It’s coming for me

It’s coming for me.

I can feel it. The anxiety is kicking in. There’s a disturbance out in the seas of my stomach. It’s ready to wage war on my heart, my body, and it wants to take my mind captive. This is the time of year I can’t escape the grips of the black hole. Numbness takes over. Apathy is a constant. Time ceases to exist. My eyes cannot capture light. Welcome to my hell.

The only thing to do is to weather this storm and try and hold on for dear life. I try to remember: this does end.

My childhood home was a built on a pile of ashes. The spirit of anger, bitterness, and rage rose up to destroy everything. My mother hated me for being born. She must have had other dreams for her life. She detested that I bared the image of my father. She couldn’t stand his affection for me. She lived in the midst of jealousy and rejection. I was never accepted. I never could belong… anywhere. I didn’t know how. I was easy prey to anyone in the world. Anyone who showed me affection became my obsession. Any substance that made me feel good became a way of life.

I found life in these words I write. I found meaning in literature. I saw stars align in physics class. I had a gift no one else did. I could put things together, solve difficult problems, make equations balance.

I found my way out, the path I could carve myself with my hands and feet.

But she wouldn’t let me go. Oh no. Her words seared and branded my soul:

“You’re ugly.”

“I hate you.”

“I wish you were never born!”

In an effort to end it all, I tried to take my life at 17. Thanks to my father, I was unsuccessful. He finally showed up. He finally let me know that I mattered. He finally protected me from her mental illness.

It was much too late. The damage was irreparable.

The minute I left my house, I searched this earth looking for a home, a place of refuge, somewhere to belong. I still wander in this black hole seeking forms of light as these walls close in on me.