His Name Is Blurryface *Joshler*

53

By the time Josh walked into Tyler’s room, Tyler was wide awake (something that wasn’t normal).

“Ty?”

“Hi Josh!” Tyler says happily as he turns on the TV, almost as if nothing happened yesterday.

“How was your night?” Josh asks as he gets out ointment and bandages for Tyler.

“Eh.”

“Just eh?”

“Yeah, just eh.”

“Anything happen?”

“Nope.”

“Okay then. Time to change yo bandages, yo.” Josh jokes, trying to lighten the uncomfortable mood.

“Oh my gosh. Stop that.”

“What? You don’t like my gangster talk? I’m hurt.”

“Yeah yeah, go cry mister misty-eyed.”

Both boys chuckle, and Josh sets all of the supplies on the table while he sits on the bed.

“Ready?”

“Gee, I was waiting for this moment.”

“Man, sarcastic today aren’t we?”

Josh is met with an eye roll, and Josh begins cleaning the cuts once again. Scabs have started forming, so the isopropyl didn’t hurt as much as the last time. Josh soon re-applied the ointment, and put on new bandages.

After Josh finished, he cleaned up the supplies, and promptly hopped onto the bed with Tyler.

“Sooooooo.” Josh drags out, not sure how to initiate the conversation.

“Josh, I’m fine now.”

“Yes, I see that, but we still have to discuss what happened yesterday.”

“Why? I’m fine now. Can we please just forget it?”

“As much as I’d like to, no. We gotta figure out what happened, so that history doesn't repeat itself.”

“Fine. I wanted to harm yesterday. That’s it.”

“That’s not it Ty. Why did you want to harm?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do. Why did you want to harm?” Josh asks again, hoping to get an answer out of Tyler.

“I wanted the release.” Tyler mumbles.

“The release of what?”

“Emotion?”

“Release of emotion?” Josh basically repeats.

“I don’t know Josh!” Tyler exclaims, frustrated. “Can you stop interrogating me?! Stop acting like you can cure me. Stop acting like you care about me! Just leave me be!!”

“Ty. I’m trying to help you because I /do/ care about you. I care about you more than I could ever show you.” Josh says. Josh is met with silence from Tyler, so he decides to keep going: “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but is it possible that you harmed to get away from everything? To just stop worrying? To stop ‘hearing’ the anxiety, depression, and Blurry?”

Josh knew that he hit the problem spot on when Tyler looked at him with disbelief.

“H-how did you know?” Tyler asks, dumbfounded.

“You’re not the first one Ty. Plus, I went through the exact same thing; I still have scars.”

“You do?”

“Mhm, on my hips and arms. I’m not proud of them, but they remind me of how far I’ve come, and you can get here too. You just gotta keep fighting because you will eventually win; you have to believe that.”

“Mmm.”

“Okay, so from now on, you tell someone if you have urges to harm, or suicidal thoughts /before/ you act on them. Also, we’ll figure out an alternate release for you.”

“Kay.”

“Now, we gotta talk about the whole resistance thing.”

“Joooossshhhh.” Tyler begs, embarrassed.

“I’ve seen worse, but we gotta discuss what happened my bud.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now, please explain.”

“Uh…” Tyler says aloud, trying to find a way to change the topic.

Josh just looks at Tyler expectantly, and Tyler begins to flush in a shade of light red.

“Ty, don’t be embarrassed. I’m not going to hold this against you, or think about you any differently. I’ll always think of you as this sweet, kind, and incredibly strong person that deserves the world.”

“I. Th-thank you Josh.”

“That’s really how I feel Ty, but we gotta talk about it, and we can move on afterwards.”

“Okay. Um. I don’t know why I was so vio-lent Josh. I barely remember what happened.” Tyler says shamefully.

“That’s okay Ty. It was a lot. Do remember how you felt? Or what you wanted in that moment?”

“I felt like I want-ed to just rip my skin and hair out. Like I /had/ to harm. It didn’t feel like an urge; Josh, it felt like I had to harm to stay alive.”

“Okay, then what happened when Patrick and I began to hold you back?”

“I wanted to be alone. I felt like you guys were just getting in the way of my happiness.”

“Hmm. Can you explain that a little more?”

“Uhm. I hated feeling you guys just hold me back; it felt like I was being kid-napped. I had to get away from you guys, and I had to harm. I had to see the bl-ood to feel free; I had to feel the pain to feel free.”

“Okay, talk me through what you felt from the moment that we restrained you and on.”

“At first, I hated you guys.” Tyler says with an awkward chuckle. “I wanted to break free, and run out of here. I wanted to get as far away as possible, and just non-stop harm. Once the Atarax kicked in, the want to harm de-creased, and I was exhausted. I felt like a loser laying there. I was em-barrassed with you and Patrick just sitting there. I felt like a loser. No. I felt like a failure. I hated it.” Tyler explains as he begins to tear up.

Almost instinctively, Josh brings Tyler into a hug, and comforts him.

“Oh, Ty. I don’t ever want you to feel like that. We didn’t think any less of you. In fact, we looked at you like an amazingly strong person who unfortunately has to battle demons in his head. We are so proud of you Ty, and you have to know that. We all have bad days, and yesterday was just a speed bump. You’re still making amazing progress.”

“Mmm. Thank you. I felt so ash-amed when you were cleaning my cuts, Josh. I felt terrible, and it hurt so bad. It was almost like a punish-ment because of how bad I was. It was like you were punishing me for the epi-sode. I was restrained, and it was so painful.”

“Gosh, Ty. I’m so, so sorry that you felt that way. We just had to clean your cuts before they got infected. I know yesterday was hard on all of us. Thank you for sharing how you felt. It will help us better help you, and understand what’s happening.”

“I know, I’m just not proud of it.”

“I know, Ty, I know. Now, just before we put this behind us, what should we do different next time? You know…hopefully there is no next time, but just in case.”

“Try to talk to me? Get me out of my head. If not, restrain me, but give me some say in what happens, and when it happens. I hate not having any control.”

“Okay, sounds good Ty. I’m sorry that that happened, but we’re gonna try our best to avoid it, yeah? And do it right if there is a next time. Just remember to tell us before anything happens, Ty.”

“Mmm.”