GLASS & TAPE / Autora: Ivanna Socolich

GLASS & TAPE Ivanna Socolich

GLASS & TAPE Autora: Ivanna Socolich Email: 2005046@newton.pe Editor: Galo Flores Padilla Diseño y diagramación: Yuraq Comunicación Integral E.I.R.L.

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Primera edición en inglés - Impresión bajo demanda Editorial Livel Una marca registrada de Editorial Livel SAC. Hecho el Depósito Legal en la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú N° 2018-14792 Para encargar más copias de este libro o conocer otros libros de esta colección visite www.calidadynegocios.com

GLASS & TAPE Autora: Ivanna Socolich Editado por: Editorial Livel SAC Alameda Marquina 150-301 Limatambo San Borja Lima-Perú Teléfono: (511) 3759302 / 996596427 Email: gflores@calidadynegocios.com

Primera Edición, septiembre 2018 Tiraje: 100 ejemplares

Hecho el Depósito Legal en la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú N°: 2018-14792 ISBN: 978-612-47362-3-0

Impreso en Punto Gráfico D´Carpio Av. Argentina 144 Septiembre 2018 Lima - Perú

GLASS & TAPE

The Beginning This book doesn’t have a “chapters” page. This book doesn’t have a prologue. This book doesn’t have what you’d expect it to have.

The reason behind this is because I want to document my experiences as I would on a journal or a diary. I want this to be as real as possible, for you and for me.

In this book, I’ll be writing a collection of short stories and explaining them to you. I’ll be explaining their origin, the inspiration behind them, their message, and their purpose. All of these stories have one thing in common; they have characters who suffer from mental illness in them.

The reason I chose to write about this is that mental illnesses are extremely severe issues that are not taken as seriously as physical illnesses, at least in the society I am growing up in. While it is true that in more developed countries there is more information and recognition towards mental illness, where I live, things are different.

The reason I am so passionate about this is not only because I did lots of research on it and know how serious it is, but because I’ve lived it. During my 16 years of life, I’ve loved people who didn’t love themselves.

People who looked in the mirror and saw things they 8

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didn’t want to see. People who told me their deepest darkest thoughts and I still haven’t forgotten them because it haunts me that at any moment they might fall back into that spiral and do something horrible to themselves.

During my 16 years of life, I’ve come in contact with people who were sick and honestly I´ve been sick myself. I’ve come in contact with people who needed serious help, people who I desperately wanted to save but couldn’t because I’m not a professional. People who I loved so much and tried my hardest to support, but they just wouldn’t let me in.

I wanted to be a crutch for these people, but not only was I not strong enough to carry their weight but they weren’t strong enough themselves to admit that they had wounded legs. They just kept limping and smiling through the pain. But eventually, those wounds grow so much that it’s just impossible to keep walking. It’s impossible to keep pushing forward without screaming with every step you take.

And even if these people tried to get help, they could never openly talk about it in places like school. You have no idea of how many times I’ve heard ruthless criticism about people who are suicidal. People calling them dramatic. People saying it’s all for attention. People 9

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calling severely depressed or suicidal individuals ungrateful. People making fun of self-harm as if it were something that only lunatics do.

Not only is this criticism towards suicidal tendencies but mostly anything related to mental health. If I were to say that the overwhelming amounts of homework I have damaged my mental health, I’d be called out for “exaggerating” by at least one person. If I were to say I had anxiety, I’d hear the word “same” be said back by at least 2 people, and while that can be true, it’s also normalizing a bad thing and lessening its actual impact on my health and ability to lead a normal life. Because while it is okay to normalize mental illnesses, as they are a common problem and should be treated seriously, it’s also wrong to take them less seriously because more people are talking about mental illness.

So this is why I decided to write this book. I was given an opportunity to express myself and I want to use it to help. I want this to be a wake-up call for anyone who feels the way characters in my stories do. I want this to help people realize their friends aren’t feeling okay. I want this book to help all of us develop a better understanding of mental illnesses and how important they are. Because they could kill someone you love. They could kill you.

They affect not only the person who is suffering from them, but everyone around them.

Mental illness hurts just as much as physical illness.

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The Stories I have always loved to write. I have always thought that literature is the perfect form of expression.

Beautifully written words can convey all kinds of meanings in all kinds of ways and can make you feel all kinds of intricate emotions. It’s fascinating.

I’ve always loved to write down my feelings as much as to write creative stories, which is the reason I’ve combined both of these things in this book. The only thing I didn’t consider when I made the choice to write this book is that this isn’t creative writing. I’m documenting experiences. I’m telling someone’s story through their eyes. I’m telling someone’s story through their loved ones’ eyes.

As I mentioned previously, I have come in contact with lots of loved ones in low points of their lives and wanted to help them. But in this case, I asked them to help me.

Earlier on this year, I conducted interviews and surveys with the people who inspired these stories.

I worked together with these individuals and asked them permission to write these stories and because they are all people I know personally, they agreed.

The names of these individuals have been changed and the situations modified to be fictional but based on real-life experiences.

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I really hope that these can help someone at least in the tiniest way.

I really hope that reading this gives you a better sense of understanding of your surroundings and the world you are living in. Because this is real life for some of us. …………

The First Story This story is probably the easiest to read, which is why I decided it would be the first one I showed.

Now, the fact that the story is the easiest to read doesn’t mean that it’s not difficult to read. It certainly was difficult to write. But what I mean by this is that it doesn’t have such a strong impact in your emotions as the other stories do, unless you can relate directly with the topic, which I do. This just means that it could be considered easier to read than the others, but that’s relative.

Another important aspect of this is that this doesn’t mean that this particular disorder is less intense than any others because that is completely wrong.

The disorder discussed in this story is anxiety, more specifically social anxiety.

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Anxiety is one of the most common disorders amongst teenagers, which is one of the reasons why I decided to write about it. Since my goal is to make this book somewhat of a journal and document real experiences, I combined some of my own experiences and feelings regarding anxiety with the subject of the story’s experiences. Because as I mentioned previously, some characters in my stories are based on real people. In this case, the characters are Val and Jake.

In this story, I’ve tried to highlight the thoughts of a teenage girl who suffers from social anxiety which are based on the interview I conducted with the subject who inspired the story. I also included a character that wasn’t aware of the negative state of their mental health and who only confesses their true feelings under unexpected circumstances.

The situations shown in this story are fictional, but they’re not far from reality.

This is “Build Up”.

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…………

Build Up When a snowball rolls down a hill, it collects everything on its way down the path, and it doesn’t stop rolling until it slams into something and breaks apart into tiny bits. People are like that as well. People collect emotions, memories. They have bad days and store that anger inside of them. They suffer from loss and lock that grief inside a box that they hide somewhere only they know. They break each other’s hearts and keep that pain. And when something happens that finally breaks them, tiny bits of emotions fall around everywhere. ………

I wrote that a while ago. I really don’t know why; I guess I was just emotional. It makes sense, though.

I’m not really sure how, but it is the truth. We keep little memories of how we feel at each moment in our lives, and during the middle of the night, we think about them. Right at the moment when you just want to get some sleep, you think about them.

That might just be me, but it’s not that crazy. It makes sense. The brain is just doing its job, it’s giving you stuff to analyze, stuff to really think about. But there are some brains that are very bad at their jobs.

Brains that just don’t leave you alone. They overwork themselves and overwork you.

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Another thing that overworks you is people. Or again, that might just be me. We never think about that aspect of life. How we arrive home from school absolutely drained, and everyone thinks it’s from work, but in my case, it’s from interacting.

Talking to people, looking at people, listening to people, it’s all about people. But, what if you don’t like them? What if they don’t like you? What if they scare you? What if they think you’re stupid? Ugly?

Annoying?

I admire the people who can think about all of those things, say they don’t care, and really mean it. How can you not care? The world is people. That’s all that matters. They decide if you go to a good school, if you get married, if you get your dream job, if you start a family. They decide if you’re happy.

The fact that this is all true makes it almost impossible for me to comprehend how some people make it out of college alive. I’m barely surviving high school. …………

I’ve always been terrified of saying hello to other people. I know that they only say hi because they have to, because if they don’t, it’s impolite. I know that because that’s what I do and because there is no other reason as to why another person would talk to me.

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I know that that sounds depressing, but it’s really not.

It’s not like I am antisocial, I have friends, they just aren’t real. They’re fake. Paper friends. One strong wind and they’ll be gone. That’s what I have.

I’m not ungrateful, though. I also have a couple of real friends. Friends that actually talk to me and not the fake version of me I act as when I am in school. They are nice people, but I feel like they understand each other more than they understand me.

The truth is, I don’t even understand me, so I can’t ask for that. But I feel like it would be nice to have a conversation in which I can truly say everything I’m thinking and someone can reply to it by saying what they truly think about it. Something genuine.

Something that gives me and that person a feeling of warmth in our chests.

The problem is, I don’t know if other people want that. And I don’t know who else I can befriend at my school. And wouldn’t know how to befriend them, or anyone. The friends I have approached me, and that’s why we’re so different from each other, they can approach someone and talk to them and make them enjoy their company. I can’t even make myself enjoy my own company. I can talk to people, but only if I have to.

“Hello? Val? You there?” Jake asked.

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“Yeah yeah, sorry I’m just a bit spacey,” I said.

“We can tell,” said Claire.

I didn’t realize they were talking to me. Claire and Jake were my real friends, and we face-time usually, so I guess I just kind of drifted off.

“I was saying that this Friday night Maddison is throwing a party,” said Jake.

“And I was saying that you have to come with us,” said Claire.

“Yeah, why not,” I said.

The truth was that I had tons of reasons as to why I didn’t want to go to this party, but I did not want to disappoint my only friends. If I kept saying no to things I was going to lose them, and God knows where I’d be without them. …………

I have never understood and will probably never understand why people enjoy parties so much.

They’re kind of gross. Everyone’s dancing around, drinking, yelling, touching you without your consent.

Not one of those things is enjoyable. Maybe dancing, if you’re good at it, but if we’re talking about me, then none of those things are enjoyable.

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Yet here I was, sitting in this chair, getting my hair done, and listening to Claire ramble about some boy or something of that sort. I wasn’t really listening to her, which might make me look like a horrible friend, but I promise that under normal circumstances I listen to her talk about whatever she wants. She’s the talker. I’m the listener.

“So, what about you?” She asked me.

“What do you mean what about me?” I replied “Oh you know what I mean” The truth is I did know what she meant, but I wasn’t going to reply to that question. It was kind embarrasing. Claire had discovered the secrets of the male species and had boys she wanted to talk about, and boys who wanted to talk about her. Me? The only boy I’ve ever talked to for more than 20 seconds is Jake, and he really doesn’t count.

“Let’s not talk about me, this is your night” “No, it’s not, it’s Maddie’s,” She said.

Honestly, I really didn’t care for Maddison. Maddison could be throwing the party, but in my eyes, this was Claire’s night. Every party is Claire’s night. She is always the center of attention and she actually 18

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deserves it. She truly is a beautiful person. Inside and out.

“Claire, come on, we don’t even know Maddison” “Hey don’t be rude! She invited us” “No Claire, she invited you, I just come with you because you insist that I go everywhere with you and everyone just assumes that we are a package deal” “And you don’t want to come with me?”

“No I – I’m sorry, no that’s not what I meant, I –” “It’s alright, I know what you mean.” She said, almost chuckling.

She really is nice. She puts up with me, and that’s a difficult task. She understands what I mean, even if she doesn’t relate to it. Not a lot of people can do that. …………

A couple of hours had passed since we left the hair salon and my usual feelings regarding a social gathering were starting to bubble up inside of me.

They come as a mixture of fear and a little bit of excitement, which is very controversial and I just can’t comprehend. It makes me very frustrated.

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Going to parties is supposed to be a fun task for people my age. They get pumped or hyped or whatever and just bask in the glory of doing unnecessary things. This always makes me think about how there are two main things that I don’t understand about this. Number one is the fact that they get so excited over something that sounds excruciatingly nerve-wracking to me, and number two is that I don’t get excited about this and that I might be one of the only people who find it stressful, which makes me weird.

Claire says that parties are to relax, to let go, to have some fun and to stop thinking about responsibilities for a second, but I’ve just never been able to see it that way. It’s not that I’d rather be at home reading a book about rocket science, I want to have fun, but my concept of fun is just different. A small gathering of real people who enjoy each other’s real company, and I’d like a big gathering of real people, but I just don’t think there are enough real people in the world to create a big gathering.

In my eyes, every person is so different and I want to understand every single one of them. I want to know what they find fun and amusing and behave in a way in which they won’t get annoyed or bored with me being there. But I can’t do that. Because every person is different. And if there are 100 people at a party, I can’t be the reflection of these 100 different mindsets and opinions about what a fun and entertaining person is like.

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Claire always says that if I can’t please everyone, why not just be myself? Well because I don’t like that person. And if I don’t like that person, and I am that person, then neither will anyone who interacts with me. This is just a vicious cycle that goes on in my head.

My thoughts race as my heart beats faster as the time of the party approaches me.

I know this probably sounds dramatic. I know you might think this is a stretch. But it’s really not. It’s the reality of people like me. Socially dysfunctional people.

I see a party, something which is considered a simple thing, as a deadly thing that could easily kill me. …………

Claire’s dad dropped us off at Maddison’s front door.

Claire knows to ring the doorbell herself, as I never do it and probably never will. Ringing the doorbell is another one of my many phobias that involve simple tasks that anyone with a normal brain can perform.

I can already hear the music coming from inside the house and the faint sound of high heels approaching the door. The sound was getting louder as my heart was starting to beat faster. I was about to tell Claire I was feeling sick and wanted to leave but right as I opened my mouth Maddison stumbled out of the door.

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“Girls! Oh, I’m so excited you’re here!” She said while greeting us. I knew she was clearly addressing Claire so I just gave her a faint smile and a kiss on the cheek.

