The Anchor is to Drown

*TRIGGER WARNING: depression, self harm*

You’ve been alone for quite some time. You want to move a muscle, perhaps you should, but what good is that going to get you? You could just continue to stay perfectly still instead, staring at the same inconsistent swab of paint on the ceiling, head resting on the dent in your pillow that gets deeper with each passing second. Besides, it doesn’t seem that long, because suddenly, time is nothing more than a man-made concept, your moments blending together, from minutes to hours to days. And yet, at the same time, you wish so desperately for these few moments to pass you by, as the crushing weight on your chest prevents you from breathing.

Your door is shut, the curtains drawn tight, not a sound to be heard except for your labored breathing and pulsating heart; a musty smell envelopes the room – a smell so pungent, so suffocating. Your clothes are a week old, the frayed fabric stuck to your skin from days-old sweat, your hair in knots. The grease layered onto your face is a sickly texture, the surface of your lips cracking from you obsessively licking over them in a hopeless attempt to clean yourself off. It’s a pathetic mess, you are a pathetic mess. Your brain tries so hard to recollect something, anything that could trigger even a little hope (if not joy), but as time goes by, every memory that ever brought you any delight slowly diminishes, until it seems as if life has always been like this.

To your family, this is just the slothful phase that comes in hand with holidays; your friends easily believe that no, you are not ignoring them, you are just ‘taking time to yourself’, which is not as much of a lie as it appears to be. Isolation is the best remedy – not for you, but for everyone you care about and love, because how can you knowingly place the same burden upon them? And besides, even if you were to tell them, what could you say? There is nothing to justify how you feel, no past trauma or occurrence that has led to this. Your situation seems baseless; I’m going to seem selfish, like I’m pining for attention, you think. You’re just going to cause unnecessary inconveniences to everyone around you. It’s better than you remain forgotten for now.

Sometimes, you can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be forgotten, forever. Of course, you don’t deny that there are people that do care for you, and of course your disappearance would disrupt their conventional cycles for some while. But that’s the good thing about people. We are not permanent. We come and go, weaving in and out of multiple stories every day, but we hardly ever stay in the narrative. So yes, when you go, you will influence these plots – it may just be a sentence thrown in, or you may have a whole chapter dedicated to you. But you certainly won’t be a constant, the protagonist. The thought races through your mind, multiple times a day, and yet you take no action. Yet, you contemplate. ***

This is not encouragement. This is merely a description of a fraction of what some of us may be going through, and this platform has been used as a means to call out to you, to tell you that you’re not the only one. I have only written this to raise awareness, to remotely explain what it may feel like, so that the rest of us may have some vague understanding. It does seem unlikely, but this moment is not going to last. Whether it may have originated from a past event, from the loneliness we may feel during these trying times, or from nothing at all – it is all equally valid, and we are all equally deserving of support and a life. You may not feel important, but you are needed – by your family, your friends, the people you may meet in the future, and most importantly, yourself. You are not a nuisance to anyone who loves you and cares for you, and they will do their best to help you in any way possible. You have no reason to feel ashamed.

-Sameeksha Saini