to punch somebody. I wanted to say how horrible I felt but I couldn't. It's endless even if you try to run, I've fallen into a lie.

Every day in the evening when my parents allowed me to spend time alone. They expected me to be in my room. But there was nothing in my room. No TV, no books, no games, no piano. I didn't even know the meaning of those words back then. I went to the bathroom. I somehow found my way to get rid of those self-destructive feelings. This way was simply to make myself not feeling anything at all, becoming numb. So I filled the bath tub with ice cold water. I let myself sink into it never even minding about taking off my clothes. I was just lying in there, for hours just being numb, just not feeling anything at all. And I liked it. Why did I like it so much? And once again I realized... I was a prisoner in my own mind craving for freedom, something that seems so near while I'm asleep but is yet so far away while I'm awake. In the end I was always lying on the ground leaning on the bath tub, with my whole body shaking and silently crying as I felt all the pain slowly coming back. But I didn't stop. Because those few hours saved me from totally loosing myself.