“Come in! Make yourselves at home!” She told us as we entered the house that was already full of people on their way to being fully drunk.

Claire looked at the mess and smiled. Then she looked at me and told me that I should go look for Jake. Since Jake is my other real friend, I thought that was a great idea, besides, Claire was going to greet all the people, and she knows I hate that, so I thought this was a very thoughtful suggestion on her behalf. I tried to text Jake, but I got no reply. I called him, but it was a very loud place, so of course, he didn’t pick up. My only option left was to physically search the house, which would make me look like a stalker of some kind, but it was better than standing around Claire looking like her personal assistant.

I started to walk around the house looking for him.

I called out his name and several other Jakes replied with inappropriate phrases that I will not repeat, so now, I was getting desperate. I couldn’t find him, and this meant that I was alone at a party. How sad was my life? As my ears buzzed and I started to feel my chest close up I knew that I should just return to Claire. I was starting to feel a panic attack coming and I did not want to have one of those again. I did not want to 22

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ruin Claire’s night, I did not want to be watched in my weakest moment, and I most certainly did not want to feel the pain any more than I already do. I don’t want to be alone anymore.

I felt my face getting red and ran to the closest bathroom as fast as I could. I locked the door and splashed cold water right in my face.

“You’re okay,” I said to myself.

“It’s okay” I kept saying.

“You’re fine” “It’s fine” Except I wasn’t okay and it wasn’t fine. Where was Jake? Did Claire send me off to get lost on purpose?

Why was I questioning my friends’ loyalty? Why was I being so dramatic? Why can’t I be okay? I was nervous and confused and sad and just plain scared.

Where any of these people real?

As all of these thoughts rushed through my head I realized that the party had only started about an hour ago and that I had been here for like 20 minutes. 20 minutes, and I was already on thin ice, approaching a breakdown. How stupid was I? Why on earth would I do this to myself? Why can’t I just look for Jake and 23

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behave like a normal person? So after asking myself these questions I wiped my face and left the bathroom to find my friends.

The process of leaving the bathroom took a lot more time than what I anticipated it would. It was like jumping off a plane. I was so scared that I was going to fall too hard. That I was going to make a fool of myself as the girl who had a panic attack because she couldn’t find her friend at a stupid party.

As I left the bathroom, I could obviously see Claire, as could anyone who was at the party, but still no sign of Jake. I went up the stairs and found a couch. It looked like the room was empty. Maybe I could stay there for a while and try to call Jake again. I was about to sit when I heard a noise coming from the tiny room next to the couch. It was a bathroom, and someone was vomiting in there.

“Hello?” The person inside said.

“Umm… hi” I replied.

“I just threw up SO much,” The person said. It was a boy, a boy with a familiar voice.

Oh my God, you have to be kidding me.

“Jake?” I asked.

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“You have a nice voice. I’ve heard that voice before.

It’s Val! Val is here.” He replied.

“Jake are you drunk?” I kept on asking.

“No I am not drunk; I am Jake,” He said.

“Okay Jake, are you looking decent? Because I will open this door and drag you out if I have to” I said.

“Drag me out please,” He said.

I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I never thought that once in my life I’d see Jake Michaels drunk. He was the top student of the grade and he never went out, yet his reputation was still intact. He was truly a genius that had figured out his way around school and people. To be honest, I envied him quite a lot.

I opened the door and Jake was sitting on the ground hugging the toilet. Gross. I told him to get up but he physically couldn’t, so I handed him some paper towels to clean himself up, and carried him to the couch.

“You are strong,” He said.

I know he meant that I was strong physically, but he was drunk, so I could reply with what I was actually thinking and he wouldn’t remember a thing tomorrow.

“No, I’m not,” I said.

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“You just carried me all the way here, and I’m heavy.

You’re strong.” He kept saying.

“Maybe physically, but not the other way Jake. I literally cried because I couldn’t find you. That’s weakness if I’ve ever seen it.” I told him.

“Look,” He said as he tried to sit up but failed miserably.

“You are my friend, and as your friend, it is my job to tell you the truth. The truth, dear lady, is that you are not okay. That’s not okay.”

“Jake, don’t you think I know that?” I didn’t need to be told something I already knew.

“Yes yes, but if you do, why don’t you get help?” The way he said it, made it seem so simple, but it wasn’t like that. It’s not simple.

“I don’t need help” I can deal with this on my own.

“But how else are you going to be okay? I wasn’t okay in that bathroom and I called for you. I’m still not fully okay and I want you to stay with me. To help me.

Now, you need to do the same thing.”

“Jake, being drunk and having anxiety is completely different. You don’t know what you’re saying” 26

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“Do you want to know why I was in that bathroom?”

That question really did make me wonder why I found him in such a bad state.

“Yeah, it’s not very like you to get drunk” “Do you know how much pressure is on my shoulders right now Val? We are graduating! And me? Well, I’m supposed to keep up my perfect scores and perfect reputation and be valedictorian and do my college internships and there’s more! There’s always more.

I know what you’re going to say. I know you’ll say I’m just stressed. This is not stress. This is pain. I’m in pain.”

Behind the mess, I could see Jake’s eyes filled with despair as he talked about this. This was serious. I had never seen him so lost. I had never seen him so stressed out. I had never seen him so sad.

“I wanted to be a teen. I wanted to get drunk at a party. I’ve never gotten drunk at a party.” He said.

His voice was weak, as if he was mourning the death of his teenage years, as if he had the opportunity to do something he really wanted to do but just let it slip right through his fingers.

“You are drunk at a party,” I said in a pathetic attempt to cheer him up.

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“Exactly! I want help. This will most definitely make me get help. I am asking you for help right now, see?

Now you need to ask me, and Claire, and your parents, and a professional for help. Follow my example.”

“But not the drunk part” “Oh no, definitely not the drunk part. My head is on FIRE right now.”

That comment made me laugh. I laughed at a party.

That was odd.

“Jake, I know you want this conversation to be done, but I have one more question for you” “Go ahead” This didn’t seem like it was bothering him, and that made me think about how maybe other stuff I’ve said that I thought bothered him, actually didn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me and Claire? I told you about my social anxiety after I finally accepted I had it” “Because I don’t know what I have. I don’t even know if I have anything. But I tell you what. I’ll look for a therapist if you go back to see yours.”

“You’ll forget about this conversation tomorrow.”

“No, I won’t. I don’t forget about real conversations.

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Also, you made my conscience come back, but just in case, write it down on my phone.”

I wrote: “You need a therapist Jake, let Val explain – Drunk Jake” …………

After I arrived home, I actually thought about what Jake had told me. Maybe he was right. If I was so sure about being weird and different to everyone my age, why was the smartest and nicest guy in my grade confessing he has similar problems to me?

Sure, he didn’t freeze when he talked to another person, but he was extremely anxious and felt a lot of pressure, and I had no idea. How could I have no idea? Was I really that bad of a friend?

No. That’s not the right mindset.

The solution to Jake’s and my problems was not to feel bad for ourselves. The solution was not to blame ourselves. The solution was to actually look for the solution.

I came to the realization that I hadn’t been looking for the solution, I’d been avoiding it. Jake had been doing the same thing as well. We were so caught up on our feelings we convinced ourselves no one cared about us. Even if I still think that way, which I’m not going to 29

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lie, I do, we need to stop bashing ourselves for it and I guess, try to change it.

Whenever I complain about myself, I get told that if it bothers me so much, why not go out and change it? And I’ve never been able to properly answer that question. But I guess that change is scary. Change implies that something you’re used to will stop existing the way you’re used to it, and while that can be a good thing, you have developed a toxic relationship with this aspect of your life, and even if you do feel relieved when it leaves, it still hurts a bit. It lingers.

I know he wasn’t at his best, but we had a real conversation. A real conversation, with a real person.

Something that helped me and Jake. Something that gave me and Jake a feeling of warmth in our chests. …………

“Hey Val, listen, I’m so sorry you had to deal with me like that. I’m so embarrassed.” Jake told me as we walked together towards a bench in the park.

“It’s alright man. Everything’s alright. I’m just glad you were being honest. How are you doing?” I asked him. I was genuinely concerned.

“I promise I’m not lying, but I kind of feel good. I told my parents I’d like to see a therapist and they were actually worried about me. They care about me.”

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“They obviously care Jake. Like I care. Remember that” I decided that from now on, I’d try to be honest in expressing my feelings for people that I care about. I have nothing to lose now that I have kind of accepted the fact that someone out there, someone like Jake, might actually care about me as much as I care about them.

“Thank you, did you do what I asked you to?” He was referring to seeing my therapist again.

“I’m in the process” My mom still had to talk to my old therapist, but I had told her that I wasn’t feeling okay and that I, in fact, needed it. She was very supportive of it.

“That’s great. Thank you so much for listening to me” I could tell he was really thankful, and I was glad I helped.

“Thank you for telling me. And thank you for putting up with me” I was also thankful.

“It’s my pleasure. Please, whenever you need it, talk to me. I’d love to listen.” He said.

“The same goes to you” I meant that.

“Do you think we’ll be alright?” He asked, a hint of hope in his eyes.

“You’re the one who taught me that eventually, yes.”

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…………

The Second Story When I started writing this book, the intention was to write stories about anxiety and depression, as those were the disorders I’d personally seen in my life. But as the year progressed, I found out something about someone I loved. Something that upset me so much that I couldn’t really do anything but write about it because I knew this person wouldn’t listen to me if I said what I wanted to tell her to her face.

This story is about bulimia, the eating disorder. Now, the subject that inspired this story was never actually diagnosed with bulimia, but did show the symptoms of it, and I knew that this wasn’t me being paranoid about a loved one, I knew what bulimia looked like and I knew that if this person continued doing what they were doing they would regret it, so I wrote this as a warning. I wrote this so that this person could see what they were getting into.

This is the only story in this book that is written in the style of a diary, and I decided to write it this way to show that bulimia, like every other mental illness, progresses over time, and consumes the person gradually.

There is a lot of pressure imposed by society nowadays, not only for girls but also for boys. We are always 32

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told what we should look like, and we shouldn’t be. We should be content with ourselves no matter how different we are because that’s what makes us individuals. I’m not going to be a hypocrite, as I myself have let society’s ideas get into my head and mess me up, but like I said in the introduction of this book, anyone who needs help can benefit from these stories, and sometimes that’s me. And that’s okay.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and don’t be afraid to offer help. Whether it is by reading a story or by sharing one, we can all benefit from giving and taking help.

This is “At the Dinner Table”. …………

At the Dinner Table Food. We all need it. We all like it. We all eat it. Except we don’t. Not all of us do. Some of us aren’t lucky enough. Some of us can’t afford it. Some of us can’t handle it. …………

Growing up a “fat kid” isn’t nice, but you knew that already. It’s a constant cycle, a cycle that accompanies you throughout your entire existence unless you break it.

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Us “fat kids”, we eat, obviously. But we don’t do it without a reason, I’d say that it’s like a coping mechanism.

We eat when we’re happy. We eat when we’re sad. We eat when we’re angry. We eat when we’re nervous.

We just eat. We eat every meal like it’s the last meal we will ever eat, and we consider that normal.

Because it’s like a reward. I did something that makes me happy? I’ll eat to celebrate. I had a bad day? I’ll eat to cheer myself up. Am I nervous about an upcoming test? I’ll study after I get a snack.

I’d love for this to be an exaggeration, but it’s not, at least not in my case. I just consume and consume and consume food and I love it. I really do. But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard. It’s the worst.

But, how could it possibly be the worst? I mean, I said it myself, I love it, and I know I’m not the only “fat kid” that loves it. Well, that’s the hardest part. It’s so hard to stop doing something you love, and for us, as stupid as it may sound to those people who’ve never been through this, it’s torture. It’s not like “eating a salad hurts”, because I have gotten that comment before, it’s the quantity that hurts, it’s the tiny portions.

I guess that we are so used to swallowing so much food we can’t exist peacefully without those portions.

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healthy lifestyle, but motivation is a luxury for us, and personally, I could never afford it.

Then, there’s exercise. Exercise isn’t that bad if you find the one that you like, but what if you don’t like any? What if you feel like you suck at them? What if you actually suck at them? And to those of you who might be thinking I’m just lazy, it’s not laziness, as I mentioned before, it’s lack of motivation. Lack of energy. Lack of wanting to do something.

Do you want to know another reason why fat kids remain fat? Even if you don’t I’ll tell you, because no one seems to know this. Sometimes, fat kids remain fat because no one wants to help. Sure, parents are always nice, but I have never seen a classmate not laugh at a fat kid who is actually trying his best to run track. A fat kid who’s doing jumping jacks. A fat kid swimming. Does that look funny to you? Because it doesn’t to me, and it’s not because I’m also fat, it’s because I actually care about people. It’s because they’re just like anyone else.

And no one cares about people nowadays. It’s just the truth. If you don’t believe me, you’ve probably already shut this book. “It’s just a bunch of crap she wrote because she hates herself”, which would be a valid argument if it wasn’t solely based on opinions about a person you’ve never met.

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This is the kind of situation that makes people take shortcuts. If you think about the logic of things, shortcuts are great. Shortcuts are an easier way to get to the results you want. Shortcuts make your life easier, and that is the reason why most people take them.

But what kind of a shortcut is there to being skinny?

To being pretty? To being accepted?

Starvation.

Starvation seems like a good solution. I mean, it seems logical, predictable as well. You don’t eat, you don’t gain weight. You exercise and you stop eating, you lose weight and can’t gain it again. But here’s why it’s not a perfect solution. Food is an addiction, and if you have an addiction, it takes so much willpower to break out of it. It’s hard. And if something is hard, then it’s not a shortcut.

Barf.

