Fazes

R U OKAY?

I remember my first mental health awareness week in high school.
People were encouraged to check in on others.
It was the first time, I was on the receiving end of these check ups.

The first, 'Are you okay'?
Had me flustered.
I didn't yet understand the rules,
My mind raced over all the responses I could give.

I wanted to say:
I have random waves of relentless sorrow and fear that washes over me,
The current drifting me so far away from myself.

That sometimes,
Time seems to move backwards
Then suddenly forward, than backwards again,
Then not at all.
To a point, I feel like I'm appearing in cameos in my own movie,
Because it's easier to be a persona,
Than it is to be a person.

That I have lived so many lives,
Through my memories, trauma and nightmares.
That my soul has developed a kind of amnesia,
Where I remember everything,
Except which version of myself exists in the present.

That there are days I miss people I don't know,
Yearning  for places I've never seen.
Yet I make more eye contact with my ceiling,
than my friends.
Feeling hopeless and isolated when nobody contacts me,
But suspicious when they do.

That my anxiety has the capacity
To convince me ,
That everyone is always judging me,
Waiting to see me crack or fail.

That I feel like I secretly disgust everyone,
Because there are times I can't comprehend,
That people actually want to be around me.

Or that:
No inconvenience is a minor inconvenience
And I physically cannot finish the most mundane tasks,
Getting out of bed,
Opening my curtains,
Changing my clothes,
Talking,
Feeling,
All becomes a chore.
And my mental health, a rebellious teenager,
Who doesn't take orders well.

Eventually, the piles of clothes, shoes and cups.
Books I did not read and paintings I could not finish.
Become enough to crush me under the weight of my own sadness.
Yet the bigger they become,
The better they get at camouflaging.

I could even say:
That every few months, after living in a state of numbness,
My body rages war.
I start hyperventilating,
Gripping my chest,
While I try to stay afloat in the silent rivers of my tears,
And keep my lungs from collapsing out of myself.

And on a good day,
when I open my mouth to scream,
No words will come out.
Just my soul.

Which I have now mastered the act of preserving.
And treating like it's on death row,
Stuck in pergatory between who I am and who others expect me to be.

But I've come to realise:
Nobody can notice that I'm not doing well apart from me,
And maybe it's better to keep it that way.

So when I was asked "Are you okay?" ,
I gave a faint smile, fixed my weary eyes,
And said, I'm doing alright.
Because It's not polite to punish someone
with the knowledge of your misery.