A Hopeless Addiction // Niall Horan

Chapter One

Chapter one

Fuck. No, pull yourself together. You are completely fine. Just breathe. Nineteen days strong; you can go nineteen more. Relax. Deep breaths. Everything is okay...

        Another mental breakdown. They were getting worse lately and becoming harder to control. Tight chest, sweaty palms, suicidal thoughts. These disorders come to mind like a torrential rain—depression, anxiety. The need to cut took control of everything. But nineteen days was quite the achievement. There were a lot of people who could not go nineteen hours without self-harm. Every day claimed the record now. Nothing had triggered this panic attack—nothing obvious anyway.

        Shit. What triggered you? Just remember your coping techniques. Describe the room...the mess of a bedroom you spend most of your life in. No. Listen to Niall...the clip of his laugh is your favourite...

        Nothing was working. It was all a hopeless case. Help was not possible for people like...this. Mental disordered and living such a pathetic existence. None of the sounds in the room were enough to distract from the longing my hidden razors had to open smooth flesh. To tear. There was nothing here for me. Not a single goddamn thing.

        As always, I was live-Tweeting the entire experience. Why should I be the only one suffering? But it was the only way to grab the attention of the one person I truly needed to talk me down: AJ Saudin. He was usually the one who helped me with all of this. We had met two years prior, when I was another fan of Degrassi, and he was my favourite actor on the show. We somehow became friends, and he was amazing at talking me out of my depression when no one else could.

RebeccaCatherine: Does anyone know where @AJSaudin is? In need of a late-night therapy sesh :(

        At that point, I was so far past what people thought of me. Maybe it seemed petty to be spamming his mentions like that, but when you had one way to contact someone, it had to be done. Thankfully, it was not long after this Tweet that he messaged me directly.

AJ: Saw your tweet. What's up?

Me: Would you believe it's a boy?

        That was basically how it was with AJ and me. He was able to help me through pretty much any situation, including, yes, crushes and relationships. Even though we were not super close or anything, he was so sweet to me. It was just in his nature. Still, even at our closest point, he would never open up to me like I wanted him to do. I just felt like I constantly owed him for something. Of course, maybe that was just how things went when you pursued a friendship with someone who only considered you to be a fan. Now I tried to make it very, very clear that I was not even really a fan anymore. I was just another Twitter follower... One that really needed him or else she would break down in the worst possible way.

AJ: Knowing you, I would believe that. So who is it this time?

        "This time." I rolled my eyes at the words, knowing that I should know him better than that. AJ was also very good at knocking people down a bit more when they thought for sure that they were at their lowest point. It was part of his approach, though: philosophical and helpful, but extremely realistic. He could point out every personal and logical flaw in a heartbeat, and I knew that this conversation would be full of those flaws. This was bound to be a long night.

Me: Don't make fun of me, but...if you've paid attention to my tweets lately, you'd know...

            I needed to be indirect, to buy myself time to explain what the hell was going on inside my head. Unfortunately for myself, it was extremely rare that my thoughts were rational in any way. In fact, it would be a miracle if I could even begin accurately explaining what this particular boy meant to me. It was probably something only I could truly understand.