Now, barf seems like a perfect solution. Eat whatever you want, and never digest it. The fat never really enters your system; you never gain weight, and you lose the previous weight. You can eat tons of food, and you never gain weight. You kind of feel like crap, you are at serious risk of diseases, yeah; but you never gain weight.

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So yes, shortcuts are an easier way to get to the results you want. Shortcuts make your life easier. But here’s the thing, life isn’t supposed to be easy, and we all learn that the hard way. …………

1. December 24th, 2016.

The smell of cake filled the air. Why is it that around Christmas time people were so excited about everything? Cake, dinner, gifts, family. Everyone says it’s a special occasion, but it’s not. It happens every year. Something that happens every year is expected.

It’s common. It’s not a surprise. But yet somehow, everyone found themselves so excited about it. My family danced and chatted and drank wine and had a swell time, and I? I was thinking about that cake.

Why is it that they had to bake this cake? Jesus was born on the 25th. It’s the 24th. Why couldn’t my mom wait until Jesus’ actual birthday to bake this cake? Why couldn’t my mom wait until all of my family got here to bake this cake? Why couldn’t my mom wait until I wasn’t here to bake this cake? I know that sounds unfair as I never leave my house, but dinner could’ve been at my aunt’s place, or my uncle’s place, or my other aunt’s place. But it wasn’t. It was at my place. Just like every year. Another reason why Christmas wasn’t a special occasion.

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“Help me set up the table?” My mom asked me, shouting from the kitchen.

“I’m coming” I replied.

I left my room and headed for the kitchen. I grabbed all of the cutlery and took it to the living room, where I started to set up the table.

“Enthusiastic, are we?” said my mom while looking at me, she seemed concerned, she always seems concerned.

“Very,” I said.

“It’s Christmas B, you can relax today.”

“It’s Christmas Eve mom, and I don’t choose when I can relax” “You can try” I can try. She always said that. “You can always try”.

Was it true though? I’m still figuring that out.

“I’m fine mom. I’ll go get the napkins” I said and kissed her cheek.

As I returned to the kitchen to get the napkins, my phone rang.

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“ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS” Alex shouted into the phone as soon as I picked up.

Alex was my best friend. We met about two years ago, at an interschool conference, we went to different schools, which I loved and hated at the same time. She was the enthusiastic one, as you could probably tell.

“I am aware,” I said.

“Is this year not gonna be any different?” She asked.

“No, it will not” “You said you would try” “People always make me say that” “Bianca, you are a creature of many wonders” “I really don’t like it when you call me a creature Alexandra” “Well I just wanted to tell you that I got you a present and I expect to get mine” “Alex, isn’t the point of getting a present for someone you love just to make them happy? Not to have them give you one back?”

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There was a silence. I knew I won that one. It took her a while to think about what she was going to say next, but she decided to go for; “I’ll call you at midnight so we can say happy birthday to Jesus together, creature.”

And then she hung up on me.

The conversations with Alex and with my mom almost made me forget about it, but the blaring alarm certainly reminded me that it was still there.

“Oh, the cake is done! Just in time!” My mom exclaimed as my family cheered.

I thought to myself that maybe, maybe, there was a slight chance that the cake wasn’t big enough for all of us. Maybe, just maybe, I could pass this one up. But I knew I couldn’t. I could never.

The cake was about the size of my 8-year-old sister.

Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it really was one big cake. “Enough to feed us for a week”, my aunt said, and by us, she literally meant 30 people. Maybe I could just fake being sick and go to my room, I’d be safe up there, at least for a while.

“B, help me get the cake out of the oven please”

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And there went my plan. I couldn’t say no. It was one of my many flaws.

“Yeah sure” So I went. Dinner hadn’t even started, but my mom had insisted that we cooked everything early so that we wouldn’t keep the guests waiting when they were already here. She said it was rude to keep your guests waiting, and I couldn’t say I didn’t agree with her, which made me kind of sad. I always end up agreeing with her, which I think made me more a follower than an individual. I wanted to be an individual. But being an individual and shaping your own identity is hard, and I didn’t have the energy.

I carried the cake out of the oven, which was very difficult. Not only because the cake itself was very heavy, but because I was trying my very hardest to convince myself that I didn’t need to eat this cake. At this point, I was tired of finding excuses. I wanted the cake. I always want the cake. I would never refuse to eat anything, that would be out of character. That would shock my family and make me moody. I don’t want that. Nobody wants that.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. As everyone with a big family knows, the doorbell is always a mystery. There might be 2 people at the door, or 20, you never know. In this case, it was the remaining 5 41

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cousins that hadn’t arrived earlier. Which meant it was time for dinner.

Dinner. A younger version of myself would be thrilled, but I wasn’t like that anymore. Dinner scared me.

The table was already set up, so the only thing missing was the cake. I told my mom I had to go to the bathroom, so she had to take the cake to the table, I didn’t actually want to go but I wasn’t going to touch that cake again. When everything was set up, the 35 of us sat on the extremely large dinner table. Everyone passed the food around and told anecdotes about the most interesting things that had happened to them this year. But I don’t remember a single anecdote.

I was out of it. All I was doing was, well, eating. I consumed all of the food I could, and I even pushed my boundaries. I never seemed to get full. I could always eat more and more.

That was until, of course, I got a comment.

“Wow B, you act like you haven’t eaten in a week” Said my cousin Sam in between laughs. I didn’t find it very funny, but I still giggled at him so that he wouldn’t call me a “softie” or a “sensitive lady”, he really liked to do that.

After that comment, I wasn’t feeling very well. I was feeling worse than usual. I decided to ignore my cousin 42

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and keep eating, after all, this is what I did every day, and I wasn’t going to gain weight. I had a plan.

Dinner finished in about an hour, and then, it was time for dessert. My mom made my favorite cake, which sucked because I could eat more of it. Of course, I ate the cake. I ate about 2 slices of that cake. It was a good cake. But after the cake, I started feeling sick. I was nauseous, or maybe, I wanted to be.

My sense of smell felt extremely sensitive, my vision foggy, my eyes watery, my throat burning. I knew the time had come.

I excused myself and walked up the stairs to my bedroom. I locked the door and headed for the bathroom. I locked that door as well. I played some very loud music, and then I got to work. I’d gotten over the phase where it was scary to shove my fingers up my throat. That phase where you question what you do.

Where you think about how it might hurt you. I didn’t care about that stuff anymore; I was getting good at this; I’d been doing it for about a month now. I know that sounds egotistical, but I felt like I had discovered something great. I was aware of bulimia, I knew it was a problem, but I also knew I didn’t have it. I knew I didn’t. I knew I could stop. I just didn’t want to. I liked how my body was changing; fast and for the better.

In fact, my body was getting used to it, getting used to my new habits, and it liked it. I got nauseous at around 43

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the same time every day, I was actually dropping weight, and I was feeling more comfortable inside of my own skin. I’d never felt this way before. I felt like I had control. I liked control.

So with all the joy in the world, I started regurgitating all of the food I had eaten the previous hour. I wasn’t going to give my body the time to digest the food, that might’ve slowed down the purging system I had going on. I was on a cleanse; a fat cleanse. So yeah, barf just kept coming out of me like water out of a faucet, and it kind of hurt, but in a good way. It hurt like exercise hurts when it burns calories, the only difference was that I wasn’t even letting the calories into my body, I was winning the beauty race. I was in control. I liked control.

Honestly, this made me feel relief. For a young woman who had been overweight all of her life, this was actually okay. This seemed okay. This was okay.

The next couple of hours weren’t that interesting.

I just opened some gifts, answered some awkward questions, and went to bed. …………

2. December 30th, 2016.

Strange is definitely the word I’d use to describe how I was feeling. I felt disconnected, I felt like everything I 44

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was experiencing was a dream, and not a nice dream, an extremely surrealistic dream that I couldn’t enjoy because I knew it wasn’t really happening. Life felt like one of those dreams. A couple of days ago, I’d felt so happy, so content with myself, I was starting to like me. But that just faded away. I felt incomplete now. I was missing something.

I think that what I was missing was validation. After all, it was Christmas break, and I had no classmates asking me; OMG how did you lose all the weight so fast? Or; how do you look so good now? The truth is, I wasn’t looking so good now, but I looked better, and I wanted someone to tell me that. I wanted to be recognized.

I wanted to break the stereotype that had been given to me by everyone ever since I was a 6-year-old. It’s a long process, turning someone from a confident child into a blob of insecurities and pain. It started out small. It started with someone calling me a hippo, someone not picking me to play tag with them, but it grows, it grows into real fat shaming. It grows into people whispering behind your back at all times. It grows into people critiquing every single piece of clothing you wear because “how could you possibly wear something like that with that body?”. It grows into people leaving anonymous comments on your social media that say “if she were skinnier she’d be prettier”, or “she clearly doesn’t know what a salad is”.

I wanted that to stop. I was done with that.

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I had cut back on my portions. I figured that even if I puked after eating a lot, my physical appearance would change for the better, but my personality wouldn’t.

I would still be the fat girl, I’d just be the fat girl who supposedly works out a lot and that’s the only reason why she looks alright, but she still acts like the fat girl.

I think I’ve been doing a good job hiding my new “work out routine”. I’d been telling my mom and Alex that I went to the gym for like 2 hours a day and that’s what helped me lose all the weight, but you know that that obviously wasn’t the case. I felt really bad lying to them, but I’d feel even worse if they found out the truth and worried about me. I was protecting them, just like I was protecting myself from being fat. I hated being fat. I’d always been fat and it was time to stop.

It really isn’t that hard if you can control it, which I can.

I totally can. Yeah, I feel like sticking my fingers in my throat every time I eat something, even if it’s a single grape, but that just means its working. That just means my body’s looking out for me. That’s what that means. …………

3. February 29th, 2017 It’s been about two months since I wrote last.

I’m not going to lie; it’s been a hard couple of months.

I was still missing something, but now, I knew that 46

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something wasn’t validation. I knew that because I started school. I thought that school was going to be different now. I thought that people were going to think better of me now. I thought that it was finally going to be my year. I thought this was my time. I thought this was the time to show everyone how incredible my new body was and how the fat version of me didn’t exist anymore. But it did exist. It will always exist. I have to kill it for it to disappear, and I’ve been trying really hard with no sign of success on the horizon.

People at school were the same. They didn’t really notice anything except for the fact that when I walked the ground didn’t crack anymore. Or maybe they didn’t notice that and that’s just what I thought about, but how am I supposed to know? Nowadays, I don’t know anything. I’m just floating around.

I remember that in physics class they told us that an object in motion stays in motion unless a force acts upon it. That was my life. I was constantly in motion.

I’d been in motion even before I started making myself throw up and I haven’t stopped moving. No force is acting on me because no one knows anything about me and what I get up to anymore, and I’m moving so fast and I can’t stop. I’m just floating around. Pointlessly.

Control was what all of this was about. I wanted it. I needed it. It was my reason, other than being content with myself. For someone who has struggled with weight issues, having control is having power. If 47

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you can control yourself, you can stop eating. How amazing is that? Control.

For some time, I thought I had it. But I didn’t. Real control doesn’t come and go as it pleases, real control stays. It stays and it keeps you grounded and sometimes a bit stressed but overall, it keeps all of your life together. It keeps you safe, secure, happy.

What I thought I had was an illusion. It was completely fake. I wasn’t in control; it was controlling me. All this time I thought I had been controlling the food, controlling my weight, but I wasn’t. The food was controlling me. My desire to look better was controlling me, and I was starting to wonder if what I saw in the mirror was what I actually looked like.

I stopped talking to Alex and my parents …. and my sister, and well, basically everyone I knew well enough to have a conversation with, and honestly, that was not that many people, so I thought it’d be alright.

I thought that maybe if I disconnected myself from everyone that loved me I wouldn’t have to worry about them, I’d only think about caring for myself and my own physical appearance and my own emotions.

But that was definitely not what happened.

I started worrying about them even more than I did before. So I was worried about them and about myself. That was double the emotions. In this journey, 48

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I had discovered that I wasn’t good with emotions.

Emotions were like food. I kept regurgitating them even when I didn’t want to. …………

4. March 14th, 2017 Previously, I called what I’ve been going through a “journey”. Today I looked up the definition of a journey; “an act of traveling from one place to another”.

Every time I used to picture a journey I thought of an adventure, a transcendental experience in which you find yourself through the places you visit and the things you experience there. My “journey” was from fat to extremely skinny. I would say from health to sickness, but I wasn’t healthy, to begin with, and I’m even sicker now.

I have to apologize for lying. Apologize for saying that I knew how to stop with all the confidence a teenage girl can have on herself. Because it wasn’t the truth.

I was convinced it was the truth, though. So it was more of a partial lie. Does it count as a lie if I believed it as well? Because as I said before, I really did believe it. I wholeheartedly thought that I knew when and how to put an end to this.

Turns out, that when I actually tried to stop, not only did I fail at it, but it was way too late. My esophagus was burnt, my teeth were yellow and weak, my cheeks 49

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were swollen, my hands had calluses, and my voice was completely ruined. There were more side effects, but none of them hurt as much as knowing that I really couldn’t stop.

It didn’t take very long for my mom to notice that something wasn’t right, so she took me to the doctor.

He weighed me. The last time I went there I was 165 pounds. A 15-year-old who was 5’3 weighed 165 pounds. I was a couple of pounds overweight, but in my eyes, I was obese. Now, I was 100 pounds. In a span of 3 months, I’d dropped 65 pounds. I know that might seem like a lot to some of you, but to me? To me, that wasn’t enough. To me, that was the reason no one had asked me why I lost all of that weight. Because it wasn’t enough. Because I was still fat.

The doctor then held a mirror in front of me and asked me what I saw. He told me not to lie, and I’ve personally never been a fan of lying, so I told the truth. I said it wasn’t enough, I hadn’t been “working out” enough and I was still fat. He asked me how I felt about that. What was I supposed to say? I hated it. I hated my body. I hated myself and all I wanted to do was just throw up and keep doing it until I was less than 90 pounds. But I didn’t mean to do it right there.

