It was around this time of year...
by Riosuu

My body feels numb.

My lids fall fast as I try to shake this feeling of tiredness.

My whole body feels like it’s being gently pressed down.

I feel it in my chest mostly.

I want to cry, but the tears wont come.

I can feel them waiting behind my eye lids.

But they wont emerge.

This feeling is painful, and I hate it.

My chest aches more and more as I write this down.

It was around this time last year

That they started to exam me,

That they started asking me the questions I always hated being asked, on a regular basis.

It was in that cold light where no one knew one another and only referred to people like me as “patients”.

It wasn’t a place were my grandfather should have gone, where I should be, but the crowded office of the closest emergency room.

My mother snapped and took me there to be examined.

They tested my urine for drugs,

As if I would ever do that,

And the doctor next door asked his patient some questions.

It was a man, many, many years older than I.

He was on anti-depressants, street drugs, all kinds of stuff.

I heard him say he was in a depressed spiral and feared he was going to kill himself.

In around ten minutes, a stretcher came into the hallway with four men.

The man in the cubical next to mine got on it willingly and was strapped in, most likely being sent to a mental institution.

Then the doctor that was treating him came into my room and started asking me questions.

He was Latin-American and spoke Spanish.

I don’t remember his name.

He asked, and I told the truth but on the questions that were too personal and could get me wound up in the same place the man was going, I lied.

I said I had felt the way I did for as long as I could remember my own life, I just didn’t notice anything until kindergarten.

He said I was clinically depressed.

He said I should see a therapist; that I should take some medicine, that we should talk with him every week or so.

And we did all that.

I went to a therapist and lied, I lied to everyone,

Because if they knew, I would wind up next to that man again;

I would end up in one of those white stony buildings with no emotions whatsoever.

Where they would examine me and ask me why I cried every time they looked at me “there”.

Then, one day, I realized how cruel I had been to my only friend that was dieing.

I felt she would die and that I wouldn’t be able to live with the pain if she did.

I was supposed to die first,

She couldn’t leave me behind to suffer in a world I didn’t belong to.

I took my medication that was once only a five milligram dose to now a twenty milligram dose, the highest for a child would have been twenty I think.

I had thirteen pills or so left and I tried to swallow them all in one gulp, but that proved to be too difficult and disgusting.

I got a glass of water, and in my room I swallowed whatever was left of the pills.

There was no effect at first, everything seemed normal.

Then everything began to swirl.

I felt dizzy and I couldn’t see strait without having a pounding head-ache.

I felt as though I had a fever of over one-hundred degrees.

I felt like vomiting.

I began to panic and tremble.

Thinking that these would be my last hours on this earth, I went into my backyard and conversed with my dog, hoping I would find some comfort with him.

I tried falling asleep in the backyard but I couldn’t no matter what.

I cried and talked to my dog as he turned on his back asking for a tummy rub while completely ignoring my pain,

While completely ignoring the tears that fell from my eyes and onto his white, tangled fur.

I went back inside and called my dying friend to tell her what I had done and all the regrets I had.

That night, I fell asleep on my mattress that had lain on the floor with no stand.

My mother once said that those who sleep on the floor will wind up on the floor of society.

I crawled onto that mattress, trembling and feeling the vomit inside my throat that would not come out.

I fell asleep, hoping with all my might that I would not wake up the next morning.

But I did wake up; with only those I told knowing what happened to my pills.

I ended up with twitches in my lower spine and neck; they’ve faded but still return once in a while.

A few weeks after the incident, my mother asked me to take my medication in front of her.

When I said I had already taken it she asked me to show her the bottle.

I refused.

She barged into my room and started tearing everything apart.

She found the empty bottle inside my trashcan.

It was a stupid mistake on my part to leave such a thing where someone would be able to find it.

She asked me where I put them.

Did I hide them?

Did I take them all?

Did I throw them away?

Did I give them to a friend?

All these accusations and I could only rise enough courage do deny one.

She accused me of giving them to the friend mentioned earlier, and she threatened to call the cops on her if I didn’t tell her what I did with the medication.

I didn’t go to school that day.

We went to my psychologist, the same man who asked me those intruding questions.

They all said they wanted to help me; that it was for my own good to tell them what I did with the pills.

I knew what they would do to me and so I lied,

I said I flushed them down the toilet,

And they believed me,

Because I never once told them about my frequent thoughts of suicide.

And then, after that, it all stopped.

No more check ups, no more medication, no more therapy sessions.

Everything went back to “normal”.

I stay secluded in my room and no one thinks twice about it anymore.

Even though I stay inside for most of everyday, my arms and face are tanned so people think I’m a regular energetic teenager that’s just quiet when she walks alone.

I’m not like that, never have been.

This society that judges, that’s why I always want to die.

I hate those stupid heartless white masks that always seem blank.

It always reminds me of that man and where he ended up.

I don’t really know what ever became of him.

Perhaps that’s why I always steer away from the light, and head towards the darkness.

My fear of those people in the white lab coats and their always prodding hands and intruding gazes.

Their mindless task as they do their “job” that makes me feel violated afterwards.

It’s strange how I show my feelings of sadness.

I can cry when it’s a sad movie or book or story or cartoon, but when it’s my own miserable life on days like this, the tears never come and I feel empty but at the same time completely miserable.

I feel like throwing up and cleansing myself, but I don’t throw up.

I haven’t in years.

How strange it is to speak in a manner that would depress almost anyone not in the same circumstance, and yet feel so utterly numb inside.