Normally I try and use the sense of being alone like a shield, protecting me.
But today I feel that sense of aloneness turning on me. I am one person in an infinite abyss. I am a speck of dust in the cosmos. I am something, but I am surrounded by nothing.
I feel that there are no words to describe it. I've been dreaming again; the vivid imagery is good at making me realise that something is wrong and put words to it.
I had a daydream earlier. I was walking to the park down the road to talk to someone on the phone. When I got there, there was a man with a gun. I approached him, my friend listening over the phone. I told him not to do it, not to shoot himself. I told him I understood. He looked at me then, tears streaking his face, and I saw that he saw that I was telling the truth. I took a step closer and looked him dead in the eye.
"I understand," I said softly. "I'm there too. It gets better I promise". As I said it though, I knew it was a lie. He asked if it really did get better. I told him that every day was a struggle, that sometimes it feels like you're gasping for air and breathing water. He nodded, and I was struck by how handsome he was. This was someone who should have had everything going for him.
"I know how it feels. I know it feels like your heart is being torn from your chest. I know the pain, the physical pain, even though it never leaves a mark. I know that feeling. Do you ever want to hurt yourself, just so that you can see a mark to go with the pain you feel?"
I could see in his eyes that something that I'd said had resonated with him. He knew that I knew how he felt. He knew that I'd somehow, inexplicably, gotten past it. I saw the beginnings of hope glimmer in his eyes along with the tears.
I told him it wasn't easy, that the ache did lessen but that sometimes it came back and you had to be stronger. I told him that it wasn't easy but it was worth it. I told him to sit and talk to me for a while.
"If you still want to commit suicide tomorrow, then do it. But not here, now, on a whim. Do it after thinking and reflecting for a full day. If it's really what you want, then I will not stand in your way."
He said that he'd been kicked out of home for being gay. Bitterly, I thought to myself that I'd rather have been kicked out than to have been laughed at and dismissed. I told him to stay at my house for the night.
He looked at me and he said simply "be stronger" and he put the gun in his mouth and he pulled the trigger.
I feel that ache in my chest. I feel like something has its grip on my heart and is tearing it out through my chest. It hurts and it is constant.
And I feel so alone. I feel that I have nobody even though I know in my head that this is not true.
The nightmares are coming back, and as I'm sleepier during the day they are coming to me as daydreams now as well. I want them to stop but for this to happen I need someone that I trust and who makes me feel safe to hold me and to be next to me and to banish the darkness.
The darkness is creeping up and surrounding me again and I'm not sure how long I can keep it away for. It whispers to me all the negative thoughts that I know not to be true.
I'm not against suicide but I don't think my time is come yet. I will keep fighting the darkness but I do wonder if eventually it will win. It will never disappear completely, it will always be there at the edge of my vision.
He shot himself right in front of me, and I felt a part of me die too. And I was ok with that.
I need a light to banish the darkness. I don't know how to find that light. Is it a person? Is it a matter of me saying "enough"?
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