I Know What Its Like To Be Afraid Of Your Own Mind

Tell Me I'll Be Okay

Description: Reid faces the struggles of living in the aftermath of the loss of his mother, driving him into a deep depression. Deep enough for him to hand in his resignation and leave behind all of his belongs to take the walk of death.

Warning Tags:
Triggering
Suicidal
Cutting
Lots of blood
Past trauma
Depression
Talk of suicide

Tell Me I'll Be Okay

While I thought I was learning to live, I have been learning how to die.
-Leonardo Da Vinci

She left on a cold winter evening, perched in her rocking chair by the window sill. Alone in her room, she greeted death with open arms and welcoming eyes. When they found her thirty two minutes later, the CNA claimed she looked like a piece of art, sitting there with a book clutched gently in her lap, one she read to her son. She passed suddenly in her sleep, peacefully gazing out the window, winter haze seeming to call her to a place no one may follow or walk with her, nothing could be done. Reid couldn't save her, protect her and shield her this time. Death called her name, she answered.

So why does he feel he failed her?

Kicking up stones on the beaten path to the Riverside, Reid ponders his life and his choices. His father left when he was ten, that was the start of his mother's unraveling. Reid wasn't stupid, he knew it was happening before that, he watched the strain appear between his parents, his father suddenly spending longer times at work, his mother secluding herself more and more. To lose her husband, it frayed the rope.

Reaching the bridge crossing over the calmer section of river, Reid briefly wonders how many people have made this same walk. He already knows. 164, 87 men and 77 women. None came back. Lost to the rivers choking waters and flushed out into a lake to later be found and identified as a broken soul no longer wishing to be here.

His relatives, on both sides of his family, cut ties to his mother and therefore Spencer, after his father walked out, leaving Reid will few memories of his grandparents, cousins, and uncles and aunts. The last memory Reid has of them, is of his grandmother, his mother's mother, screaming at Diana that she was an awful child, that her child, Reid, would grow up to be just like her if she didn't sign full custody over. If, and like Reid knew she would, threatened to walk out of their lives and no longer help financially support them. His mother refused as Reid knew she would, even in her  deteriorating state, she held her pride, even at a high price. Reid never saw any of them again, his grandmother passed away of lung cancer in 2009, his father... He never searched for.

The rope frayed further and further, with each passing year Reid tried to fix it. It started with getting straight A's, putting that smile back on her face to remind her she created an intelligent son. Reid stayed in school, unlike many of his teachers and peers believed he would, after meeting his mother in conferences. But Reid pushed on for her, graduated high school and then college before his sixteenth birthday. Still, she slipped further. Nothing helped anymore. The medication became a dust covered bottle on a shelf of a graveyard medication. So many doctors, so many therapists, so many people who tried to help, all failed.

Oddly enough, in the late spring before Reid's birthday, his mother's car, Cindy, died. Such a small death in her life, led to a downfall so great and heavy, Reid couldn't take care of her anymore. No more fighting to feed her, no more doctor visits, arguing about medication, getting into screaming match's on Reid's life choices and hers, why his father left, it was over.