I really didn’t mean to. I didn’t know how or why my body was doing this to me. I didn’t know what 50

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I did to deserve it. I didn’t know why this kept happening to me.

That day, he diagnosed me with bulimia.

He took me off the scale and I offered to help him clean up the mess I’d made, but he politely said he’d do it himself. I felt really bad for that doctor, all of these patients and he had to get stuck with me. All of this time I was so worried about what I’d done, that I forgot to talk to my mom.

I’d never seen a facial expression like the one she wore that day. It was a mixture of pure sadness, anger, concern, and just, pain. I could feel her pain, and I knew she could feel mine.

“Mom?” I asked in my weak, raspy voice.

She looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot, I was too busy thinking about myself to notice that she’d been crying.

“What have you done?” She said, looking at me.

“I… I took a shortcut mom” “I always tried to teach you that shortcuts aren’t the right way out” “Mom I’m sorry” 51

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“Don’t apologize to me. You did this to—” And she started crying. I was sure she meant to say I did this to myself.

And then I started crying. And we just sat there.

Crying. I tried to hug her, but I was scared she was mad at me, disappointed at me. I was scared that she didn’t love me anymore. But she hugged me back, we held each other, and we cried together. …………

The Third Story The aim of this story is to express how even when sometimes your life seems to be changing for the better if you suffer from a mental illness, it’ll always be there to remind you the dark side of things. Whether your life is the same, better, or worse, a part of it will always be there unless you do something.

Sometimes people think they can fix you, and you think you can fix them, but no matter how hard you try, they can only fix themselves. Asking for help is not depending on someone to help you, it’s being willing to try whatever it takes to fix yourself.

In this story, I tried to explore the concept of inner dialogue, by making the main character’s depression have a voice of its own, and talk with the main 52

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character. The subject of this story gave me this idea.

We never talked about it, but I know this person, and I knew that they’d find this really interesting.

This is “Different”. …………

Different Sometimes feelings ruin everything. Sometimes thoughts do. Sometimes you don’t think or feel, but you still manage to ruin everything. It’s an unsolvable riddle that everyone goes through from the moment they start to become individuals. Feel, think, both, or none. You might be thinking that the logical answer is both, but what if it’s not? What if that’s just too much? What if you’re just increasing your chances of getting hurt? …………

I’ve never completely understood the concept of time.

More than intriguing, I find it kind of crazy, even illogical. Time is a manmade concept, yet it rules our everyday lives from the day we are born until the day we die. No, it goes even beyond that. Time, a concept made up by men, has supposedly been on this planet since it’s very beginning, a beginning in which men themselves didn’t exist. That’s crazy.

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How do we know it’s really Monday? For all that I know, and, yes, this will make me look very stupid, some random astrologist claimed that there were 7 days in a week and that this particular day it was going to be Monday. I know that it has something to do with the sun and things of that sort, but doesn’t that just seem insignificant to you? Isn’t that a fact we ignore for some reason?

There is nothing but planets in this universe and apparently, that’s the answer to this dilemma of time that’s been going on in my head since I was old enough to discover that I’m just a tiny speck of dust in a really big universe.

Think about how the people of his era must have looked at this astrologist or whoever it was. If I were them I wouldn’t believe him at all, and I bet they didn’t at the time, but now, because of him, I know that it’s Monday and that in 7 days it’ll be Monday again and that’s how it’ll be for the rest of my life and after my life ends and the world just continues existing.

That’s another concept that’s crazy. Existence. In this universe, things just, exist. It seems very simple if I put it that way, but I still think it’s very complicated. I exist and you exist and other people exist and animals exist and plants exist and other planets exist. Those are the facts. We know for sure that those things exist.

But that’s not the complicated part of existence. The complicated part of existence is the reason behind it.

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These plants, animals, people, planets, What’s their purpose? Their mission in life? Another age long dilemma that I really don’t care much for, but still think about late at night.

Some people might answer my questions with science.

But I’m someone who in all honesty, doesn’t care about science. Nor do I care about religion. I don’t even care about people. But that thought has remained in the back of my head for as long as I’ve tried to be an independent human being. Whether it’s science or God or Allah or Buddha or even multiple Gods, I have always wanted to know the reason behind existence, even if it’s underwhelming.

I don’t know if I’m the only one who experiences this but sometimes I get these weird flashes of thoughts that invade my brain and make me question who I am. They make me question myself and what the world would have been like if I just wasn’t given a life by whatever you believe in. It’s an overwhelming feeling of genuine curiosity. I want to know why I am alive. I want my life to have a purpose.

If the universe were to have been created to be perfect, then I believe that humans wouldn’t have been created. The universe could’ve functioned perfectly without human life. In fact, it could’ve been even better without human life. Humans destroyed the perfectly functional Earth that was given to them. We took and never gave back. So if all we do is destroy, 55

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then why do we exist? If you ask me, that’s a bad move from whoever or whatever is guiding us from above.

Whenever I say this I get called cynical, or people just ask me why I think about this. And that is a good question. If science has already provided us with enough answers to just settle down and ignore this type of thought, then why keep thinking about it?

I think it’s because humans never settle permanently.

Humans don’t like to settle. We stay somewhere for a while, get used to that place, and begin calling it a home. But after a bit of time goes by, we start to think that maybe “home” is not as safe as we thought it was.

We convince ourselves that it’s not enough, that we’re bored, that we need a change in our lives. And then, we become somewhat rebellious. We begin to overthink.

We begin to worry. We start to question things we once accepted blindly. That’s just the way things have been for a long time and it’s how they’ll continue to be for an even longer time. …………

I woke up at 7:05 am like I always do. It was a grey morning, like every morning that I remember experiencing. I changed into the same uniform I’ve been wearing since I was in Early Years. I was late, I’m always late, so I got into the car and took the same path I always do. I arrived at the same school I’ve 56

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attended for the past 13 years and walked the same grey halls that I walk every day to get to my locker. In the locker sat all my notebooks, ordered to perfection, like they always sit.

What a boring, purposeless life.

I grabbed some books, put them in my bag, and headed towards my classroom. Inside of this dull, pale white room, sat about 25 people. 25 people whose names had been engraved into my brain as I’ve spent the last 13 years of my life with them. Of course, my name is not engraved into their brains, but who can blame them, my name isn’t even engraved into my own brain.

Your name doesn’t deserve a spot in anyone’s brain.

I sat down at the table where I usually sit, with the people who I usually sit with.

Who only sit with you because they don’t want to be rude.

We started talking about mundane things; homework, assignments, upcoming school events, nothing important. It’s not like that with them all the time, even though it is usually what most of my conversations with most of the people in my grade are like. I’m not really sure if the people in my grade are boring, but I for sure am, so that doesn’t really help my situation out. But 57

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those people, the people sitting at my table, I kind of considered my friends I guess. I’m not really sure what the definition of a “friend” is, but they were as close as I was going to get.

Are you sure about that?

After about 10 minutes, the bell rang, meaning that I had to get to my first class of the day, which was math.

Math didn’t really bother me as much as it seemed to bother others. It was just numbers and patterns, nothing out of this world. I really didn’t find school so complicated, I was just done with it. I’d been doing the same thing over and over for years, and while I know the reason as to why I’m supposed to do it, I stopped doing it for that reason a long time ago. I know school is just a stepping stone for college and college is just a stepping stone for life, but the only reason I actually go to school is that if I don’t my parents will disown me.

I don’t care about college anymore. Actually, I’m not sure if I ever cared. I don’t even know what I want to do. Whenever my mom asks me what I want to do, which happens about once a month, I just say, “I’m still narrowing it down”, as if I had more than one choice.

I don’t even have a vague idea. And it’s not that I’m stupid, I don’t really try and I guess I still do alright, I just don’t have any motivation whatsoever. Out of all the courses I take, not a single one makes me think, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life”.

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That’s why you’re useless. You don’t even know what you like. If you keep walking around aimlessly, you are bound to end up nowhere.

I’m 17. I’m supposed to have figured out my purpose in life by now. Everyone else knows what they want to do. There are future doctors, teachers, economists, musicians, there are future successful people standing in the same room as me, and my only plans for the future are what I’m going to get for lunch today. …………

“Ms. Tate, can you stay for a moment?” Mr. Gonzalez, my math teacher, asked as soon as the lesson finished.

“Yeah sure, sir,” I said.

“Listen, I know you don’t do extracurricular activities, but I need you to do me a very special favor. I need you to tutor someone for me.” He asked.

Tutor someone? You? You’re not smart enough for that. There must be a catch.

“Tutor? Sir, I’m not sure if I can do that.” I’m not smart enough for that.

“Yes, you can. You are literally the smartest person in this class. Probably the smartest in your grade.” He seemed very convinced.

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He is clearly lying, stop being so narcissistic.

“Who would I be tutoring sir?” I’m not very good with people, if I was going to tutor someone, at least it had to be someone who I sort of knew and who sort of knew me.

Nobody knows you.

“Do you know Noah Mills?”

Noah Mills. Never heard of him before. He must be as irrelevant as you are.

“Umm, no sir.”

“Noah is a fantastic student, in everything but my class. Since I genuinely like that kid’s personality and I genuinely like yours, I thought you’d be the perfect person to tutor him.” He seemed really keen on this tutoring thing.

“With all due respect sir, I don’t really have a personality.” Why would I say that to a teacher?

Yeah, that’s a great thing to say to a teacher who supposedly likes you. Now that’s definitely over. God, you’re stupid.

“Well I know that’s not true, and you didn’t actually say no, so you’re meeting him in the library as soon as the lunch break starts. Thank you, that’ll be all.”

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Why didn’t I just say no thank you? It’s really not that complicated. …………

Why are you here? It’s obvious that he’s not going to come. He’s irrelevant, but not as much as you. Why don’t you go back to eating sandwiches? That’ll add extra weight to your already extremely flawed body.

Even better, why don’t you go enjoy those carbs with people who are way better than you in every possible way and secretly hate you but don’t tell you because that’ll mess up their charity project: The “Jamie Tate Project”.

“Shut up” “Excuse me?” I heard a male voice say.

Did I actually say that out loud? Did I actually, just talk to myself, out loud? Did I actually ask myself to shut up?

You leveled up on being pathetic, I didn’t know that was possible.

“Are you okay?” The male voice said again.

“Yes I – I’m – I – Are you, Mills? – Umm Noah Mills?”

Apparently, I now have a speech impediment. That’s never happened before.

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Do I have to count how many times you stuttered or are you aware?

“Yes, are you okay?” He kept asking me that, why was he doing that?

“Yes, yes I’m okay. You just startled me. You startled me. It’s fine though, I get scared pretty easily.” He’s just a person. Why did I get so scared?

“I’m still sorry.”

“You don’t have to be” “Right, sorry.”

“You apologized again.”

He’s trying to be nice, not that you’d know what that’s like, you are kind of a psychopath. You should definitely improve your manners.

“You saying that I don’t have to be sorry doesn’t change the fact that I’m still sorry” “I should be the one apologizing to you, I literally told you to shut up when you were silent” “I know that wasn’t for me.”

He knows you’re mad, well honestly, who doesn’t?

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“You know what? Let’s talk about math. Why did Mr. Gonzalez ask you to come?”

“He did it because he thinks I have potential,” He said while opening a granola bar package and proceeding to eat some of it.

“Oh, that’s cool.” I realized that I could not be more boring.

Maybe Noah was trying to start a conversation, but I honestly couldn’t tell if he was just trying to get this interaction over with. I was for sure trying to get this conversation over with. The guy just saw me talk to myself, I want to cling on to the little dignity I still have left.

Oh come on, you know that you lost your dignity a long time ago.

“Yeah well it’s not the truth, so don’t be disappointed when I ask you what 2 plus 2 is,” he said.

I could tell his mood changed from nice to annoyed.

At least the both of us were annoyed now.

“Come on, you know what 2 plus 2 is.”

“Okay that might’ve been an exaggeration but I think you know what I mean.”

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“You can’t be that bad. Mr. Gonzalez said you were a great student “Mr. Gonzalez is way too nice. He’s the only teacher who’d say that about me” “What do you mean?”

“Well, other teachers would say I’m a bit, opinionated.”

In this school, whenever teachers didn’t like someone, everyone found out. Everyone found out because every student in this school is a suck-up try-hard that brings apples to their teachers every day or whatever.

I never cared about that, but everyone seemed to think that the more teachers that like you the smarter you were and the more likely you were to go to a good college. I honestly don’t know what it takes to go to a good college, but I do know that the amount of apples you bring to your teachers has nothing to do with it.

“Opinionated. That’s not a bad thing” “But it is –” “It is in this school” “Exactly.”

He seemed to know the school well. Almost as well as me.

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“Noah, how long have you been attending this school?”

“14 years. You?” 14 years? How have I never seen him? I’ve been here all my life and apparently so had he.

“13. How have we never met?”

“Well for starters, I’m a grade older than you, and I’m also not very social” “Well, then we have something in common.”

If he was older than me and I was tutoring him, He must really be bad at mad. I wasn’t going to say that out loud though. I wasn’t going to make the same stupid mistake twice.

“Were we supposed to be doing math right now?” He asked.

“I think so. But honestly who cares?”

“My curriculum cares.”

“But you don’t” He smiled at me.

“Okay, I approve this. I think I can be tutored by you.”

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…………

After the “meeting” with Noah, I stayed in a weird mood for the rest of the day. I was intrigued. I’d never been intrigued by anyone in my school. But as soon as I got home, that feeling disappeared.

An overwhelming feeling of tiredness washed over my body. My mom wasn’t home, as per usual, and my older brothers were nowhere to be seen. I was completely alone. I usually like being alone. I think it’s peaceful. It’s a time in which I can rest from social interaction because even though I don’t mind it, it’s quite exhausting. But today it was different. Today being alone made me sad.

