The Day I Met Diane

Chapter 12 - Paralysis

"How are you feeling today, Ella?"

"I'm good, I guess..." She wouldn't make eye contact.

"How have you been sleeping?"

She said nothing.

"So the nightmare is still coming back, huh?"

"Yes..."

The young lady looked empty. Her eyes were blank, she had no colour. She faced forward, she wouldn't turn her head to look at the doctor. It was almost as if she couldn't move.

"What happened tonight?"

"Same thing that always happens!" She raised her voice.

"So... let's take it from the top. You're in a dark corridor. There is a golden door at the end of it. You hear your friend... Diane... screaming on the other side. You run up to the door to help her but the door burns your skin when you touch it. After you touch it a dark shadow of you appears and starts saying horrible lies about you and your friends..."

"They aren't lies!"

"Why do you say that?"

"It's true, it makes sense, they... why else would they be with someone like me?"

"Elaborate, Ella. What does someone like you mean?"

"I mean, I'm worthless. I'm an annoying little brat, I'm stupid, I make everything boring, I'm a burden to my friends! It's no surprise they don't actually like me, I just don't get why they won't leave!"

"Maybe because these are all misconceptions of your brain? Your friends would not be here for you almost every day if they didn't care for you, if hey didn't love you. These thoughts, they're all lies, its the depression, the anxiety, creating lies and making you believe them. You have never been the most confident person, that is true, and now these dark thoughts are taking advantage of your lack of confidence. You have to fight these thoughts, Ella! You're so much better than what you see yourself as!

"I know... now I know that it's just.... I don't always know. The thoughts are just too strong it's impossible to resist... I'm sorry!"

"Ella, it's not your fault. You're sick and we're here to help. Me, your friends, your family. We're al, here for you..."

"But you don't have to! I'm a burden, I've always been a burden and now I'm even more and I should just die and then you wouldn't have to deal with me."

There was a long moment of silence in the room. The girl and the doctor sat in silence facing each other,  Ella again avoiding eye contact with Dr. Ambrose. 

"I didn't actually mean that. I mean..."

"You don't want to die, Ella. You just don't want to live like this." This resonated inside Ella's head for a long time. 

"I just don't want to feel like this anymore. It's so painful! There is so much I regret, so much I want, so much I hate... its too much for me. I'm not strong enough."

"Yes you are Ella!"

"So many people have died with less! I was ran over by a car, I was in a three month coma! So many people have been lost with less, why me!? Do I deserve to be alive?"

"You do Ella. Because you are strong. If you weren't strong, you would have died. But you didn't, and you're here. And we're going to make you even stronger."

"Thank you, Dr. Ambrose."

"I'm just doing my job. And that's getting you to go back to being a strong independent young lady."