that person

There’s people out there who sure like to think mental illness and trauma are worthy of sympathy until the second you show any actual signs. You know, those people who think those ‘gentle reminder’ apps and tweets to take your medicine actually work as if it’s a matter of just ‘forgetting’ to take care of yourself. They never seem to get that it’s not a matter of remembering, it’s a matter of not having the willpower to get out of bed. Oh, what a beautifully ignorant world they must live in to think those cloying gestures work.

They want to shower you in soft blankets and cute things, and hold you close so tightly that you have no room to breathe. They’ll drag your shambling corpse all around town, dress you up and parade you around the Normal People all day as long as you’re quiet and too tired to object. They’ll flaunt you to their friends, tell them how much better you’re doing, how their very touch is the cure for depression. They’ll do it right up until you haven’t showered in three weeks and your breath smells like scotch for the fifth day in a row. You’re the poster child for their charity up until there’s cuts on your arms because you’re trying to remember what it’s like to be alive.

And the whole time you’re quivering inside, wearing a pretty mask to hide the ugly beast you really are. You can feel the prying eyes drilling through you, your skin is crawling, they’re judging you, they see right through you. You’re not worth affection, none of these people like you. You’re a terrified animal in human skin, and you can only take so much. And eventually, it spills over. In fits of frustrated, incoherent rage, in screaming and crying and shaking and brain fog and incomprehensible terror and you just can’t express yourself, your mouth has glued itself shut, closed for business.

Once that happens, you’re gross and crazy and you need to go to a hospital and get locked away from their pretty, perfect worldview. If you’re lucky, they’ll just storm off in frustration, and the cycle will continue when they decide to forgive you and try grooming you to be quiet and compliant again. If you’re unlucky, you’re on the ground in cuffs, and you don’t know how you got here, and all you can do is scream and struggle harder because your brain won’t let you do anything else. You’re being tased. You’re being hauled off, and you’re stuck in a feedback loop because now you’re in a holding cell waiting for your roommate, or your sister, or your best friend to pick you up.

Then, once you’re down again, you feel worse than ever, and no one will judge you like that if you never leave your bed. But that person, parading you around? They won’t leave you be. They put it on you while they pretend to be sympathetic. Oh, it’s your fault that you’re broken, but that’s okay, they forgive you, they just wish you’d please, please, please try harder. For them. Because it was always all about them. You don’t matter at all. Maybe you never did.

Sounds familiar, right? I thought so.

Everyone who’s Not Normal like us ends up running into That Person. Maybe That Person is someone you thought was a friend until it all broke down, and you stick with them just because you’re desperate for affection. Maybe they’re a sibling who you would have done anything for until they played their hand and showed that they only ever thought of themselves and how they could be the better sibling. Maybe they’re a mother who should have never been a mother, who thinks of you as a showpiece and flaunts to other narcissists about how she struggles oh so much.

Yeah, I’m bitter. Of course I’m bitter, because I like to believe that I’m more than some cunt’s display piece, that I exist for more than to just fulfill their needs when they need to look good and feel powerful. I deserve to feel powerful, too. So do you. Everyone deserves to be allowed to claw their way out of that hole, however that happens for them. Coping is different for everyone, and no one can really tell you the one true way to make yourself whole again. It might be prozac, it might be kush. It might be the friends that really are willing to help you at your worst.

And you’ll do stupid, destructive shit along the way, because of course you will. Relearning the world takes time and patience, and it isn’t easy. And That Person hates that, too, because they have such a perfect picture of what they think recovery is. Well, fuck’em. Fuck’em, let ‘em rot six feet under. You’re allowed to fuck up. You’re allowed to stumble, lash out, hurt yourself, as long as you learn from it. Anyone worth their salt will understand.

Everyone who doesn’t, well, they don’t deserve you.