Everything makes sense now.

Just a normal day

I wake up. I stand, stumble a little, almost fainting. My vision completely disappears, replaced by a blinding sea of light-blue and purple sparks, for around 15 to 20 seconds. When I come to, I dash frantically towards my alarm clock, afraid that if more than 8 repetitions of its beeping pattern come to pass, I have committed some cardinal sin.

I always thought this was normal.

My stomach tenses into a tangled knot. An electric and giddy fear flows throughout. I go downstairs- making sure to climb them in precisely 8 strides- and sit at the table with a bowl of cereal. I try to concentrate on my book, but I'm overcome by an inability to focus on the pages. My eyes drift from paragraph to paragraph without taking in the words themselves. I end up on the opposite page without a clue how I got there.
My thoughts are an incoherent jumble, mixed with feelings I can barely discern. I try to eat, but for some reason I can't. I'm hungry, but... I'm afraid.  As if some divine punishment will be meted out upon me for failing to eat in a certain way, at a certain speed...

I always thought this was normal.

I leave over half of the cereal, pouring it down the sink even as I listen to my stomach grumble. I pace up and down for 5 minutes, barely conscious, randomly wondering around with no real purpose. I gradually come to over the course of around half a minute, and stride up the stairs, obeying the same 8-stride superstition. Again, I pace around, but only for a few seconds, before I get in the shower.

Then I start talking to myself.

It used to be that I'd just vent random thoughts and feelings at the mirror to get them out of my system. It felt normal, cathartic, right. Then, I began to imagine another person reacting to everything I said. I felt the need to justify to a non-existent stranger facts that I've always known are true.
Now, I'm broadcasting a pretend live-stream onto YouTube. I make hypothetical videos, uploaded only in my own mind. I respond to postulated comments saying an assortment of random nonsense- usually whatever asinine thing I've heard on the internet lately. This isn't a metaphor- this is literally exactly how I think and feel while getting ready for school.

I always thought this was normal.

The bus journey takes roughly 45 minutes. The journey is never remarkable in any way- just the usual conversations, a period of time that to most is frivolous, but to me is one of the few moments of real blessed boredom I get. Usually, the cracks that permeate day-to-day existence- down which the lukewarm, gentle waters of boredom would trickle for most people- are flooded for me with a corrosive, acidic, adrenal combination of fear, guilt and anxiety. This manifests in a nebulous yet thoroughly, terrifyingly compelling need to escape from... something. I always presumed that what I was feeling was just boredom, just like everyone else.

I always thought this was normal.

Form class passes without incident. During first period, I zone out for roughly 10 minutes, and then I suddenly realise that I've forgotten everything I need to know about the question. It's not that I've mind-blanked- I know the information, and I know that I know. I just can't access it. It's like it's locked away in a secret part of my mind that I can't get to, no matter how hard I try. This feeling lasts the entire period, and I can get little to no work done.

The day's off to a bad start.

Period two is similar, except since this is a subject I enjoy, I manage to learn something. I get some work done, vaguely, and I bluff my way through enough that I can at least pretend I'm mentally fit right now. This pattern repeats itself for most of my classes, to a greater or lesser degree.

You'd think I'd get some respite during interval and lunch. In fact, it's worse. Mainly because of the crippling feelings I have towards one of my best friends. Sometimes I love him so much that he's the only thing that keeps me sane that day. Sometimes I'm so terrified of losing him that merely being around him will kill me inside.

Those feelings should be dead, but they're often the only thing that keeps me alive, and it constantly threatens our friendship and my sanity.

People told me that my feelings were normal. They said that I should just get over it, making me feel guilty because I should have done, I can function fine.

Sure I can. Sure I'm enduring reality, but I'm dying inside. I'm surviving day to day but I'm not really living.

Some disabilities are invisible to those around you. This quote is quite well known, and I would add a caveat– some are invisible not only to those around you, but even to yourself.

You see, I've been living with this presumption my entire life. The rhetoric that I am normal, that I have to be normal, has been burnt into my brain like a cow branded with an iron. I have a life that isn't falling apart- mostly- at the seams, and I'm not dead or crippled yet, therefore I am normal.

Sure. Sure my life is fine- on the outside. But my psyche is crumbling to pieces.