Mind, have mercy.

Metamorphosis, or Hatching

Monday, April 22, 12:13 a.m.

Times New Roman, 12 pt., double spaced. I know it doesn't matter. It shouldn't; Only I will see these entries, but it does.

My laptop hummed awake from its sleeping state. I need it again to quiet my thoughts. I may need to take some melatonin tonight as well. I can't sleep in again, but that's what the caffeine pills are for.

When I was in high school, I struggled with what I still believe was severe anxiety. It debuted in middle school. I became friends with a girl my classmates often gossiped about and laughed at. No one wanted to play with her in gym. She was alone, as was I usually.

I was alone because my introverted nature did not allow me the energy or desire to be talkative or social enough to let many close to me. She was alone because she had a cognitive disability that made her act odd enough to make her an unappealing candidate for friendship. I felt she was treated worse than she deserved, so I kept her company.

In associating with her, I somehow became paranoid that kids were gossiping about me as well. Years passed. That feeling faded, but I was still incredibly shy. At some point I joined Girl Scouts in the hopes it would help me acquire the social and leadership skills I desired, and perhaps a sense of belonging and community. I was required to participate in cookie sales at the local Walmart and to walk from house-to-house in foreign neighborhoods to collect canned food or hygiene products for fundraisers. Despite the forced social interaction, I dreaded it more and more each season instead of hardening like I expected.

Later on, I transferred to Adventure Scouts, believing a new group with a new leader and new activities might bring me out of my shell. I was wrong.

During one of my middle years in high school, I started a club. My school was small, so there were not many of them. I was very passionate about writing at the time, and noticed that, despite the existence of a book club, there was no club for people who wanted to work on their authorship. Like the previous endeavors described, creating the writing club was an effort to bring myself out of the shell, or the cocoon, I'd found myself trapped within. I wanted to be a good leader.

My first mistake was expecting a club open to the entire student body that met during school hours to be small and sincere in their desire to become better writers. My second mistake was thinking I could lead.

This particular memory bothers me because there were potential authors in that club, students who wanted to work on their craft. They deserved better than a shy, soft-spoken little girl that could not stand up for herself, or to the majority of the club that just wanted to get out of class for half an hour.

At one point, when I could not get the attention of the room over the din of voices, the librarian spoke up for me. She chewed them out for a good few minutes, but what I remember the most is that she said it was her club.

It was supposed to be my club. I had pitched the idea, come up with the rules. I was the one leaving my most important class everyday to do what I felt was my duty, and I was the one doing most of the research into writing competitions very few, if any, of my club members chose to enter.

When she spoke up in my place, while I stood before everyone, and claimed the club as her own, I knew I had failed every child in that room. Including myself.

The next year, I let someone else lead the club. I was told they were competent, and that was all I could have asked for. I left the club completely to focus on my school work, and to avoid the embarrassment of going back. However, that did not mean I stopped trying to come out of my cocoon.

I wanted to be open, but my attempts to talk and joke more were sabotaged by my extreme discomfort in doing so. The events in my senior year were, I believe, largely thanks to my forced talkativeness. I was quite morbid then, too, which contributed a fair deal to the impending disaster.

My senior year was my last attempt to break free, to treat my fear. I never predicted the pain I would go through, the feeling of wanting to throw up everything I was, the desire to slowly rend myself apart, the humiliation and shame I would feel after all was said and done. I never knew I would lose weight because I felt I did not deserve to eat or because I felt such extreme discomfort at school that I cut down meals for fear of throwing them up. I did not expect to cry in the bathroom stalls, yearning for the forgiveness of an institution that did not care for me.

It was a cruel, agonizing treatment that brought me out of my shell, that changed me. Had I not known or had anyone who would be hurt by any physical manifestation of my pain, I may not have survived it. Being unable to punish myself how I wanted was, in itself, a form of torture.

That was the year I lost my faith.

I had questioned religion for years, but my desire to believe overcame logical reasoning. I also feared Hell, and though I had thought sometimes I might like God to simply remove my soul from existence after I died, I had no real reason to not want to go to heaven. Not until my senior year.

Shame and suffering pried my eyes open, allowed me to be honest with myself about what I had wanted and what I believed. It was only through the dissolution of my desire for a life after death, fueled by a new desire to truly cease, that I found candor within myself.

In the months it took me to recover, I felt numb, confused, lost, and uncomfortable in open spaces, where the people I'd met might see me. Yet only through that violent measure was my shell shattered, old wounds ripped open and new ones created.

I would not wish what I felt on anyone. Not Judas. Not my principal. I know I did not deserve it. Even now that I can see what it did for me, I would not thank them. I do not believe any one involved in that incident saw me as human, much less cared for my well-being. Judas, especially.

But in my lows I found new ways to persevere. I developed a higher tolerance for pain and I learned how to cope when I felt like I was drowning. The last time I accepted myself as I do now is a mere half-formed memory.

I am not ashamed of my difficulty in forming personal connections. I do not hate myself for being less than good.

Of course, my anxiety still teases me in small episodes, reminding me just when I think I am past it that I may never be free, but it is not what it was. I don't believe in karma, but if I did I would call my anxiety that. It's bad karma for my ability to brush off guilt when people get close to me and realize I won't miss them very long once we part ways. After a while, I probably won't even remember them.

I still lose sleep to the ghosts of my past. They will never let me be.

I feel much better now.