Vikk's P.O.V.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid." I whispered to myself under my breath, digging my nails into my wrist and burying my head in my arms. My breathing was shallow and tight, my chest rising and falling too fast and my eyes blinking too slow.
I was really scared. This happened too often, my senses just exploded into overactivity for no reason and I couldn't cope for a few hours because everything was too much. Lights too bright, sounds too loud, smells too strong.
It had started when I was recording with some of the Sidemen earlier in the morning when everything went downhill. They had all been yelling and my head had started to hurt but I tried to ignore it, knowing it would be a bad day later on.
I closed my eyes and lay back on my bed, my ears picking up every little sound even though I shouldn't be able to hear it. I could hear JJ yelling downstairs, I could hear Simon recording in the room next door and I could hear Josh snoring a floor down. I covered my ears.
It was a vicious cycle, I was maybe a few hours from a complete and utter meltdown. I couldn't get my senses to calm down enough to sleep and the more tired I was the less I could control my senses. I couldn't even work on anything when I was like that because every time I tried to concentrate on my computer display, my vision kept jumping around to find where any motion was coming from.
Even lying on my bed was horrible. I could feel everything on my skin, my shirt was too scratchy, the feathers in my duvet were scratching my skin, crumbs on my bed were digging in my skin. Everything hurt but at the same time I knew it wasn't real.
My room smelled too strongly, I could smell coffee and ink and ice and metal and rain and ramen and I felt sick. I knew all I could do was wait for the episode to pass but the longer it went on the more likely that someone was to check on me and find out.
I didn't want anyone to find out because then they wouldn't see me as normal like they always had and I wanted to be seen as neurotypical. Normal people could control their senses, normal people didn't have these episodes.
And as I curled on my side the more I realised I was risking people find out, especially as my boyfriend was in the house, out with some friends that I didn't really know, but when he got back I knew he would come and see me. I only knew one way to bring myself back.
I stumbled from my bed into the bathroom, the bathroom assaulting my nose with even more smells. I could smell soap and aftershave and shampoo and deodorant and toothpaste and that weird chlorinated water smell that made me feel even worse.
Digging around in the cupboard under the sink, which was full of things that made me feel even worse, I found the razorblades in a secret pocket in a bag.
Placing one against the skin of my arm was a relief, digging it into my arm and drawing a thin layer of blood. The effect was immediate, the smell of metallic blood blocking out all of my senses and the pain bringing me back to where I was.
The cuts mingled among others, others that I had created over the years that had healed into thin white lines on my cinnamon skin. They weren't obvious unless you were looking at them and if I wore short sleeves I often put on foundation to hide the scars.
I closed my eyes and leaned against the sink, grateful for the stinging sensation on my arm that kept me focused on the situation around me. It took a few minutes but eventually I was able to take in deep breaths without my senses being overwhelmed.
With one hand over my arm to stop any blood dripping onto the carpet I returned to my bed, waiting for the already sluggish bleeding to completely stop. Now I was awake and able to focus I figured that I could edit some videos, knowing that I wouldn't be able to sleep.
