inspired by the video of: demons - imagine dragons
I’ve got these demons. They’re living in my head, settling for a lifetime of joy. They make their job to build me down. They are the whispering voices in my head. They tell me the things I don’t want to hear. At first I ignored them, but the overpowered me. My insecurities feed them and they’ve grown, the voices increased and grew louder. I can’t block them out anymore and eventually I started listening to them.
It all started in freshman year, when Scott was seated behind me in class. He was quite the popular type of guy, he was funny. I was thrilled to be seated this close to him, I thought I could talk to him and perhaps become friends. I’d come to this school without any friends and was eager to make some. I was trying to come up with a way to start a conversation with Scott at the first day at school when he raised his hand.
“Yes, Scott?” The teacher said.
“Can I sit somewhere else, Dan is blocking my view with his fat ass.” He said and the whole class broke into laugher. I must admit, I was a bit chubby, but I’ve never been that fat as Scott always had been saying.
Scott liked the attention and continued to make jokes about me, as my classmates were laughing the first demon was born. He echoed the laugher when I was lying in my bed.
That’s when they’re the strongest, when it’s dark and I am vulnerable. At night they attacked, repeating the jokes, the laugher, the looks. Everything I blocked out at daytime came right back to me when the lights went out.
The jokes grew worse and feed my demons, from one demon it turned to a whole family living in there. ‘Yo mama’-jokes turned into ‘Dan’-jokes. “Dan is so fat, when he walked by my TV I missed a whole season of friends.” They would joke.
After some time it wasn’t the jokes anymore, it turned to bullying. By that time half a year had past and I told myself I could put up with this for another 5 months and just hope Scott will move on to another target. Even though I couldn’t, I snapped way before the deadline.
That day I just couldn’t chew away my dinner. I had a bad day, even worse than normal and it made my demons powerful. The demons started early that day and were whispering to me I shouldn’t eat, I was too fat to eat. I was supposed to skip the dessert but my mom made me. I never told my parents about the bullying and when they asked about school I just said I was fine and made some friends. After dinner I went straight to my bedroom, just like every day. I turned up some bullet for my valentine I liked the loud music, it kept the voices quite or at least I couldn’t hear them over the music. It worked for some time, but the voices in my head were so much closer and pushed their way through the sound. Music has always been the escape I needed but the demons were powerful and just overtook me. I was disgust with myself for eating my dinner while I shouldn’t be. I was disgust with the fat that hangs on my body. I wanted to have a body everybody would look up to. The voices helped me on my way to the bathroom, I listened at the top of the bathroom to hear my parents watching TV, they wouldn’t hear me like this. My head hung above the toilet as I put my finger in my mouth and reached as far as I could. I gaged and wanted to pull back, but the voices whispered to continue, so I did. I felt something raising in my throat and a moment later my dinner spill out of my mouth. A bitter and nasty taste fills my mouth and causes more puke to come out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop until my stomach was completely empty. Afterwards the voices calmed down, I gave them what they wanted, so there was no need to disturb me now. I flushed the toilet and washed away the bitter taste in my mouth. I felt surprisingly content, finally it was silence in my head. I thought that the voices may stop now, little did I know.
After that day, I started eating less and less. I told my parents I would eat breakfast at school with friends. They were happy to hear I had some friends so they didn’t argue with me over it. Lunch was easy, I always ate lunch at school and I could avoid the cafeteria, two problems solved at once. Dinner was still horrible. I had to eat dinner, there was no way out of it. Most of the time I puked when my parents couldn’t hear.
The voices kept on whispering to me, only when I puked they were silence, which made puking a lot nicer and I even got motivated to puke after dinner. But when the lights went out they started talking again, it wasn’t working out as fast as it’s supposed to, I was still that fatty. I wanted to do some workouts.
Now I’m standing here before my mirror. The bangs under my eyes are clear to see, my skin is pale. I passed the point way too far, but all I want is to be a bit more muscular. I can’t stand the sight of me, I’m far from what I wanted to be, I’m disgust with myself. If I don’t eat much and workout the muscles should show up in some time, but still I’m waiting. I’m doing great in not eating anymore, my stomach got used to being empty. But the working out is not going that smooth, because I don’t eat I’m dealing with some lack of energy. I’m worn out really fast and instead of getting better in sports, I get worse. But still, I do it. The voices tell me to and I can’t get muscular without working out.
I put on my shoes and pick up my bag. I head out of the front door and start jogging. The sport centre was just 1.5 miles away, so it wasn’t that hard. I also jogged to school every day, it was my way to get enough workout. Today my legs feel heavy. Last time working out is harder than usual and today was the same. I am worn out just as quick as always but I push through it. Voices in my head echo. ‘You’re too weak’, ‘you can’t do anything right’, ‘you’re useless’, ‘you don’t even want to look better, you’re screwing up’. My head turns light and it feel like my body was giving up, everything hurt. Still the voices sing in my head and I refuse to give in. I still got my foot before the other and continued that rhythm, I push through the pain and however I slow down I keep going. Blackness covers my eyes when I keep going and I know I wear out my body, it was just a matter of time, I knew this would come eventually. Darkness surrounded me until I didn’t feel anything anymore.
I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious when I wake up in the hospital. My parents are here and a nurse was checking up on me when I open my eyes.
“Hey Dan, you’re in the hospital and you’re going to be fine.” The angel face of the nurse tells me with a smile. I just feel released by the silence in my head, they were finally gone.
