stoical - l.h.

one

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My broken bones and bruised body are not what cripples me. It isn't the throbbing pain in my head that told the doctors I have a severe concussion, nor was it the blood that ran down my face from my nose that told the doctors it was probably broken, or nearly. The cast on my arm, my leg, probably make me look crippled to the point of being a little sad, crippled to the point of having people give me a sorry expression in public instead of just averting their eyes gracefully. It isn't these things that make me so chronically crippled that damage is irreversible. It's what people can't see that matters more than any injury I've sustained over the years; what is underneath my white-blonde mass of hair that some people may see as angelic, that I only see as abnormal and ridiculously bothersome.

The darkness had crept in when I was young, maybe around five or six. It could've always been there without my knowing, but my first memories of it start around that time. I was always prone to some bouts of restlessness or anger, as far as I know, but once the darkness came rolling in like the clouds of a particularly reckless storm, I was just gone. I haven't been the happy little girl I once was since I had been for the first (and only) time. My life from birth until four, slightly five, must have either been truly magnificent or regrettably awful, depending on how you looked at. I, personally, have little recollection of anything prior to the darkness. The glimpses are so fast-paced and confusing that trying to sort through them is nauseating, dizzying. Maybe it is the sole fact that I don't remember any of the light that makes me so dark. I don't know.

The feelings inside of me are mobile and undulating. They rise, they fall, they crash violently, they rise again, to heights that are unfathomable. They mold and move, making me sick or angry; even violent, maybe. There is no way of predicting it and no way of controlling it, and telling myself of the unpredictability of it all is the only way I can actually deal with it. Accepting that I am a freak, accepting that there is nothing I can do about the fact that I am so helpless, is what has allowed me to go on. Otherwise, I would probably be more insane than I already am.

Anxiety churns through my bloodstream and jumps every time the car rattles or bumps. My stomach flips over and over, not with nerves, nor with excitement, but with existential dread and fear. All the while, my face remains passive, unbothered. My hands are relaxed on top of my jean-covered legs and not ticcing like I so wish they were. My brain is telling me, over and over again, flex your fingers, move them, tap them, tighten them, stretch them. And maybe it isn't so much my thoughts that are saying this, but my body in general, the urges so overwhelming sometimes I'm left completely breathless, unable to do anything but sit motionless. Much like I am doing right now. I can't move, can't think, without giving into the urge that my body is telling me I need. I wonder if this is normal, if everyone goes through things like this. I wonder and wonder, remaining motionless and trying not to give in, not to let the strange urge take advantage of me since it is weird and isn't, I decide, normal. Not normal. If it isn't normal, Lavender, don't do it. You can't.

That's how most debates with myself go. There is physically no room for anymore self-doubt or anxiety on top of everything else. Meaning, if I am to argue with that little tiny voice in my head, the anxiety it may give me in turn to disagree would be so overwhelming, maybe I'd just keel over in a ball of stress and allow whatever happened next to happen. But there are always the moments when the anxiety contradicts itself. Think of it as my anxiety having its own anxiety.

You can't do what your body is telling you. But if your body is telling you to do it, maybe it's important. Maybe you'll die if you don't, or maybe you'll pass out like you've been thinking for the past couple of days. Is your breathing slowing? Oh, God, just do it now, before you die.