I strictly remember you saying that you didn’t care about people, I implied you didn’t really have feelings.

It’s not like I don’t have them. They’re just not present all the time. I’m as confused as you are.

I’m not confused, I think sad is good. When you’re sad, at least you’re feeling something. Keep being sad.

Sad keeps you safe. Sad prevents you from making mistakes.

I’m not that sad.

Well, you will be.

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Shut up. I feel nothing.

If I’m here it’s for a reason.

I’m over it. I’m back to being my careless self. That’s my main personality trait. Careless. I don’t care about school, I don’t care about people, I don’t care about science or religion or existence or myself. I’m careless.

My brain is empty.

Lying to yourself isn’t a healthy coping mechanism.

You’re the sick one here.

If I’m sick, then so are you. …………

I fell asleep quite early last night, which doesn’t happen very often, but I guess I was just tired.

I think I should get up now, it’s 7:05, and I just woke up.

You don’t want to get up.

Please let me go.

You don’t want to go.

I know, but I have to.

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But you don’t. You can just stay here. In this bed. For the rest of your life. Wouldn’t that be nice? You’d be able to just disappear into the bed sheets. You know that I’m not the only one who wants you to disappear.

Do yourself a favor and just stay in the bed.

Stay in the bed.

Yes. Exactly.

Won’t there be consequences?

All you want is to get some sleep. You don’t care about consequences.

I don’t care about consequences. …………

“Hello?” The voice on the phone said.

“Hello, who is this?” I asked with a raspy voice, as the phone had woken me up.

“Hi this is Noah Mills, are you Jamie Tate?”

Was Noah calling me? How did he get my phone number? And why was he calling me?

“Yes Noah” 68

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“I don’t want to bother you but we were supposed to have consistent meetings and I haven’t seen you in over a week. Are you okay?

“Yeah I’m fine, why are you asking?”

“Because I really need help with math” I sighed, quite loudly.

“We can meet up today” So his concern was about himself. I totally get it; we weren’t even friends.

“I’m sorry am I bothering you?”

“No it’s just that – no just – I’ll meet you at the Starbucks right across the street from school okay? 7 pm”.

“Alright.” …………

I don’t know why I hadn’t been going to school for the past week.

You do.

No, I don’t. And I also don’t know why it was taking so much willpower to get up and leave my house. All I know is that the only reason why my mom let me stay at home for an entire week is that I haven’t moved for 69

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an entire week. I guess she thinks I’m sick but I don’t feel sick. I just feel tired. Not sleepy tired, because I have been sleeping a lot, but just tired. Exhausted.

As exhausted as I was, I did tell Noah we were meeting, and I’ve been disappointed enough times to know that it was something that I did not want to do to someone else, even if this was just a tutoring session.

So I got up, put on a jacket and left my house for the first time in a week. As the fresh air brushed against my face, I was starting to think that maybe this wasn’t so bad, and I started to question why I had felt so purposeless over the last week. The only thing I remember was feeling lonely, feeling sad. I have never been particularly sad; I had just been absent, not physically, I didn’t use to have a problem with school and all that. I’ve never really cared about what my grades were or about what other people thought of me, but what I realized now is that I’ve probably never cared about people because people have never really cared about me.

No one has ever cared about you. You can tell yourself that you don’t care, but everyone, no matter how crazy or annoying or mean they are, everyone has someone who cares about them, and you don’t. I don’t think you can keep telling yourself that you don’t care anymore.

I didn’t know what was going on. I had never felt like this before. I had never really felt anything. But now, 70

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as I walked to meet Noah, I felt my heart starting to beat really fast. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a “What is this feeling? Could it be love?” beating heart. I’m not that kind of person. This is a “I don’t know how this interaction is going to go and I don’t want you to hate me” beating heart. And I hated it. I hated caring about what people thought of me. I hated caring in general.

The thing about caring is that as soon as you start caring about a person you start loving them. And the more you love someone the more it hurts if they leave you. And I’m not willing to give anyone that privilege.

I was still thinking of this as I was entering the Starbucks, and I could see Noah sitting down on a table that had a pile of books on it. I ordered some coffee and went to sit down with Noah.

“Hey, you came,” He said.

He thought you weren’t coming. That’s how bad of an impression you left on him.

“Yeah, I came. How have you been doing, you know, math-wise?” I asked him.

“Not great Jamie” “At least you’re honest. Also, I’m sure it’s not that bad”.

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“Oh, it is,” He said as he handed me some papers. It was an exam, and there was a big number written in red pen right over Noah’s answers. It said 34%.

“34 is not that bad” “What do you usually get?”

“We’re not talking about me…” I’ve never been embarrassed by getting good grades without even having to study, but at that moment, it hit me that Noah was trying his hardest, and he still got a 34%.

The worst part is that I could’ve helped, and I didn’t.

Because I was to busy laying in bed.

“Tell me, I’m not going to feel bad. I’m used to it.”

“Nothing lower than 75%” “Right, so teach me.”

So I did. I asked him what he needed help on and showed me a list of all the topics he struggled with.

It was all of the topics. So I took a deep breath, and I started working. I organized the topics by difficulty, and even though it took a lot of time, Noah seemed to be understanding. He was taking lots of notes and seemed genuinely interested. I have to admit Noah was impressing me, but what was impressing me the most was, well, me. I wasn’t struggling to teach him. I knew what I was talking about. I 72

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should probably start studying myself, I could be really good.

But you won’t. Because I’m here to remind you that you’ll never be good. Not even slightly good. …………

It was now 11 pm and Noah and I had just decided to wrap up the tutoring session. As he was packing up, I said goodbye and started to leave.

“Jamie wait,” He said I looked at him as if asking for an explanation as to why he stopped me.

“Do you have a ride?”

“Umm no, I always walk home” “I’ll drive you.”

I wasn’t going to say no. That would be rude, and to be completely honest, I was kind of tired and didn’t have enough energy to walk home.

“Yeah alright,” I said, and he smiled at me.

That’s probably a fake smile. No one would be happy about spending time with you.

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As we got in the car, Noah handed me his phone. It was unlocked, and the screen showed the Spotify typing bar had been clicked. I looked at him, expecting an explanation.

“Pick a song,” He said as if the message was obvious.

“Oh you can pick whatever you want, I’m not that much of a music person. I usually just listen to whatever is on.”

“WHAT!? You listen to crappy radio music!?” He asked, genuinely offended.

“It’s just music” “NO Jamie. That’s not the way things work. Here, listen.”

He played a song by the rock band, Queen. It was called Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a good song; I had never heard anything like it.

“That’s good,” I said.

“Jamie you’re not listening to the song. It’s not good.

It’s the best.”

I had never taken the time to actually listen to a song.

To really analyze it, to break it down in my mind. It was an experience that was out of this world. I had never felt anything like it before.

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“Wow.” “Yes. Exactly. I played this song because it’s one of their most popular ones, I thought you would recognize at least a little bit of it.”

“I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t,” I said.

He laughed, and so did I. “Ok, Jamie. I have an idea. Since you have been so kind to agree to teach me math, which is nearly impossible, I will return the favor. I’ll be your music tutor.”

“My music tutor? How would that work?”

“I’ll show you real music. And afterward, you’ll never want to listen to that radio crap again. So basically, I’ll save your life.”

“That’s such a stretch Noah” “You’ll thank me later,” He said.

For the rest of the car ride, we just listened to music. He drove as moved his body to the rhythm of the music, and strangely, it made me want to dance as well. So I did.

You’re so embarrassing, you will regret this. He’ll probably never talk to you again. There goes your only chance at having a friend.

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“Your dance moves are impressive for someone who only listens to the radio, Tate.” He said.

“You are clearly lying, but thank you, so are yours.”

“Well, mine are good because I listen to good music.”

“Good teachers don’t brag about how smart they are.”

“I’m not bragging, it’s just that my music taste is probably the only thing I like about myself, so I will mention it whenever I have the chance”.

The only thing he liked about himself. Those words resonated in my head. Why was that the only thing he liked about himself? Noah was really nice, good at most of the school subjects, and there are probably more things that I don’t know about. Why did he feel that way?

At least he likes something about himself. I hate everything about you and so do you.

“Alright, we’re here,” I said “It looks like we are.” He said.

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the fact that we weren’t doing this alone. So basically, we were enjoying each other’s company.

“Jamie” “Yes?” “Today was cool” “Yes it was” “We should probably hang out other times, you know, other than the tutoring sessions” “You’d want that?” I looked at him as if he were joking, and he seemed confused.

“Yeah I’d want that, you’re my friend” The word friend has a lot of meanings. I just hoped that he meant it in a real way.

“Then we can obviously hang out without you bringing your math notebook Noah,” I said. I had never said anything like that before. I have never been confident enough in my relationship with another person to say something like that. But I wasn’t embarrassed. It didn’t make me uncomfortable.

You will regret it. You’ll see.

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Noah smiled.

“I’m looking forward to it,” He said, looking like he meant it.

“Alright Mills, I’ll see you at school,” I said as I got out of his car. …………

“Where were you, Jamie?” Said my mom as soon as I entered my house.

“I was tutoring a friend. I’m a math tutor mom.”

“At 11:30 pm? What were you thinking? And why didn’t you tell me? I was worried sick Jamie.” She seemed really upset for some reason.

That’s strange. She clearly doesn’t care about you.

“Mom you’re never around how was I supposed to tell you?”

“Do not blame me for your mistakes Jamie.”

“Mom I’m not blaming you for anything I’m just saying that we don’t really talk, how was I supposed to know that all of a sudden you care about my school life?”

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“Jamie do NOT make me look like the villain. You should’ve told me you were leaving, you should’ve told me you were a math tutor, you should’ve told me everything.”

She’s not listening to you. Let her know.

“When mom?” I said, and I said it quite loudly. It exploded out of me, and she noticed.

“I don’t know Jamie. You could call me” “Out of all the times I’ve called you in my 17 years of life, you’ve only answered once, and it was to say that you were busy.”

She’ll definitely listen to that.

“Jamie that’s such an exaggeration.”

“Mom it’s the truth.”

“Well, then what should I do, apologize for working so I can feed you and clothe you and give you shelter?

I’m sorry for the fact that I don’t spend enough time asking you about your day, all I do is work. But that’s not enough for you, is it!?” She was practically screaming, and I was experiencing an emotion I had only felt once before. It was heartbreak.

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My suspicion was confirmed. You are a burden.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I ran to my room.

I slammed the door shut, locked it and sat on my bed.

I started to breathe heavily, it was as if the air was getting thicker by the second and I was becoming more and more desperate to keep breathing. But there was a part of me that was willing to give up and accept that in the near future I wouldn’t breathe again. I didn’t really notice, at the moment, but as I was struggling to breathe, my eyes were welling up and I couldn’t see.

My senses were clouded.

I could hear my mom knocking on the door and saying something, but I didn’t care, I was blocking it out. I couldn’t feel anything but pain. Sadness. I thought I had already learned not to care about people when my dad left, but I was feeling the same emotions I did that day, and I hated it.

I didn’t hate my mom. I can’t hate my mom. But I did feel hatred, hatred towards myself. I let this happen.

I went to the tutoring session and I never told my mom anything. I spent more time with Noah than I should’ve. I talked back at her. This was my mistake.

You loved her when she didn’t love you back, you believed she was taking care of you while she was actually just carrying your dead weight around, and you humiliated her. So yes, this was your mistake.

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…………

You win.

Specify.

You win. That’s it.

So after all this time, you’re finally admitting that you should listen to me?

Yes. That’s what I’m doing.

So now, are you going to reply to Noah’s texts?

No.

Why not?

Because it’s his fault that I got into that argument with mom, and he wouldn’t want me as a friend anyway, I’d ruin his life like I did hers.

Yes, correct. Are you going to apologize to her?

Mom’s life would be better if I wasn’t in it.

Now you’re getting it. You’re finally making sense. So now, what are you going to do?

Stay in bed.

That’s my girl.

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…………

Two weeks had passed since I got in that argument with my mom, and she wasn’t even asking me why I had stopped going to school again.

Why wasn’t she asking?

Because she doesn’t love me. So now all I did was just sleep. I don’t recall eating more than a meal a day, and I don’t recall any crying. The only thing I’m certain that I’ve been doing is existing. And I’ve also been caring. Caring about my mom and Noah.

But…?

But they don’t care about me.

So is trying anything worth it?

No. I should just go back to sleep.

You’ve been getting a lot less annoying lately, but you are you, so I know you’re going to disappoint me sooner or later.

As I was going back to sleep, the doorbell rang.

“Hello?” I said through the intercom.

“Tate?” I heard a familiar voice say.

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There is absolutely no way that Noah is here. You are hallucinating. Leave.

“Noah? What are you doing here?”

“I want to talk.”

No, he doesn’t.

“No, you don’t.”

“Jamie please open the door.”

Jamie do not open that door.

I want to open the door.

You are going to embarrass yourself.

I’m worried about him.

I bet he’s here to yell at you. He doesn’t care about you and you know it.

I bet you’re right. But I need to hear it from him, I thought as I opened the door. Noah rushed inside.

“Is everything okay, Mills?” I said. He looked confused.

Spaced out.

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“Jamie, why did you lie to me?” He asked, more concerned than angry.

“What do you mean?”

“You said we were friends Jamie, but I haven’t seen you in two weeks.”

“A lot can happen in two weeks.”

“Then tell me what happened. Do you not understand that I’m here for you?”

“I don’t want to be more of a burden.”

“A burden? Jamie, you’re being a burden by not telling me. I’m worried. You’re the only person I’ve ever met that is worth spending time with. Do you not understand that? Do you not understand that you were supposed to be the person that made me normal?”

The person who was supposed to make him normal.

