I was sitting in PHP in the morning highly stressed after my exam. I didn’t feel like talking so I had my arms wrapped around my legs and was staring at the floor. As I thought about how difficult the exam had been and the dread that I had failed it the stress in me grew to a painful crescendo and that’s when I began to see the lights. Colorful and pink, swirling harmlessly in my vision. I watched them, mesmerized. And the more I watched them swirl and whirl the more my stress sunk back into the depths of my mind to be dredged up later, leaving me with an odd kind of peace. The other women in my group were talking about this and that but all I focused on were the lights. Then somewhere in my mind I realized perhaps I was being rude and would try to listen, but then I’d stop seeing the lights. And when I stopped seeing the lights I’d feel the stress threatening to resurface. So I would concentrate on trying to see them.
When they failed to come again I stared at my pants and the denim pattern on them became 3D as though jagged spikes were coming out of them. Just a simple eye trick, I thought to myself. I missed the lights. When group let out I felt numb and flat. I shuffled to the break room and colored mindlessly. The next group would send me into a foul mood when the therapist leading it didn’t even have anything to discuss and it was basically 2 hours of boring banter from the group. I colored and read my book, anger and frustration in me boiling. Do your job! I thought.
The next group’s beginning made my mood sink farther as the therapist started up with riddles, making it a dumb game with teams. I was tired of these stupid games we were playing. I was here to get well, this wasn’t summer camp. My time would have been better spent in class. I barely participated, arms wrapped around my legs again, head down. Finally she got to the meat of that group and we discussed personal responsibility. As I finally experienced something informative and related to therapy that day I felt the anger in me relax as I began to focus and participate in the discussion. By the end of group I had returned to the feeling of numbness.
When I went home I was just tired. I hid away in my room. Later I went to the pool with my mom for my sisters’ swimming lessons. I like to read my book in the lounge chairs there. And things were normal for a bit until we stood up to leave and my thoughts echoed sharply in my head, clear as crystal. A running narration of what was happening. “And she walked after her family…thinking it was all a dream” and these thoughts were so LOUD I could not shake them. And when we got home I thought to myself “What a strange dream. I keep waking up to this one and it’s the same dream every time.” And then my dad was making the dog bark and it was LOUD and it snapped into me like gunfire, rattling my brain and I wanted to HURT him. I fed the dog quickly and retreated to my room once more.
I just feel on edge. I feel weird and my senses are too strong and everything feels like a dream that never ends.