** and so, the legacy I leave behind when I shuffle off this mortal coil is that of a footnote in a brain leak episode. ah. mental. speaking of, I'd like to formally apologise as a now 22 year old woman for my extremely mentally unwell teenage self...
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~ Your POV ~
Most people enjoy their teenage years. Despite the bitchiness of high school and the stress of exams, most people are able to laugh their way through their time in high school, with good friends by their sides, and for a while, you were able to do that too. It was weird, how everything changed. It wasnt sudden, there wasnt a traumatic event that set it off. At first, you werent even aware of the changes happening, your friends became aware of them before you did. They would point out your lack of enthusiasm towards group activities, your near constant exhaustion, how much quieter you'd gotten, and how you'd lost interest in all of your passions. These changes occurred when you were 16, and they continued to haunt you until just after you turned 18. It was mental torture. Or at least, it was to begin with. For the first few months, it was unbearable, because you were hurting those around you, but after that, when your friends gave up on you and your family got used to the way you acted, it just became routine for you. You no longer cared, because you werent hurting anyone but yourself, and you didnt care at all what happened to you.
It was after that, after losing all your friends, when you were home alone one night and running a bath, your blades already laid out beside the soap, and you were ready to end it all. You decided to occupy yourself while the bath filled, so you clicked on the first youtube video in your subscription box, which just so happened to a video from one of your favourite youtubers: CrankGameplays.
His videos had been the source of the tiny amount of joy you were capable of feeling, and although it didnt seem like much to anyone else, the tiniest smile he brought you meant everything to you. The fact you saw his face and his bright blue hair brought a smile to your face then, as you continued filling up the bath tub, and you can remember thinking how seeing his face before you ended things would make it so much easier. That is, until he started playing a video game. Usually, whatever game he played didnt bother you, you'd watch everything he uploaded because regardless of whether the game itself interested you, his commentary is what you subscribed for, but that night, the video you clicked on just so happened to be about talking to someone over the phone who had accidentally called the wrong number when looking for the suicide hotline. Hearing Ethan talk to the person on the other line, try to comfort and reason with them, explain how they mattered to him and how you, as a viewer, mattered to him...it got to you. Something about the way he spoke, and how that video was coincidentally uploaded the day you tried to end it all, it talked you out of it, and you put your blades away that night.
Things didnt exactly get easier after that, but they were more bearable, simply because you had grown more accustomed to your constant numbness and disconnection from the world around you, your lack of feelings no longer scared you, because you no longer remembered how it felt to feel. The only time you ever felt anything, was when you watched Ethan. As sad as it may be to rely on watching someone through a screen who you have never met and who has no idea you exist, it kept you going, and it gave you the strength to get out of bed most days.
