by Rebecca Mannor, San Diego Jewish Academy '23

This place makes you haunted. This place makes you twisted.

I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be in love with my body. I wanted all the things I never had. I wanted to look in the mirror and smile rather than frown. I wanted to stop the calorie counting and stop the diets that never get me anywhere and stop restricting and purging. I wanted to not fault myself for eating and giving my body nutrients to survive. I wanted peace. I wanted for just once in my life for me to actually love myself. I wanted to not criticize my body every time I checked my outfit in the mirror. I wanted too many things. Sometimes I don’t know myself anymore.

This place hears your whispers. And starts putting thoughts in your head.

I haven’t told my parents yet. I don’t know how they will respond. They might tell me I’m normal for loving a boy but crazy for loving a girl. I don’t know. I fear their retribution, their judgement. I feel as though I am trapped inside my skin, pulsating, trying to become free. Will I rip this body of mine if I push too hard? I wanted to find love for as long as I can remember, seeking constant reassurance from parents, neighbors, friends, anybody. Sometimes I think I am normal, sometimes I think I am not.

Thoughts that taunt you. Thoughts that torment you.

OCD whispers intrusive thoughts inside my head. I hold my breath to stop the ruinous notions from ensuing. I don’t know what to do. I feel as though I am drawing inside myself. I tell myself I am a bad person. A mistake. A normal person wouldn't have these thoughts, these terrible thoughts. I cannot tell anyone for I fear their judgment would be overwhelming. I already judge myself, I don’t need others to do the same. Sometimes I feel as if these thoughts will make me go mad.

Thoughts that terrify you. Thoughts that make you do appalling things.

I want to take the pills. I don’t know where they are but sometimes I get this prodigious urge to just take them. To pour them all out into my hand and gulp them down in one big, giant leap of faith into oblivion. My mom has removed them from my room. She found me crying, screaming, with them all laid out in front of me. I didn’t take them. Not yet. But I was thinking about it. Seriously thinking about it. Now all my therapists check in on me every time I see them. How are your suicidal thoughts today? Not any better. Sometimes I believe I can get better, but then reality crashes back and I am reminded of my lonely existence. 

 

And leaving this place is unheard of. Leaving is worse than staying.

 

A bouquet of bruises, coloring constellations on my skin. He says he is sorry. I always believe him. I am always wrong. He never changes. One day, he is sweet, kind, caring, the man that I fell in love with. But then he comes home drunk and all bets are off. I tell my mom, she says to leave. But I cannot leave the man I love. The man who kissed my cuts and whispered sweet nothings to me when I woke up from nightmares, late at night. How can you leave someone you love? How can you love someone you hate? Sometimes I feel as though I could leave, but what is holding me? Staying is stronger than my will to go.
 

Leaving is what drives you mad. What drives you insane.

I worry all the time. It never seems to end. Is this where I die? Is this where the worst possible thing happens? I question myself, second guessing everything. Depression takes hold, dragging me down. I am drowning in the waves of emptiness. I feel as though I can go on no longer. I cut deep, trying to feel something. Anything. What am I made of other than skin and bones? Sometimes, I like to unravel myself, see the blood that flows from pricks in the skin.

What makes you start whispering. And when you start whispering, you are lost.

It has been two years. I cannot forget him. One day he was here, the next he was nothing more than a memory. Nothing more than ashes. How can you grieve for someone you haven’t truly let go of? How can you continue on when the reason you were living is gone? Sometimes, I imagine he is still beside me, but my fantasies are short lived.
 

When you start whispering, you become the place you fear.

I set fire to it all. I can’t take it any longer. I watch the house fall into flames, a sweet sense of relief pouring through me. They blaze and blow in the wind.

I can no longer play the part of the victim.