Invisibility.

It is a nuisance, I tell myself day after day. It's a struggle every day for me, and though I am at the edge of the line, I still hold on to the ground and not jumping off the edge. Telling people is just a nuisance.

Some of us needs more strength to get up...

I am curled up on my bed, blanket over my shoulder, hunched with a cup of coffee in my hands while watching the outside world through my bedroom window. I see cars passing by... One, two, three... And the count goes on. It's really a distraction, but it's still not enough of a distraction. I hear footsteps downstairs. Must be dad going to the kitchen. I sigh and heave, getting the thought away from my mind.

The outside world seems empty now that I'm grown up. Jobless, and somehow lonely... Lonely. Such a bold word to use, but that's just how it is. I always take it as solitude. A state of tranquility by being alone, they say. Sublimation at its best. The road is quite empty now. This neighborhood isn't as lively as how it used to be a few years back, as though it understands the bitterness of my life. It's soothing to think about it that way. My phone vibrates and a message pops up : Downstairs. 30 minutes, I'll be waiting! - Mia

I sigh and push away the blankets from my shoulders. I put my cup of coffee on my clustered desk, and begin to stretch as if I've been doing some heavy lifting and my muscles tense. My shoulders begin to lower themselves as though some heavy burdens are on them. I look myself in the mirror, not liking the way I look and so I smiled at myself, applauding my own accomplishment of faking a true smile. It reminds me of a sentence in a recent book that I read :
'She placed her finger against the cool glass of the mirror and traced the reflection of her nose, eyes and mouth. She stared at the image in front of her, the face of a sad lady trapped inside the mirror who needed to practise her smile. Kathryn was unable to decide which the real image was. Was it the flat, cool face that stared back at her or the bewildered, lonely mask from behind which she viewed the world? Withdrawing her hand,she realised that it didn't matter. The flat-featured woman that stared blankly from the glass and the veiled lids through which she saw were one and the same.'
I sigh again as I remember those very lines while practicing to smile in front of the mirror.

Everything is the same, and yet they say time will change things. How does it?, I ask myself as I walk to the door. I pause and turn to look at my bedroom, ceiling and all. Silence. Just the whirr of the fan, decreasing the humidity of my already packed and tiny bedroom. This isn't my bedroom though. It was my brother's, but since he moved out, I thought it would be a waste to not use it as mine.

My will to go out of the bedroom died at the sight of my silent bedroom. I ended crouching and sitting at my door and inevitably tears start to roll down my cheeks. I don't sob, though, but I let the tears roll on their own, not resisting the emotions from rising. Loneliness is normal for me. I grew up without really having anyone that cared enough to understand that I am a human, thus began the name 'Loner Taa'. I have no idea where the 'Taa' came from, but I swallowed them anyway.

I mustn't remember, I mustn't, I breathe heavily at myself, trying to calm my beating heart. The thing is, no matter how much time I spent away from home, like in this case, I spent 3 years away for my studies, the memories really stay. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and I stay still. Clearly trying to calm myself.

It's an irony, really. I'm a psychology major student, but I am struggling to fight my own demons. It is a huge irony that I wake up every day groaning, asking myself why is the sun still shining... You see, no one ever cared enough to listen, so I keep it to myself. It is a huge struggle, to not end my life. To not give in to the voices in my head.

I stand up, wiped away my tears, grab my jacket and finally, with my eyes closed and after heaving a huge breath, I open the door, head downstairs and greet my best friend who had been waiting for me for the last 30 minutes, waiting for me to change. I smile as though nothing had happened, and hug her, happy to see her, but deep inside, all I ever want is to not exist in her life anymore..

You see, despite wanting to disappear, I still want to live...

-----------------------------------

The story I just shared is fictional. I made them up, but with references from some previous sessions with a few of my clients during my practicum days. I try to put myself into their shoes and merging them together with my own situation, and somehow I can relate to them a way or two.

It's funny, you know. When someone presents and displays signs of depression, we shun them away. We tell them that they're ridiculous and/or that it's just a phase and it'll pass. You see, they struggled waking up every day and they summed up all their courage to confide in us, but in the end, we belittle them. In the end, they begin keeping things to themselves, and cluster all their strength to not show their pain anymore.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but this is all I have to say.