Wallflower

My mind is plagued with too many thoughts. 

They run rampant, as I try my best to maintain some order.

I always fear the days when I wake with a calm mind, because I know what’s coming next, and despite knowing, I’m never prepared.

I’m rather good at being alone.

I live alone, I go places alone, and it usually doesn’t bother me. Although, today is one of those rare days that it is bothering me. It could be due to the sad (but beautiful) music I’ve been listening to all day, or maybe it’s because I spent my entire day with a couple yesterday. But, I think it’s honestly just one of those days.

I didn’t really realize that today was one of those days until just now. I’m just sitting here at my desk, typing away, bored as all hell, and I just want to do something with people. It doesn’t even have to be people, it could be just a person; I just don’t want to be by myself right now. 

I really want to go see The Hunger Games, but I don’t want to go on my own. I’ve gone to movies and shows on my own before. I think it’s different this time though because I just went to a show alone last night, and now it’s wearing on me. 

I had friends that I used to see every weekend, but lately we’ve all been so busy. I only ever hang out with the same one or two people otherwise, and they’re busy right now. Sometimes I feel like my life is almost immobile as others rush past me with their’s. Maybe I should be grateful that I have time to relax, but I’d rather be busy and have people to spend some time with than relaxed and lonely. 

I’m useless when it comes to anything romantic.

I went to an improv workshop at my university this past Wednesday. There were so many fantastic people there that pushed me, which was lovely, because I do need a push from time to time.

After the workshop ended, we went out to get frozen yogurt…well, more like, get free sample cups and fill them up until we didn’t want anymore.

I got there first, then shortly after, one of the guys that was at the workshop showed up. We had left campus around the same time, the second we got out of the door of the workshop, he started chatting me up and asking me about myself, which made me feel weird, as any sort of conversation with a human usually does. 

So, we stood there just chatting until the rest of the group showed up, and it wasn’t too uncomfortable. 

Skip forward to last night, when I’m almost positive he asked me out a total of 3 times, but instead of saying any sort of answer, I just sort of pussy footed around the questions the entire time. 

Have I mentioned that I’m useless when it comes to any sort of romantic endeavor? 

My anxiety decided to make an appearance.

My chest is burning. I’ve spent the day trying to catch my breath, but every shallow breath I’ve taken has done nothing but make my head feel light. I had to leave one of my classes because I thought I was going to have a panic attack.

People saw me shaking, which is one of the things I hate more than I hate most things. Some wanted to help, but didn’t know how. They complimented me or made jokes, things that are always nice to hear, but that don’t have any effect on me when I’m like this. I was extremely rude to someone, he had just told me to take deep breaths and I snapped at him, telling him that it wasn’t that simple. He didn’t deserve it, he was just trying to help, but I was too annoyed by my own shortcomings to notice. I apologized, and he accepted, which was kind of him. 

My head is pounding to the beat of my heart. I can hear it in my ears. 

I had a panic attack last Wednesday. It’s alarming to notice that my anxiety has been less than shy lately, but I hated therapy, and I don’t want to go back. I want to call a friend, I know she has anti-anxiety medication, but the thought of being medicated is making me even more anxious. 

I need to eat something, even though I’m not hungry, as if I’m ever actually hungry. All I’ve had today is a granola bar, and that was a struggle. I couldn’t even eat it in one sitting, I took me three different attempts to finish it. I should try to eat an actual meal, but it’s frustrating to watch your hands shake as you try to bring food to your mouth.

Lately, I’ve found myself wondering about what it actually feels like to be in love with someone. I think it’s because a friend of mine just celebrated her one year anniversary with her boyfriend, and another friend of mine just broke up with her girlfriend of over a year.

I used to ask people all the time, because I was curious, but they usually all said something along the line of, “It’s the best/greatest/happiest feeling in the world,” and that didn’t really answer my question, so eventually I just stopped asking. It was always just a feeling that “can’t be explained” and one that “you can only understand if you’ve ever been in love.” 

I accepted that for a while, because well it makes sense, there are somethings that you just have to experience for yourself to understand. I’m curious again though. I want to start asking people. 

A friend of mine always says, “When you’re in a relationship, all you ever want to do is not be in a relationship.” I always laugh a little to myself when she says this, because she and her boyfriend have been together for over two years now, I’m almost positive their three year anniversary isn’t very far away. However, she frightened that he’s going to change next fall because he’s heading off to school in a different state, so that could be why she says things like that.

I’ve only ever been in two relationships before, the second only lasted about as long as the first, but for different reasons. The thought of being emotionally close to some scares me more than anything else on this Earth, because after a while, they know just what to say to make you feel useless, and I don’t like the thought of that at all. 

I wish I wasn’t so scared of everything that’s supposed to make being human actually worth it.

There are some times when I can still feel his hands on my throat as I clawed at them and struggled to breathe. It’s the worst feeling. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find scratches on my neck, that usually means I had a flashback while I was dreaming, which makes me glad I don’t remember most of my dreams. 

I find myself wondering if the flashbacks will ever stop. I hope they will. I have to do quite a bit of explaining when I have flashbacks nights in a row, because the scratches stay visible. Most people glance over it, but from time to time people ask, and sometimes I just want to tell them the truth. I know I shouldn’t though, people wouldn’t know how to react and I don’t want to put them in that position. It’s my fault that such a thing happened in the first place, and I have to be the one to get myself through that. 

