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A/N: Okay. So I’ve been feeling a little bit better lately. And as everything I’ve been posting is so utterly depressing, I thought I’d go for something a little bit more…encouraging.
Small
Steps
Alternate
Title – Progress
Most of the time it’s an effort just to breathe
Breathe in, breathe out
An effort to eat
Small bites, chew, swallow
An effort to walk
One foot in front of the other
An effort. All such an effort.
And a lot of the time, I don’t bother.
(We’re all gonna die)
A lot of the time, I let Her get the best of me.
(You are me)
And sometimes, I can drown her with prozac or distract myself from her voice
(Listen to me, listen to me, I’m all you have)
But a lot of the time, she wins
(You can’t beat me, I am part of you, I always have been and always will be)
A lot of the time, it’s too much effort to fight her
(You don’t want to fight me)
It’s too much effort to stop her
(You can’t stop me)
So I don’t
Managing to get into school for the afternoon is called progress.
(One afternoon doesn’t mean anything, stupid)
Getting out of bed before noon is progress
(No, it just means you weren’t as tired as usual)
Because I’m tired all the time, and a lot of the time I fall asleep during the day. I spend about three quarters of the time it’s light asleep. Staying awake all day – that’s progress.
Most of the time, I don’t sleep at night. Going to bed before three in the morning – progress.
Small steps. It’s all about small steps, they say. They swear I’m making progress.
(Liars!)
It doesn’t feel like progress to me
Oh god, I want my pills
(You don’t believe in God, you think there is nothing out there, no higher power that will somehow make everything alright)
No, I don’t believe in God. I think God is a creation to make people better; just another type of pills, but I say ‘oh god’ a lot, because ‘oh Prozac’ isn’t as catchy.
(And there is nothing out there, there is no point to existence, you know that. All life is futile, people scurrying around like ants, thinking they’re making such a big impression on the world, when nothing they do will ever matter, nothing will ever change, it will just spin in a spiral, down and down and down, people killing people, killing themselves, killing the planet until the world drowns in a ocean of its own blood)
The world may drown in its own blood, but for now, I’m going to drown Her in Prozac and the voice of my best friend over the telephone.
Pick up the phone, dial the number, listen to it ring.
(You can’t shut me up. I’m always here, you –)
Ring, ring
(– will never get rid of me, I will always be here, talking, shouting, screaming –)
“Hello?”
She quietens down. Not silent. But she is quiet.
That’s what we call progress.
Went to sleep at ten o’clock at night. Woke up at eight in the morning.
Progress.
Got to school twice in a week.
Progress.
(Not progress!)
Taking small steps.
(You can’t stop me!)
Go to therapy
(You CAN’T!)
Went to the doctor.
Went two weeks without feeling depressed or anxious.
(That’s nothing! Normal people go their whole lives without it!!!)
I’m not normal.
(You’re a freak!)
I don’t want to be normal.
(Liar! Everyone wants to be normal!)
Normal’s boring.
(Normal’s…normal!)
Normal means conforming.
(It means not being a freak! It means not being sick! Normal means being rid of me, and you’ll never be rid of me and you’ll never be normal!)
I don’t mind.
(Yes you do!)
No. I like being different. Who wants to be like everyone else?
(Shut up!)
You never do. This, my illness, is what we call progress.
(SHUT UP!)
Got out of the house. Just on a whim. Just went for a walk. Half an hour, that’s all. Thirty minutes out of the confines of four walls. Walls and constrictions are harder to see if they’re not there.
(But they’re still THERE! They’ll always be there!)
Focused on the music through the headphones
In this cruel children’s game/there’s no friend to call her own
(Sound familiar?)
I ignored Her and changed tracks.
I can ignore Her. And when I ignore Her, she quietens.
She’s like a child, begging for attention, or a school bully.
Ignore Her and maybe she’ll go away
She won’t go away, but she will get quieter. One day, she will not have power over me. She will not be able to make me hurt.
The fact that I know this is progress.
I’m not there yet, nowhere near. But I will be one day. I don’t focus on that though. I don’t try to get through the next year, the next month, the next fortnight. I just get myself through the next minute. And the next minute. And the next.
Small steps.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
