I Tried
I tried to tell you
When I was twelve years old
That I was experiencing something I couldn't nor wanted to explain
But explain I did, because I trusted the fact that you were there for me and I was only twelve and for the past year I had only had myself
I tried to tell you that I had thoughts that wouldn't go away
That I would think things most people wouldn't think about of others
And how everyday I screamed at them to leave but they just stayed
Their presence meaningless to my character as an individual but destroying any and all my sanity
And at first I thought you understood, you nodded along with my words like I was some preacher talking to a church
I thought I was no longer alone, spending dark nights laying in bed wondering if there was any way to atone for the events that played out in my head
But then you began to brush aside the very reason why I cried every night
Like I had found some symptom on the Internet and diagnosed myself with a form of OCD
I know you wouldn't say it but you thought I was simply a kid making up some story
And when I brought up therapy so I could finally begin to understand that I wasn't an outlier from a society that didn't advertise that people also went through what I did
You got angry
I could hear it your tone, screaming at me to be normal, to put a lid on the apparently crazy nonsense I was spewing out that you thought was an instance of childish fabrication but was really me finally taking a chance at reaching out to take someone's hand rather than my own since I was eleven
You claimed you didn't understand
But how could I tell you more than that?
How could I tell you that every time I passed a knife I was terrified I would take it and stab someone without any warning
Or that I laid awake every night in a cold sweat trying to ignore the fact that I could get up and cut through everything I had ever loved before it was morning
That every time a gory movie was on TV a sick feeling bubbled in my stomach and rose to my throat like it was my morals trying to leave my body to be replaced with thoughts that scared me more than the images on the screen ever could
That these thoughts were worse than any cold because while my stuffy nose would go away these plagued my mind nearly every moment of the day
And any activity I did only momentarily got rid of their existence, I would be care free for a few minutes only to come crashing back to what I thought was my sole reality
HOW COULD I TELL YOU
That sometimes while I sat in my sixth grade science class my feelings and thoughts mixed together like some overcooked stew
And the only thought that was actually mine was that maybe I should get rid of myself before I crack like some overused spine but then I wanted to cry because I was only twelve years old and I didn't want to die
I didn't want to hurt anybody but it was like my brain was a constant battlefront against who I was and some outside force that wanted to reign, my emotions taking the brunt of metaphorical chains wrapped around me like armor of shame
And the only thing that resulted from this constant fight was the feeling of utter confusion over why any individual would have these sort of thoughts, intentional or not, and why this had happened to me
Me who had once been a silly-kid but now hid behind a mask of smiles and laughs so that no one would suspect that every day I thought about death
And though I never wanted to admit it and the thought of doing so today still makes me want to run away, here's the unfiltered truth
Since before I was even considered youth I had thoughts that weren't my own about hurting people I know
And though I can admit that now
Back then I was too young to understand that I wasn't the only one, that every 4 out of 5 people experience intrusive thoughts that don't represent who we are but rather what we are terrified of being
But despite my lack of knowledge on the topic and words to describe my feelings at the age of twelve
I still tried to tell you how I felt
And while I didn't expect you to understand, all I wanted was you to tell me "it'll be okay" and hold my hand
Because I was frozen with fear and who else could I tell besides you who wouldn't look at me like I was some washable smear
And while you didn't treat me like I had feared you instead acted like this was something that would go away on its own
And after six years I can finally go about my day without being prone to the thoughts that had once made me hide under the covers to pretend they would disappear like the dark
The suffocating feeling I would often get is a stark contrast to the vague memory I sometimes reminisce
But occasionally I do lay awake at night, when my mind is too quiet and I almost can't accept the peace so I unwilling think back to old times
And all that I can remember is that I tried