One of the things that I make myself remember from time to time is that I got the final hit, not him, even if it was accidental. I’d like to imagine that the door I slammed in his face, the one that broke his nose, that was the signal I sent that told him he didn’t have control over me anymore. I could have left the door open and cowered, but I didn’t. I admit, it took me up until the last second to slam the door, hence the reason it was close enough to break his nose, but I did it. I slammed that door right in his face, and I didn’t feel anything anymore, I went numb.

I had showed up at his house that night to surprise him, although I ended up being the one surprised when I found him in bed with someone else. I had put up with three months of his shit, yet for some reason, this was the end for me. I guess it was because I was young and submissive and actually believed that some part of him actually loved me, I mean, he told me he did enough. I’m just glad I never said it back to him…although not saying it back usually warranted jabs to the ribs until I at least said, “You, too.” He’d usually then spout off some bullshit apology and say how I was making him a “better person.” I’d like to think that being a “better person” would include not cheating on someone, but apparently everything I thought anyways was wrong.

As I stood there, my heart started racing, my chest tightened, and then I saw his face, I knew that face, I knew what he was going to do next and I knew I wouldn’t like it, so I ran. I ran as fast as I could to my a friend’s house about a mile away. I honestly don’t know how I made it, my lungs burned with every breath I took, and after a while it felt like I wasn’t even breathing at all. I fumbled around with my keys trying to find the one for her front door, I stayed over all the time when her parents were gone because he lived right down the road, it was an easy way for us to see each other without my parents knowing. By the time I finally found the key, he was running up her driveway, I could see his face again, I turned back to look inside, and I saw my friend walking out of her room; I had to make a choice. I’m just glad I made the right choice. 

The second slammed the door, I slid down it and on to the floor. My friend got me my pacifier then, a half-empty bottle of vodka we’d gotten a week before, I think she was worried about how lifeless my face looked. We just sat there on the floor, passing the bottle back and forth, as I told her everything that had been going on for the past three months. For a while she didn’t say anything, she just let me talk, which was nice because I had so many things that I’d been wanting to say for the longest time. I’ve never been very eloquent though, I don’t know how to express myself, so I mostly just stumbled over my words. Eventually though, she just started crying.

I asked her if she was okay, and I asked what was wrong. All she said to me was, “I’ve never seen anyone’s eyes look as empty as your’s do right now.” The she asked me why I wasn’t crying, and all I could say was, “I don’t know.” We sat there for most of the night, she did most of the talking, I did most of the drinking. Until we finally decided we should probably go to sleep.

She told me that I could sleep in her bed that night, that she wanted me to be close so she could make sure I wouldn’t do anything stupid. I was paranoid though, every time I heard a noise outside her window, I jumped, I thought it might be him trying to get inside. She fell asleep before I did, and as soon as I saw that, I collected my things, took her car keys and ID, looked outside every window to make sure he wasn’t there, and then I drove. I don’t know where I was going, all I know is that I was fourteen and driving drunk for the first time. I went to a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes using her ID, then I drove out to the first park I saw, I don’t even remember where it is now, and I smoked the entire pack. I’ve never done that since that night. 

When I was done I drove back to her house, being careful to check my surroundings before I got out of her car and ran to the front door. When I got inside I placed all of her things back where I’d gotten them and just sat down on the couch in the living room until she woke up. She yelled at me for not being in her room when she woke up, she said she was scared I’d gone back to his house.

From there she drove me back home, I haven’t talked to her since that night.

I didn’t talk to anyone for about two weeks after that. No phone calls, no text messages, absolutely nothing. I locked myself away inside of myself. No one in my family noticed, of course. Then again, I was never much of a talker to begin with, so I guess it wasn’t that much of a change for them. My family still doesn’t know what happened that summer, I don’t think I want them to know either.

There was this girl I went to high school with and honestly, I only thought of her because she appeared on my Facebook news feed. That’s a pretty shitty thing because she actually cared about me.

She was in my statistics class my senior year.

She would mention how tired I looked, not to make me self-conscious though, as people had done that before and I knew the difference. When she said it she’d always ask how I slept the night before. Most of the time I’d say I didn’t, and she would just get this look on her face that was a mixture of so many different emotions, and say that I needed to sleep more. Though, I already knew that.

She worried though, which was fair because I was rather self-destructive my junior and senior years.

She would always compliment me on my worst days, I guess she could read it in my face, although it seemed like no one else could. On some days though she would tell me the things that I needed to hear, and ask me the questions that everyone was afraid to ask me. There were days when I could feel her staring me down from across the cafeteria, those were usually the days when I didn’t have any food in front of me, and that happened a lot.

One day she asked me how I managed to stay so thin, as I only weighed about 115 pounds at the time. I just hid my face and said, “oh you know, diet and exercise,” and then ran away before she had time to call me out on it. I think she could tell I was lying, but she didn’t bring it up again, I don’t think she really know what to say. 

I don’t think I ever thanked her though. I wish I had thanked her. I was just too busy trying to keep my head above water to really recognize any of the things going on around me. So it makes sense that I don’t have any friends left from high school because, well, no one knew me, and I didn’t know any of them either.