An Unquiet Mind

My chest is clenched tight. The breathing exercises my therapist told me to do keep turning into hyperventilation.

“You’re in big trouble, you know” my mind says to me. My stomach drops and I swallow hard trying to wet my dry throat. “What did I do?” I whisper back. Everyone is about to find out what a horrible person I am. 

I’m laying in bed in the dark. The sound of the fan going on my bedside table usually quells me into a deep sleep. Not now. I suppose I don’t deserve rest after the things I did and everybody is about to find out. 

“What did I do?” I whisper again. I’m desperate to know. “Wouldn’t you like to know” my mind snickers back at me. I’m shaking in fear now. The fan sounds like an angry mob coming straight for me. When I turn it off the silence is so terrifying. I think I prefer the mob. 

I drive to work thinking about the near certain possibility that I will crash and kill several people. But I will survive, because of the horrible person I am. My mystery guilt lives in my stomach. I am six minutes late to work and I am in so much trouble. They don’t mention it and say they are happy to see me, but I just know they are so upset and disappointed in me. I spend the whole work day preparing to get fired because of the horrible person I am.

I try to piece together what horrible thing I did to make me such a terrible person. I feel the dread so immensely that I’m sure whatever I did is real. My body senses the threat, but not one of my senses captures anything tangible. 

My mind is telling me that the people I love most want me dead. I can count four things I can touch, see, whatever. I can breathe in for a count of four, hold for seven, release for eight. I can crash my car head first into the guardrails on the interstate. I can take a hot bath. I can drown myself in the tub after the water goes cold. 

I prepare myself for a night where I will sleep for two hours and lay awake for four before I decide it’s a reasonable time to leave my bed. I change into my pajamas, turn out the lights, make sure the door is locked. I take the little white pill and the larger blue pill so I only think about killing myself. I don’t brush my teeth— two whole minutes alone with the thoughts in my head and minty paste in my mouth sounds like a form of torture I would not survive.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe I’ll finally discover what I did to be in so much trouble. Maybe my stomach will finally be released from the heavy weight of dread. Maybe I won’t have to shoot myself in the head to make it stop taunting me. Maybe.