The Day I Run: A Personal Narrative

Entry #1: I feel like i’m spinning, but i’m standing still everything seems so fuzzy and I can’t stop moving. My friends are starting to notice something's wrong. I see people in the hallway who whisper things like “i’m gonna kill you”. I can’t identify the difference between reality, and what my brain makes up. I told my parents about what the people in the hallway say but they don’t believe me. I don’t know how to tell them how I feel, but I don’t trust them either.

Forced to lie awake, alone and scared, too afraid to fall asleep, horrifying images intrude my mind, disturbing what little sanctity I have left. I feel that I am going insane, I am losing control over my body, my thought, my actions. When I look at my hands, I do not see the soft, milky skin of an aristocratic lady, but the calloused,

You’d attempted suicide three times. The first time, being the one that landed you here the first time, you miraculously survived. They told you so, too. ‘You shouldn’t have woken up.’, those were the doctors exact words. But you did, and the next few times that occurred within a few weeks of each other only a month after you’d been released weren’t nearly as bad. You knew you wouldn’t die, or be seriously injured for that matter, but all you could think about in those moments was the release from the headaches that plagued you. Alas, you were still here, and your head hurt worse than ever.

It's very claustrophobic, and it's hard to tell what's real and not real when you're in a room with no contact with other humans for days. Sure, the nurses came in and forced some colorful meds down my throat and brought a tray of food, but other than that, it was just little old me and my big colossal thoughts in that room together. I'm not sure how long I was in there, but it felt like an eternity. I saw shadows of my past that somehow displayed themselves on the wall, they all pointed at me and called me a freak. But that's how my mind works, every little thing triggers a never-ending assault on my character from imaginary enemies.

Nausea builds inside of me, gaining the potential to overthrow what's left of my stability with acidic intruders. The screaming inside my head intensifies, accusing me of several things in which I haven't thought about until that point in time. I'm floored with what ifs and assumptions that I realize can't be truthful, but rationality has left me like the coward it makes me out to be. My sternum tightens and it feels like my rib cage is trying to collapse within itself. Weighted pressure compresses my chest, making oxygen feel imaginary. Bones intertwining in morbid order, threatening to permanently mold me into how my demons want me depicted. Every fiber of my being feels like static, flashing in and out in an extremely unstable manner, waiting to be properly fixed so I can be shown to the population without feeling shame or envy as a result of not being able to fit into their puzzle of society that shows it had no room left for

Imagine hearing everyone you love crying, praying, and begging for you to just open your eyes or move your hand and you are trying your best but your body refuses to do what your brain tells it. It's killing me to hear Dmitri's voice constantly talking to me telling me how sorry he was and how much he loved me. I never thought my brother would be this depressed without me he cried almost every time he came into my room and Shanice was no better even though she tried to be strong she was failing miserably, but the voice I wanted to her the most was my angels. Not hearing Lyric’s sweet voice for so long was killing me, I have no idea how long I've been like this but it feels like forever, all I want is my life back. As soon as my eyes open I

Almost every day throughout high school I experienced something that I could not identify. It was over a year since I had graduated until could put words to emotion. I discovered that I was not free in my own mind. I was in a prison. One that I couldn't touch and for many years I could not see. After several visits to counselors and therapists I finally had the words to describe what my experience was.

Many nights and even days, I would lay there contemplating my life. My mind would wander from topic, to situations, to moments, and back again, just thinking and wondering. So there I am one night, home from a long day of God-knows what. I felt myself ceaselessly tire and fatigue, yet weirdly energetic as if I was high from just the action of coming back home. I went through the actions of preparing myself for bed, I showered, and changed, and brushed, and washed, and then I went to sleep…

Imagine, you’re walking home from school one day and all of a sudden you get shot in the leg, you look down and there’s a little dart in your leg, you scream out of pain, you scream as loud as you can but it’s like no one can hear you, or do they just not care? You start to feel faint, you stumble and eventually fall to the ground vision going black. As you wake up you look around see bars, thick metal bars. Welcome to the rest or your life. Or maybe you were swimming with your family when you were loured in to a net and separated from them, as workers work to lift you out of the water your mom screams refusing to leave the area, refusing to leave your side, but the workers don’t care they just keep going, your calling back to your mom but still no one lets up.

A tsunami of emotions bashes into me. Anger, betrayal, panic, twisting tighter and tighter, knotting in my chest. I hear voices. I they’re asking me questions, but I can’t understand the words. I am

I always had a positive outlook on everything when I was younger. In fact, up until this year, I could still find the good in every negative situation. When I became depressed, though, everything changed dramatically. I cant explain how confused I was. Nothing had happened to make me feel the way I did; it really just came out of nowhere. Being a person who looks to logic for explanation, I was not only depressed and confused, but irritated. I kept thinking, "This is not normal. Humans are not supposed to feel like this". I had always had the power to change my attitude about almost anything. If I wanted to like something, I would; if I wanted to have a good day at work, I would. But for the first time in my life, I was totally helpless. My power of mind had failed me. I was totally screwed. Suddenly, nothing was good or fun, or even worth doing. My favorite things seemed boring, and everything else seemed pointless. For some reason, every song that I would hear would be sad to me...and not just kind of depressing, but completely tragic. Every television show or movie seemed terrifying to me. My stomach would be filled with adrenaline constantly for fear of what someone might say (knowing it would be the saddest thing I 'd ever heard). Everything was so black, so endless, and so impossible. I had become something I never wanted to be. I felt so distant from myself and everyone else. I wasn 't me anymore, and I think that made me even more scared. Soon, my dreams became

Imagine sitting in front of a tasty plate of pasta except the smell just makes your stomach turn and you can’t even take a small bite. Imagine spending countless hours rolling over in your bed without falling asleep. Imagine feeling confused, angry, trapped. Imagine feeling so much shame and guilt that you would rather die than reveal your biggest secret.

I felt like I was dragging through life. Going through the motions but I didn’t have pride in what I was doing or who I was. I couldn’t shake this feeling of simultaneously feeling numb and being in pain. That pain I felt didn’t make me sad but I felt hurt because I came to a realization that I don’t matter. I thought that everyone goes through this so this has to be normal, right? For me I thought it was normal because it was my normal. What I didn’t know is that “my normal” was extreme that was abnormal. I didn’t know that wanting everything to stop or my life to stop was extreme so I just dealt with it. I felt like a sad clown; looked happy on the outside but alone on the inside. I hated that I couldn’t shake this feeling. Soon it became very real because I was going to act on it which scared me to no end. I went to the doctor to have her drag it out of me being that I couldn’t deal with my feelings. She said “you’re depressed.”

It was more of a painful, waking, coma than living. I could find no pleasure or beauty in life. I was drowning in instability and insecurity so I searched for answers to end my suffocation. Truly, that was my life, at that point, through my eyes: I was bonded and suffocating. I realized that my happiness came from everywhere but