“What does that mean Noah? Make you normal?”

“You were supposed to be my friend. To be there for me and I would be there for you. You were supposed to be my only non-toxic relationship. And I’ve been worried sick about you.”

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“Noah, we never did anything but study math.”

“You’re lying if you say you don’t care about me. I’m your only real friend just like you are mine.”

“Noah, what do you want from me? Do you want me to fix your lack of social skills? Your lack of decisionmaking skills? Because I can’t do that! I don’t have any either! But what do I have? I have myself.” My gaze hardened. “And I’m an idiot. I ruin everything I touch, Noah, and it seems like I already did that to you. I never asked you to worry about me, because I knew that if I did, I’d be setting you up for emotional wreckage and I didn’t want that for you.”

“Jamie, I just wanted you to tell me why you left me hanging like that.”

“Because I suck, Noah. Because if I start— if I start caring about you, I’ll hurt us both. Like I hurt my parents. I’m different, and this isn’t a good type of different. In my head, I was doing you a favor by not talking to you.”

“Well, that wasn’t the case.”

“That’s not how things were supposed to be! No one was supposed to care about me, and I don’t know how that could have possibly happened.”

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“It happened because I’m also different, Jamie. And I see a part of you that you don’t.”

“You don’t know me at all! You don’t understand how much of a risk I am taking to care about people.”

You know what I’m thinking. I told you not to open that door, now you have to face the consequences.

At that moment, a flash of an idea came to my mind.

“Noah, you don’t understand how much easier your life would have been if you had never met me. If I had never… been born.”

“Jamie-” “I’d be doing everyone a favor if I just disappeared.”

I cut him off sharply.

You know what I’m thinking.

“Jamie, stop-” “You could finally get some sleep, and so could my mom. And honestly, I don’t think my brothers or dad would even care.”

“Jamie, stop it.”

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Jamie keep going.

I took a deep breath. What was going on? And why was I stopping?

“I feel confused, Noah.”

“You’re confused!? Why are you saying all of these things?”

“She has a point, Noah,” I said quietly.

Noah’s eyes widened slightly. “She? Who is she? Why is she telling you to do that?”

“She is me, and she’s right.”

I’m assuming that at that moment, the first interaction we ever had in the outside world had flashed through Noah’s mind. Now he knows who I told to shut up.

I was expecting Noah to say something, but he didn’t. He shifted closer and hugged me. Then, he did something I expected even less than the hug. He dragged me into a room, got inside with me, and closed the door.

“What are you doing?” I demanded to know, brows narrowed.

“It’s not weird,” he said, his voice not unkind.

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“What isn’t weird?”

“Listening—listening to that side of you. The… different one.”

“Yes, it is weird, Noah. I suck. But I already told you that.”

“I can help you. I can be here, for emotional support. I will do anything you need me to.”

“I want to get out of here— out of this room.”

“We were right next to the kitchen, and I’m not taking any chances. This is your life that’s at stake, Jamie.”

“You can’t help me, Noah, and I can’t help you either.

I will hurt you. More than I have already.”

“Then I’ll get tougher. I’m not backing out.”

I sat on the floor and remained silent. He didn’t break the quiet either.

I took a deep breath to calm down, but my eyes betrayed me and I still let out a tear. Noah tried to wipe it, but I instinctively swatted his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly.

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“Don’t be.” Even though he looked as bad as I felt, he let out a light chuckle. “That was uncalled for.”

My voice hardened. “You should leave.”

“But you know I won’t.”

“Then I should leave.”

“This is your house.”

“I’m hurting you.”

“I can take it.”

You can’t.

But he wasn’t dropping it.

So, show him how much of a bad person you are. You can’t make him waste his time on you.

So I took his hand and started squeezing it really hard.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you feel the pain in your hand, Noah?”

“I do.”

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“This is what I’m going to be doing to you if you don’t leave now. Suffocating you. Squeezing the life out of you. I really appreciate that you’re trying to help, but you should care more about yourself than you do about me.” His hand was getting red and he let out a quiet groan.

“Let it go,” he said, his voice tight.

“I’ll let go, only if you let go of me first.” I really didn’t want him to hate me, but I’d rather he saved himself from me that saved me from myself.

Noah took a deep breath.

“Fine, Jamie. You were right. I can’t fix you. No matter how much I want to. I’m sorry.”

It was clear that Noah had lost all the hope he had when he walked into my house. He started to cry. A feeling of regret washed over me. I was becoming that bad side of myself. The line between both of us was starting to become blurry. I released his hand.

My hands went cold. One of his was red.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. His voice shook a little when he spoke.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

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You did this. This was not me. It was all you.

“Get up, Noah,” I said as I lifted him off the ground. I stared at his puffy red face, and, fighting against my wariness, hugged him. He didn’t say anything.

“I warned you about me. You can’t let this- you can’t let me happen to you, you don’t deserve it. You need to get away from people like me.”

And so he did. I walked him to the door. He hugged me once again, and then, silently, without looking back, he left. I haven’t seen him ever since.

It was for the best.

I’ll never have a real friend because I don’t deserve one.

You hurt him.

You hurt him. Like you hurt me.

You deserve pain.

I do, and I can take it.

Good. Because I’m not leaving any time soon.

I just hope Noah’s okay.

He will be if he never sees you again.

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Like mom.

Mom never sees you anyways.

What am I supposed to do now?

Go back to bed.

And so I did. …………

The Last Few Stories As the writing process of this book was coming to an end, I realized that I wanted to do something different for these last few stories. These are a lot shorter, and they all have a common theme, which is loss, and it’s impact on mental health. This theme is very important to me because it has been one of the main factors in my own experiences with anxiety, and also because there’s so much more to it than what you can imagine.

You can lose someone, you can lose something, you can lose yourself, and this is what these stories will be about. I guess that they all form one big story, with characters that don’t really know each other, but who are somehow experiencing similar emotions of confusion about what goes on in their lives, and why it affects their mental health so much.

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When I first had the idea for this subsection in my collection of short stories, I was a bit confused and thought that it was too ambitious, but I guess that you’ll be the judge of that. The moment that this idea came to my mind, I was in a bad place. I had put myself under a lot of pressure and started losing control about aspects of my life that I had never had serious problems with before.

That day I recorded a voice note on my phone. It was about a minute and a half long, almost inaudible, and it was me trying to explain what I wanted to write about. It was me trying to explain these stories about a topic that I was so connected with that I was crying even talking about it. But everything I do for this book I do for a reason, and I knew that if I recorded that voice note, it was for me to hear it in the future and to experience those emotions again in my writing.

This is what I said: “Losing someone. This is a story about people, at different times, different places, but they’re having the same problem because they all have emotions.

Because they all have a heart. The metaphorical meaning of heart that we made up because there was no other way to explain it. They also have a brain and they have their minds and they might be different, but everyone has those things. So they all have the same problem. They all lose each other because loss is not just death. Loss is not just superficial, and suffering 93

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from loss is… heartbreaking. I think that’s where that word came from because when you lose someone that you care about, you lose someone that you love, it affects you in so many ways and it makes you so deeply sad that there’s no other way to explain it. So this is the story of five people that lost something, and some of them didn’t find their way back.”

It might not make a lot of sense to you, as I was trying to give instructions to my future self whilst having some sort of a breakdown, but it does make sense to me, and I hope that you’ll understand it through the stories that were born from this voice note.

I wasn’t initially going to include this in the book, because it is quite confusing, but now that I’ve been taking the time to really think about it, I don’t want you to read this book and think of me as just the author. I’ve always been fascinated with books because they create alternate universes. They create a space in which I can live in until I finish the book instead of facing reality. But the aim of this book is to show reality. So I’m not just the author. I’m myself. I’m not writing about me in the stories, but now I am and I can say that I relate to some of them and I don’t relate to others, and what I want you to take from this is that you can do the same. Or not.

This isn’t just about the people in the stories, it’s also about what you can take from it and what you can give other people from it. It’s about helping. Helping 94

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me feel like I can do something that can help others, helping you discover understand what you’re feeling, helping you discover what others are thinking, and helping us learn. Because we should learn about this to become better people, and, you guessed it, to help others become better people. Sometimes a little help is all you need to get started. …………

The Fourth Story This story is the first story to deal with the topic of loss. There are three of them, but I find this one to be quite interesting because it is the only story in this book that covers years of a person’s life. The subject of this story was willing to tell me everything about their journey with mental illness, and as I know that they are reading this, I will say how thankful I am that you trusted me enough to share such a personal aspect of your life with me.

This person’s journey started a bit before adolescence, which is another thing that makes this story different from the others, and it’s also the reason why it’s a story with a very short introduction. It mainly deals with the pressures of society and how anxietyinducing they are. It’s a story about someone losing themselves. Person number one out of three in this subsection of my short story collection.

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I also decided that this story would be somewhat autobiographical as if this person was narrating what has been going on inside their mind constantly, and we are the ones listening to it, which is why there’s little to no dialogue in this story; it’s meant to be reminiscent of an inner monologue.

This person has made many mistakes in their life and they do admit it, and even though you don’t know who I’m talking about, I hope that with this story you get to see through their eyes and understand that sometimes people change for the better or for worse, but it’s always because of a reason. And that reason could make or break you.

This is “Part One”. …………

Loss: Part One Imagine that when you’re born, you are given a bag, and you’re told to collect everything you find in your life and put it in the bag. As you progress in your life, you place your memories in the bag, place your experiences in the bag, you even place the pebbles you find on the ground when you take a walk in the bag. As the years go by, you find you have placed negative aspects of your life inside this bag, and it’s getting very heavy. You try to get them out of the bag, but they’re buried under all of the other things, 96

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the positive things, the things you don’t want to forget, and you don’t want to risk losing those. The only option you have left is to carry this bag, and it could either do two of the following things to you: strengthen you, or hurt you. …………

12 years’ old Things are different now. Now that I’m growing up. I used to not feel a difference on my birthdays, I liked them because of all the praise I got, but I never felt like I was growing up. Now I do. As I blew out the candles celebrating my 12th year of life, I realized that I felt a difference. And that difference is that as of right now, I was alone.

People used to love me. People used to talk to me, to approach me, to want to be my friends. But now I don’t have any friends, and I don’t really know why.

Everything I do, I do to fit in, and it had been working until last year. I don’t really understand why what I did seemed like such a bad thing to those people, I just wanted to have some fun I guess. Everything was a joke, humor makes people like you, right?

I guess that I don’t know as much about people as I thought I did. I wouldn’t be thinking about this as much as I am if I knew I could fix this, but I can’t. I can’t because I just started middle school, and if you enter 97

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middle school without any friends, you’re leaving without any friends.

When in school, all I could think about was the people behind me. They were talking, but the environment was awfully quiet, almost as if they didn’t want me to hear what they were saying.

The first time I got up and went to talk to them because they used to be my friends, but as soon as I was close enough to be part of the conversation they just completely shut up. Why did they shut up? Were they talking about me? I think they were.

After that moment, every time I heard someone talk near me I convinced myself that they were talking about me and that it wasn’t good. I started to hear whispers everywhere I went, and I didn’t know what was going on.

“She’s a lunatic” “She’s so mean” “She’s so fake” “Once a bully always a bully” “She deserves to be alone”

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These people hated me, and I didn’t understand why. Kids do things with the purpose of approval. I did something that most people do when they want to be popular, but why did it work the other way around for me?

My old group of friends was always there to remind me how much of a failure I was. The whispers intensified whenever I was in the same room as them, and it was impossible for me to ignore it. So I just had to learn to live with it. I got used to the whispers. I heard them every day and I came to terms with it. Of course, I didn’t enjoy it, they kept getting louder, and it felt as if I was suffocating in them. They felt like a bunch of flies flying around my face, but even if I tried to make them go away, they wouldn’t, so what was the point? …………

13 years’ old As my life went on, I felt myself starting to change. I did find some friends, and they were nice. They gave me advice about fitting in. I didn’t want to keep eating my lunch in the bathroom or going to the school counselor’s office just to talk to someone, so I was willing to do anything to fit in. I wanted to change, to be more likable, to be better.

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one wants to be a part of, and if you try hard enough, they’ll consider you.”

In my school, that crowd was already quite big, and I didn’t think that they needed more friends, but apparently, “the more friends you have the better you look”. Looks. Those were also important. You had to be “skinny but not that much”, because “men also like curves”, but “not fat curves, grown woman curves”.

These people spoke in a language that I didn’t really understand, but I was willing to accept. They would analyze me every day and tell me what I was doing right and wrong. Apparently, I didn’t do much right.

I had to act nice, like I loved everyone around me, even if I didn’t like them. At first, I thought that was like lying, and I knew how to do that, as people like to hear what they want to hear and not what they need to hear. I was completely guilty of that. But later on, I learned that it was more like acting. It was like I was playing a part, a part that I could break after the scene ended. But sometimes I broke it while I was onstage, and people hated that.

Those were the times when my friends would get mad at me. They’d say that it was incredibly rude and disrespectful to tell someone the truth when the truth is not very nice, but they did it all the time behind people’s backs. That’s when I learned about hypocrisy.

I learned that I was a hypocrite, but so were my friends.

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I began to question myself about what a friend was.

What made someone your friend? Was it advice?

Because I guess that I had that. Or was it accepting you the way you were? Because I never had that. I was torn between these two options, but I for sure knew that either way, I’d have to keep these friends, because if I didn’t, I’d go back to being alone, and I’d rather have bad company than be alone.

So I just listened. I mastered my acting skills, and according to my friends, it was starting to show results. I still heard whispers everywhere I went, but my friends told me that I was crazy, and if I did keep hearing them, “they must be good whispers”. Good whispers consisted of jealousy. People wanting to be like me, to look like me. I experienced those when I was younger. When I was about 7 or 8, people would often ask me where I got my pretty clothes from, and I have to admit that I miss that. I don’t get good whispers anymore; I knew my friends were lying.

