Beneath the Wave

Most nineteen year olds

For most people my age,

A 'late night' entails fun with friends, laughing and partying, and perhaps a little mischief.

A 'late night' for me is usually filled with bad fanfiction, crushing anxiety, and a desperate desire to keep myself distracted long enough that I don't slice open red rivulets on my wrists.

For most nineteen year olds,

Their greatest worries are jobs, college, and crushing student debt.

For me, my greatest worries included the inevitable death of my loved ones, an all consuming fear of my own mind, and keeping myself alive long enough to maybe feel better.

I am not like most people.

I spent my early teenage years fighting off a looming dark wave, and I spent the other half being consumed by it.

I do not recall a time when I was not my own worst enemy.

I distinctly remember as a child that I had weird quirks that most believed was just an 'overactive imagination' that usually got the best of me.

If only.

I remember in the first grade being scolded by my teacher because I had turned the period at the end of one of my sentences into a giant big blob of graphite. When the older woman asked me what could have possibly possessed me to make such a mess, my response was this;

"I had to block it off so that the monsters couldn't get in."

My teacher shook her head, and I think she, in her own words, told me to stop being ridiculous.

I think that even I realized how absurd it sounded after verbalizing it, though the incident was quickly forgotten, given how quickly my easily distracted six year old mind was.

Still, I remember that time as a defining moment. You see, when asked if I perhaps had OCD during my childhood, my first response had been no. Then, I quickly reevaluated, when I thought of all of the crazy things I used to do.

Suddenly, the need my young self felt to increase the size of the period so it could 'block out monsters' made more sense. It wasn't just some childish whim or foolish lie; I actually believed that if I did not do so, monsters would get me.

And I mean, that's crazy, right? Possibly. Probably.

That's why I say that I've always been different. I spent years avoiding looking into mirrors in the dark and holding my breath passing graveyards, all because even though I knew there weren't any monsters, I still feared that maybe, possibly, there was.

Even now, I'm still fighting imaginary monsters. I read a scary story on the internet about three years ago, that warned me that an evil entity was coming to get me and would drag me down to hell if I could not answer her questions correctly. For an entire month, I avoided public bathrooms because that was apparently where she got you. Even now, so far into the future, I still chant the answers to her questions in my mind, just in case.

I am so far beyond 'basket case', and dangerously close on the shores of 'paranoid',I spend at least a few minutes every day wondering if perhaps I will ever finally make my way into the water.

That's why, I imagine ten years from now people my age would be getting married, having kids, and becoming successful.

But I know that for me, ten years from now I will be tracing my scars, drying my eyes, and once again fighting monsters that don't exist.