My personality was on the right track, but I was missing the looks. My friends said that when we were younger I was the perfect weight, but that I had gained weight. I never cared about weight until that moment. Gained weight? How was that possible? I had been eating the same as before, maybe a little bit more, but that never mattered before.

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So now I had a mission. Lose weight. I usually did sports, that was never a problem, but now that I people expected something from me, I couldn’t lose weight fast enough. Nothing seemed to satisfy me.

I didn’t want my friends to think I was clueless, but I really didn’t know what to do to, so I started to try new methods.

Laxatives were kind of useful, but they hurt my stomach and made me really uneasy. Starving wasn’t really my thing. I didn’t know how much of a fan of food I was until I tried it. I have no idea how some people do it; I guess they’re just lucky. Throwing up seemed to work alright. It was effective and I didn’t really have to suffer. I mean, the first few times it does feel a bit weird, but after a while, you do get used to it, and that’s much easier if you have motivation, which I did. I wanted the perfect body. …………

14 years’ old Growing up is a long, tiring process. I’m not even close to the end, but I’m already so done with it. It’s not like I want to be an adult and take on thousands of responsibilities that I know I can’t handle; I’m just done with being a teenager. Think about it. I’m 14, my teenage life basically just started, but I feel like I’ve been here for years.

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I’m not complaining, I had friends. I had lots of friends, and we laughed and went to parties and it was alright. But it wasn’t what I envisioned, it was a lot more shallow, it was a lot less comforting. Friends are supposed to love each other, but whenever I saw my friends I got extremely anxious. Was my outfit good enough? What was I going to say to them? What were they going to say to me?

I really thought I had made it. I really thought that my personality and looks were all I had to change. But of course, I was wrong. By now, I should’ve learned that I’m always wrong.

The list of things that I had to change grew as I grew, and as a 14-year-old, I now smoked and drank. I’m not going to lie, I enjoyed it. It made me feel as if I wasn’t myself. I was a cooler, happier, more mature version of myself. I was the person that everyone wanted to be around because I just loved to party. Or did I? I think that the only reason why I liked it so much, is that I couldn’t remember anything the next morning.

If I made a mistake, I would just forget it, if I hadn’t drunk alcohol, I would probably remember those mistakes for the rest of my life, and I really wanted to stop doing that.

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body. It never went too far, but the first time it was still terrifying. I knew that I had to do whatever it took to keep my friends, but it just didn’t seem worth it, so I walked away. After I walked away, I didn’t get invited to the next party. It doesn’t seem that serious, why was that a big deal? Well if I didn’t get invited to that party then I probably wouldn’t get invited to the next one and if that happened then my friends would never hang out with me and I’d go back to being the loneliest, most anxious, and saddest 14-year-old person alive. I didn’t want that.

So after I convinced one of my friends to get me an invite to the next party, and at that party, I went all out. I drank so much that I don’t remember anything but arriving. And usually, I’d be quite proud of that. I would’ve enjoyed not knowing what happened, except for the fact that at this party, I made a mistake. I was unconscious and irresponsible and not thinking about consequences, and it was too late to do something about it. My anxiety skyrocketed, and I found myself struggling to breathe every time I had to talk to someone in my grade. I can’t even bring myself to say it in my head. I find it that if you don’t admit to something, if you don’t even say it to yourself, then it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like it happened. But this, this happened, and I’ll never forgive myself for letting it happen. I let someone take advantage of my body, and I didn’t remember who it was. The only reason why I knew this is that someone told me and that someone wasn’t even in my group of friends.

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I ended up where I started. Rumors, people talking about me behind my back, and whispers. Even more whispers. Louder, more boisterous whispers.

“She’s a slut” “She’s so fake, she only hung out with us to get with that guy.”

“She deserves to be alone” Except that this time, I decided that I had enough.

These people made me change myself completely.

They made me get into bad habits that I’ll never be able to get out of. They made me risk my life more than once, and they didn’t even come to protect me the one time I needed it.

This time, things were going to be different. I was going to say something back. During break time, I stood up on the table right in the center of the cafeteria. Everyone in my grade was there, living their lives, not caring about each other, just pretending like they do.

“Alright listen up,” I said as their heads turned around to face me. I took a deep breath. A year ago, I would’ve thrown up at the thought of that, but now, I was determined to talk.

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“Whatever happened that day is none of your business, because if I don’t know, then neither do you.” Everyone was looking at me like I was going insane, but they knew what I was talking about. “This was all one person’s fault and I don’t even know who they are, so thank you, for being decent people and not telling me. Do you really think that that is the right thing to do? Because if you do, then you are as bad of a person as you say I am. None of you know me.

I don’t even know me. So please, shut up.”

Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I was trying my hardest not to hyperventilate. I had finally said what I was actually thinking, and I hadn’t done that in such a long time.

Everyone was extremely quiet, so I got off the table and walked away. That day I left that school and transferred somewhere where I could get a fresh start and find myself. I hadn’t been myself in such a long time. I wouldn’t be perfect, but I would be me. …………

The Fifth Story This is the story that gave me the idea for a subsection about loss. It’s a two-part short story about perspective, about how someone’s pain can reflect on another person. It describes a friendship between two girls; 106

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one of them suffers from depression, and the other one severe anxiety.

The fifth story is told from the point of view of Ava, a girl who suffers from anxiety.

It deals with how someone’s mental illness affects not only them, but the people they love, and what can be done to solve this issue in their lives. Another thing I wanted to explore in this story was that of clashing personalities and disorders. Anxiety is about feeling too much and wanting to do too much but being too anxious to be able to perform these tasks, and depression is about feeling extremely sad all of the time with no particular reason, leading to lack of motivation and energy. Don’t get me wrong, a person can have both of these disorders or show symptoms of both of these disorders and still have one personality, but this story is more about the different ways mental illness affects people and the consequences that that has on their relationship with each other and with their environment.

The subject of the fifth story, the person who the character of Ava is based on, is someone that I know extremely well in a personal level, and this story portrays a very personal situation that was a big part of their lives.

I have fictionalized the events quite a bit because I know that this is not what physically happened, but it’s how that person felt at that moment in their lives.

This is “Loss: Part Two” 107

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…………

Loss: Part Two Sometimes things aren’t meant to be. No matter how hard you try to make things work, nothing seems to be going your way. You start to lose control of yourself, of your thoughts, of your life. And like a hurricane, you take everything with you. …………

There are times in which I lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling, and I just try to keep my mind completely blank. I’ve had never accomplished it, not even for a little bit, I don’t think that I have the time to just clear my head, but I still try it.

I never thought that I’d be this busy. I feel like I’m too young to be this busy. There’s so much going on in my head and in my life that I’m just feeling like giving up even if I haven’t started.

There were times in my life where I felt lost, where I felt like maybe I wasn’t trying my best at school and that it was kind of pointless. I convinced myself that my work was so average and boring that I should just stop doing it. I saw it as a waste of time, so I just took a break. I stopped caring for a while, and when my grades started to drop, I’d do my best to at least make them decent again. Don’t get me wrong, I have always cared about my grades, but in those moments I just 108

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felt burned out. The problem is that as of right now, I can’t do that. I have completely lost the ability to not care about anything, all I can do now is the opposite.

Now not only am I stuck in a constant cycle of anxiety but I also have to mature whilst being in it. I have to become an adult. I have to prepare for my future, and that terrifies me.

Preparing for your future is a completely different experience when you have no one asking you about it every two seconds. What I mean by this is that if I were to be alone in this process, as lonely as I would’ve felt, I could do whatever I want. I would have no one to tell me what they think is best for me, which is a boring career that I’m not sure if I want. If I were to be going through his process alone, no one would expect anything from me. When you expect something from someone, you set yourself up for disappointment.

You believe in someone that doesn’t exist. You make up a version of someone who isn’t them, and then get annoyed when they don’t live up to that version or expectation. …………

It was a Tuesday morning, and I had skipped school yesterday because I wasn’t really feeling too well.

I had a pounding headache and my chest felt really tight. I thought that if I stayed home and took a one day break I would be fine, but as soon as I set foot in that school two things happened; number one, my 109

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headache returned, and number two, my best friend Emma ran to my side like she did every day.

“Did you finish it!?” Emma asked me, she looked like she got about 30 minutes of sleep last night.

“Finish what?” I asked back in genuine confusion.

“The physics assignment, it’s due tomorrow. 50% of the final grade,” She said.

“50%!? Who decided that? And why would they do that to me? Did you know about this?” I asked “I just found out last night. Do you want me to send you my paper? I tried my best to finish it last night.”

Emma was my guardian angel, and I was trying my best not to be jealous of her intelligence.

Here’s the thing about Emma; she’s almost perfect.

She’s such an articulate, intelligent, beautiful and kindhearted person that I cannot fully understand how she exists, and most importantly, why she hung out with me.

The only problem was that she had no idea that she was any of those things. To Emma, Emma was completely ordinary, and I couldn’t wrap my brain around it “Do you want it or…?”

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“YES. Yes, I want it. Of course, I want it, thank you so much,” I blurted out.

The person who I was about two years ago wouldn’t have told Emma that I wanted her help to complete this assignment, I was way too proud, but now, I had no time to lie to myself. No, I wasn’t smart enough to do this on my own, and yes, I needed as much help as I could get.

The rest of the day was hectic. I don’t remember a time when I ever enjoyed going to school, I mean I’m sure that at some point when I was a kid I’d get excited about seeing my friends. But now I always felt like something was going to jump out at me and attack.

I know that sounds dramatic but I can’t think of another way to explain it. I don’t mean literal death, but the smallest things terrify me so much and I don’t understand what my problem is. It’s not like any of those things are going to have a long-term impact on my life, but they still terrify me. …………

As soon as I got home, I decided I’d get on with the physics assignment. As I was reading the instructions my heart started pounding at an alarmingly fast rate.

I found myself convinced that I wouldn’t be able to complete this tonight. I don’t know why this affected me so much, it was just an assignment, but I’d always been a good student and the thought of disappointing any of my teachers made me sick in my stomach. I was 111

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trying my best, but nothing seemed to be working. I had never felt such frustration, and I was annoyed at myself for being this way.

“Ava?” My dad said, poking his head through the hole between my door and the wall.

“Yeah?”

“Do you feel like going out today? Maybe we could go get some dinner at that Chinese place that you like so much. We could call up Emma and see if she wants to come as well.” He said.

I would’ve never passed up an offer like that before, but today it kind of made me nervous. I’d be wasting my dad and Emma’s time by making them spend time with me and I’d be wasting my own time, as I needed to finish this assignment.

“Umm I’m kind of busy, maybe some other time”.

He nodded.

“Do you want some help with that?” He asked, staring at my computer.

“I can handle it.”

“Can I at least read it?”

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“Yeah, why not.”

My dad read my paper as I continued to write it, I was very uncomfortable, but he was trying to help, so I decided that it would be best if I didn’t mention it.

“Ava this is great.”

“But...?”

“What do you mean ‘but’?”

“It’s not good enough dad. The ideas are not articulate enough and the wording is messy. It’s like something 12-year-old you would’ve written.”

“Ava this is great work I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I should just get back to work dad. Thank you for the feedback.

He nodded and left. I’m not very good at reading people, but I knew my dad was feeling like we weren’t spending enough time together. My only family is my dad, I don’t have any siblings and my mom died when I was too young to remember, so I’ve spent every second of my life with him, and have definitely gotten to know him pretty well. My dad and I knew we were both very emotional, but we were also pretty secretive about it, and we’re too proud to let each other know how we really felt. The only person I used to be able to 113

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talk to was Emma, but that was before Emma changed.

Emma used to be a lot more alive, a lot happier. I don’t really know what happened to her, our relationship never changed, but lately, she seemed as if she had been disconnected from her life and …………

“Hey,” Emma said on the phone, the sound wasn’t very clear.

“Hey what’s up?” I said “Umm Ava I—” She said, interrupting herself by crying.

“Emma, what happened?” I said, my tone turnings serious and concern building up inside of me. What was she going to say? What happened to her? My anxiety was constricting my thoughts and putting Emma in the most dangerous hypothetical situations, I needed to know what happened.

“I just—I wanted to tell you that—” She tried to speak but it was no use. She was crying too much.

“Emma I’m coming over okay please just wait for me okay,” I said as I rushed through my house, collected the car keys, and sprinted to my dad’s car to leave as fast as I could.

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“Emma, Emma, do you want me to stay on the phone with you?” I said, still listening to her whimpers and muffled crying. It sounded like she was in pain. In my head, Emma was dying, and I could not lose her. I got no response, Emma wasn’t talking back, only crying, and very loudly.

“Emma are your parents home?” I asked, maybe they could tell me what was going on and help her.

“N—no” She said.

“Alright, I’ll text your parents, okay?” I said, trying my best not to hyperventilate.

“NO. No—no parents, please, don’t Ava no,” She pleaded.

“Emma I—you know what? Ok, it’s ok. I’m not going to call them, I’m almost there okay? just hang on okay?” I told her, trying to be as reassuring as I could.

I didn’t know what was going on, but I wasn’t going to risk anything by actually letting Emma know how concerned I was about her.

As soon as I parked I rushed out of the car and knocked on the door very loudly, but Emma didn’t open it. I continued to knock, but she wasn’t answering, so looked for a window to climb in through. Surprisingly I found one and got in the house, but I hadn’t noticed it was broken and I slashed a gigantic gash in my leg.

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“Emma!” I yelled. I could hear her muffled crying.

“Emma I can’t come upstairs please just come down!”

No response. I was trying my best to stay calm, but I felt so overwhelmed. My breathing started to get heavy, but I ignored it, got up, and started walking up the stairs. It did hurt quite a lot, but the thought of my friend being in danger hurt the most.

I tried my best to run to her room, and I saw her, sitting on her bed, sobbing.

“Emma, what happened?” I said as I hugged her.

“I—I’m sorry” “Emma please tell me what happened!”

“I just—I have so many emotions.” She said.

“I have so many emotions and I can’t control them and I can’t channel them into anything remotely positive, so I end up like this. I have so many emotions so many fears so much sadness so many regrets so many thoughts and I just can’t get them out of my head.” Emma said as she pulled on her hair as if she was trying to break free from her own mind. At that moment I noticed something.

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“Emma, lift up your sleeve” “They’re all stuck there and the only way they come out is through tears, Ava.” Her gaze was completely lost.

“Tears and sometimes screams and sometimes mumbles but all of those things aren’t strong enough to portray what I’m feeling because I am not strong enough to carry what I am feeling.”

“Emma I swear to God I’m listening to you but please, lift up your sleeve.”

“Ava, I’m sorry” Tears streamed down Emma’s face and she wasn’t even bothering to wipe them. She looked absolutely broken.

“Show me,” I said, trying my best to keep my composure.

Emma lifted up her sleeve there they were.

“Why would you not tell me?”

“You’re so busy and I didn’t want to distract you and now I’m a mess and I’m bleeding and I feel everything but I feel nothing. I feel stressed but I can’t move. I feel sad but I smile. I feel heartbroken yet I continue to love. I try to be a good person but I just keep screwing up. Ava, I’m so sorry”

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“Emma it’s okay. I could’ve helped you.”

“No Ava, you couldn’t. Taking care of me is not your job. You already have so much on your plate I could not do that to you.”

“Emma what’s on my plate was not a choice. You were!

I care about you because I want to, Emma. Please don’t do this I wouldn’t be able to live in a world without you, Emma please” “Ava I’m so sorry you ever met me.”

“I don’t understand Emma; this is not who I met.”

“I hated myself then and I do now.”

“Why would you not tell me? We could’ve worked through these issues” “Why would you not tell me, Ava?” “Tell you what?”

“I know you haven’t been sleeping well. I know how anxious you get. I know you’re not hanging out with your dad anymore. I know you’re having trouble with school. I know you’re not doing well Ava.” “Emma but that doesn’t matter right now, you’re bleeding Emma.”

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“Except that it does. Ava this could be you, I could never forgive myself if this was you” “So you understand what I’m feeling.”

“I’ve been here before ok, I just, I guess I wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry if I scared you, but these cuts are superficial. I—I was having a panic attack and wanted to hear your voice.” Emma’s voice broke. “I’m sorry for being such a nuisance.”

“Emma I’m here because I want to be ok? Let’s talk, Emma. How do you feel right now?” The truth was that that was a partial lie. I love Emma, but seeing her like this was one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life, and one part of me just wanted to leave. I’m not as good as a person as she is, I’m not as selfless either. Even when she’s risking her own life, she’s thinking about others, if someone deserved death, I’m pretty sure that was me.

“I am confused. I’m so confused all the time. I feel disbelief and hopelessness and fear and anger and disappointment and I’m just so tired of it. I’m so tired and I’m so drained that I can’t bring myself to do anything but hate myself” “Emma, why didn’t you tell me you were going through this? You seemed so calm and collected, unlike me”

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“Because I was afraid that you might spend more time than you should on me. I’m not worth your time.”

“That’s not true.”

“Ava nobody knows me like I know me. I know I’ve changed for the worse. I know I’m not as attentive and caring as I used to be. But I can’t be like that if I feel so sad inside. See what I’m doing right now? I’m talking about myself, while my main concern is you. I’m so sorry I haven’t even asked you how you feel.”

“Honestly, I feel scared. I’m terrified. I don’t know how to help you.”

“Ava tell me about you.”

“Me? I can’t do anything. From the simplest things, like homework, to studying, to talking on the phone, to more important things, like taking care of a friend or, breathing. And my inability to do anything makes me feel even worse. Makes me feel like even more of a useless piece of garbage. I couldn’t even notice that you were like this.” A tear streamed down my cheek.

“Emma please don’t think this is your fault okay?

Please don’t think that.”

“I promise I’ll try my best not to blame myself.”

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“Emma?”

“Yes?” “How did this all start?” …………

The Sixth Story This is the last and shortest story in this book, and it narrates the aftermath of the conversation between Ava and Emma, now told from Emma’s perspective.

I know that the fifth story might’ve seemed a bit rushed, but here’s why; in my life, this is how I’ve felt in these circumstances. Whenever I found myself in a situation in which a friend of mine had been going through something privately and it was damaging them physically and emotionally, like it did Emma, whether they had any sort of mental disorder or not, I felt like something had just crashed into me.

I felt like it all happened way too fast and that I was being ignorant by noticing way too late, and that’s what I wanted Ava’s character to portray. Ava portrayed these feelings of worry, innocence, and ignorance when it came to relationships with others and herself, and that is something that I can relate to immensely.

This story starts a while after the conversation after Ava found out about Emma’s secret. It shows the 121

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impact that having a real conversation with each other had on their lives, and how differently Emma sees the world due to this secret.

This is “Loss: Part Three” …………

Loss: Part Three Words are so powerful. A conversation can change your life, for better or for worse, and just knowing how much power each and every single one of us holds is a beautiful and terrifying thing. …………

“So, Emma, right?” The therapist said, staring at me with a mixture of loving and curious eyes.

Why am I here?

“Yeah,” I said “Ok Emma, it’s lovely to meet you, my name is Julie.”

Yeah, of course, it’s lovely, my mom’s paying you.

“Hi Julie” “Emma, you do know why you’re here right?”

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“Because Ava told my parents.”

“Ava told what to your parents?”

You already know the answer; why do I need to tell you?

“Ava told them about my scars.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

How do I feel about that? I feel sad. I am so sad. Words cannot even begin to explain what it is that I am feeling, it is beyond unexplainable and just so ridiculously sad.

“I feel like she worries about me and I don’t like that.”

“Ok Emma, and why do you have these scars?”

Because at some point, I found myself to be so sad that everything turned into nothing. Every emotion turned into numbness. Plain numbness. Dark cold intrusive thoughts were completely normal to me, and I fell into them easily. Thus, the idea of self-harm.

“I—I just—I didn’t feel too well.”

“I get it. I also understand if you don’t trust me yet, but Emma, I know that you promised Ava you’d tell me.”

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also don’t want to be a burden to those who for some stupid reason love me. But I also know that there is no way that anyone would care enough about me to do something, except for Ava. “Ava asked me how it all started and I couldn’t tell her, and she was my best friend. But you’re a stranger, and my parents forced me to come here. Wouldn’t it be more logical if I told her first?”

“You are a very clever girl Emma, but you tell me.”

I’m doing this for Ava. “About two years ago, I—I started to feel as if I wasn’t really myself. I was a lot quieter, a lot more selfconscious a lot sadder. I don’t know why it happened.

I just started to feel like I was fading. Every time I looked in a mirror I found a new flaw.”

“Physical flaws or emotional flaws?”

“Both. I didn’t really know what to do with these realizations, so I just kept them to myself and just hoped that they’d stop coming, but they didn’t. They were there every single day. Emma, you’re not smart enough. Emma, you’re not nice enough. Emma, your body’s not good enough. Emma, you’re not enough.”

“Had anyone ever told you that before? Do you think that anyone hurt you?”

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“I hurt me, Julie. I hurt me all the time. There is no one in this world that is meaner to anyone than I am to myself Julie I broke myself, and I didn’t want to break anyone else. That’s why I kept doing things that were just so ridiculous. I said things I didn’t mean, and I hoped that those would be enough for people to get away from me without me having to directly tell them to do it. But Ava stuck around, and that’s why she has so much anxiety now. She has to deal with me.”

“Emma, as a professional, I can tell you that you’re definitely not the cause of a mental disorder inside of your friend’s brain.”

“As a part of my friend’s life, I can tell you that I definitely contributed to it.”

Julie stared at me. Right, I’m supposed to tell her what happened.

“Julie the truth is that what happened was that I lost motivation for everything. If I had all of these flaws and all of these problems, and I myself was such a problem, wouldn’t it be easier to just disappear and spare myself and others the pain?”

“Easy doesn’t mean correct” “But I didn’t know that then. And I’m not going to lie to you Julie, I still feel like that sometimes.”

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“Why do you think that is?”

“I just feel so ungrateful, so selfish. There are people that are out there dying, and I’m here crying about looking at myself in the mirror and seeing someone I don’t want to see.”

“Emma, you’re not being ungrateful” Just keep going, you already started anyway.

“I’m just so tired of being stuck in this body that hates me. It hates me because I’ve mistreated it and I deserve the hate. I deserve the pain. But I also want it to be over. And that confuses me even more because I don’t know if I want to keep fighting or just stop going.

I don’t know. I never know.”

“Emma good emotional health can decrease physical pain but the opposite is not necessarily true. It’s okay that you tell me these things and it’s okay that you let me in. You’re not ungrateful or selfish for being here; you’re looking out for yourself, and that’s more than okay. We will get you back on your feet. I can help you to a certain extent, but at the end of the day, no one can really fix you but you. Whether you do this for your parents or Ava or yourself, never be afraid to tell us how you feel, can you do that?”

“It’s not going to be easy, but I can try.”

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…………

The End First of all, I’d like to thank you for reading this book.

Whether you liked it or it bored you or it made you sad, thank you for taking the time to read at least one bit of it. Writing this book has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life, but I did it, and I think that also kind of relates to some of the things the characters in these stories did.

Before our conversation ends, I’d like to make a few clarifications.

1. The only reason why all of the characters who narrate these stories are women is because all of the subjects and I myself are women. I am in no way saying that men can’t suffer or suffer less from mental illnesses, as mental illness affects everyone equally.

2. Everyone deals with mental illness differently.

You may suffer from anxiety and barely relate to Val or Ava, and this is because everyone’s mind works differently. I’m in no way saying that this is the only way things work, I’m only stating how things were for the subjects.

3. The stories in this book with no happy endings are meant to represent what reality is for some of the subjects. The hard truth is that sometimes 127

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things don’t work out for you in a long time, and some of the subjects in these stories are still working through their issues. However, that does not mean that things might never work out for you. It will get better, whether it takes months or years, it will get better, and you need to help yourself to get better.

Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope that this helped you or someone you love in at least the tiniest way. …………

Acknowledgements I know that at the start of the book, I said I’d have no pages that made this seem like a typical book; I’d have no pages that you would expect a book to have. However, I do find it important to have acknowledgments. it’s extremely important to give thanks, and without the people the people i’m about to mention i couldn’t have done this. They were nothing but supportive and open to my ideas, which I’ll be thankful for all of my life.

I’ll start with my parents. My parents are extremely supportive and loving of whatever I do. They let me stay up until three in the morning just because I had an idea that I had to write down, they calm me down

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when I get overwhelmed, and they love me even when I don’t. I’d also like to thank my brother. My younger brother is the human embodiment of innocence and purity. He is the absolute nicest human being on Earth and whenever he saw me crying in frustration because I thought I wasn’t brave or smart enough to do this, he’d just hug me, and everything would go back to normal.

Next are my friends. I’d like to begin by thanking someone who I see more like a sister. She’s always there for me, and she lives more than 3,150 kilometers away from me, which is quite impressive. Her name is Maria Clara Barragan, and she is one of the strongest young women I know. Maria Clara has been my personal cheerleader throughout this process, and I want to thank her for all of her love and for how much she believed in me.

The next powerful young woman I’d like to thank is called Maria Jose Otarola, but she prefers Majo. Majo made sure that I wasn’t overworking myself, believing in me blindly during this whole process, and I’d like to thank her for how patient she was with me and how much love she gave me.

Alexandra Lobaton or Ale is next. This woman understands me in a way that I thought no one would.

She was willing to help me with absolutely everything I asked her to and for that, I owe her so much. She is

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such a loving and strong person, and I want the world to see that.

The list of empowering women continues as I thank Natalia Tabja and Maria Victoria Gayoso, both women who I believe will run the world in the near future. I have never in my life met a teenager so mature and smart as they are. Natalia was not only there for me coming up with quotes like “good emotional health can decrease physical pain but the opposite is not necessarily true” but she also helped my book cover design come to life with her incredible artistic skills. Maria Victoria made sure this book was the best version of itself it could be, helping me with descriptions and giving me the most useful feedback ever. I’d like to thank them both for their massive support and love.

Isabela García and Camila Kanashiro. Isabela Garcia is the most creative and expressive person I know, and I genuinely just want to thank her for being such a source of inspiration and someone whose values I admire endlessly. Next is Camila. I grew up with Camila, and as she goes through her first year of college I get to say how proud I am of her, and how she inspires me to do what I love. Thank you, Camila, for following your passion and even though you’re super busy, for still being there for me whenever I need you.

Now this one might seem a bit weird, but I’d like to thank you. You, whoever is reading this. Thank you 130

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for picking up this book and reading it. It means a lot to the person who wrote it and to the people in it.

To end my acknowledgments, I’m going to thank the people who made this all possible; the subjects. The strongest, bravest, most beautiful souls in my life, who have done nothing but fight for themselves, and that is something beyond admirable. I love each and every single one of them to death and would not be where I am without them.

Take care of yourself. Whoever you are. You are important. You are loved. …………

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“Glass & Tape” is a metaphor for what dealing with a mental illness is like. Let’s say that everyone’s heart is made out of glass.

If it breaks, it’s unfixable unless you melt it and mold it back together, but people who have a mental disorder like anxiety or depression try to fix it using incorrect methods, which would be what the tape represents. You can’t fix broken glass, but you can turn it into something new or even better. This book tells the stories of six teenagers who have been trying to fix their broken glass hearts with tape, and how this affects their relationships and lives. It’s about helping others and yourself through the knowledge of experience, and how knowing all of the sides to a story can put things into perspective.