The first time it happened
The first time it happened, I was only in seventh grade. It started with a shiver down my spine and a thought that I was being watched. I felt so distracted, so unsure and stupid. There was nobody watching me other than the group of friends I had been with. Yet my eyes traveled across the school’s courtyard; teachers roamed the halls, students piled out of the lunch room. Everything seemed to be normal but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me with intentions not so kind. The day went on and I tried keeping a straight face throughout, until eventually the feeling of paranoia went away. I thought it had just been a weird moment in the day and it wasn’t anything to worry about.
Unfortunately enough, it wasn’t just a weird moment I had. It had happened again, constantly and as if someone had been mindlessly shoving thoughts into my brain that weren’t mine. I was only in eighth grade when I experienced my first mental-break, as I like to call it. I can’t remember what might have triggered it but my thoughts were going hay-wire. It was the summer and I had locked myself up in my room for nearly a week. I avoided my parents, avoided my friends, or any outside contact for that matter. My parents were worried; they thought I was being anti-social and crazy. Which is exactly why I couldn’t tell them what demons had been scratching at the inside of my skull. I was not crazy. There were just these thoughts, maybe voices that were telling me I shouldn’t step outside. Leaving my room meant I’d be at risk of being hunted, killed. From whom was I hiding? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was every stranger that looked at me on the street from their seat in their car, or maybe the many people who passed me on the sidewalk and stared at me a little too long. How could I know I was safe? Every single person that had seen me could have been plotting to murder me within the next 72 hours.
I was sat in my bed, my heartbeat going faster with every new thought that entered my mind and every beam of sweat that rolled down my forehead. My breathing was shallow as I snapped my head towards the window. It was a loud bang, followed by another; it sounded like metal being hit. I sat still, like a statue, completely stiff as I held my breath. They were outside, they were here; I had been found. But every time I peeked out from behind the curtain there was nobody there.
“I’m fucking insane, Kim, there’s no one there!” I hissed angrily at myself.
But I was sure someone was there, I could hear them, their breath right by my ear, the crunching of the rocks outside beneath the soles of their shoes. He was here, somebody was here. My fingers shook violently as I ran them through my thick, black hair; I couldn’t stop pulling at my hair. I wanted it to stop; I wanted him to leave me alone!
“Just go away! Please!” I heard the crunching of the rocks once more.
I was crying now; fast, hot tears rushed down my cheeks as I bit my bottom lip to stop from making noise. He already knew I was here but it wouldn’t hurt to stay silent just to be safe. It was a fear I had felt like no other. It had me wanting to claw at my scalp because as much as I knew it was all in my head, it seemed too real to believe right then. To make matters worse, my parents weren’t home to help. It’s not like I’d tell them anyway. I thought, maybe suffering in silence was better than looking like a complete fool. I thought, maybe it’d go away someday; this was all just a horrible phase I was experiencing in my life. It would stop soon, it had to.
By the end of that day when it was time for bed, the notion that someone was outside of my house was gone and replaced with the feeling that they’d be back again, and next time they’d find out how to get in. I went to sleep and finally had a clear head as I dreamt of better days. My disastrous week hadn’t ended yet and within the following days, my head formed even broader, more inventive beliefs than I thought possible.
This is one moment from that first mental-break that I would never forget. I was in the shower, trying to relax after feeling watched all day. I had been jumpy to every slight sound and shadow in sight. The short period of feeling relaxed ended rather quickly when I heard a buzzing sound. It was a fly. A little thing right next to my ear that a normal person wouldn’t freak out about but in my head, no, this fly had cameras in its eyes and oh, my god, I was being recorded.
“No, no, no! Not again, please!” I cried.
The tears were like an automatic response to my fear by now and hyperventilating had become an everyday occurrence within the week. This fly was probably being controlled by the man who was after me. Was he broadcasting this on TV somewhere?
Three heavy knocks on the bathroom door sounded and I slipped on the tile of the shower floor.
“Estas bien?” It was my mom speaking in her soft usual tone in Spanish.
“Yes, I’m okay!” I called back. I held my hand over my mouth so she wouldn’t hear that I was crying. A moment of silence and her soft footsteps slowly went away.
I removed my hand from my mouth and let myself cry on the shower floor. I tried to do it as quietly as I could and covered my ears so I wouldn’t hear the buzzing of the fly above me. I waited to catch my breath and then got up fast, turning the water off and hopping out of the shower to get dry and to my room where it was safe, as fast as I could.
To this day, I can remember that week vividly. It still makes me quiver, it still triggers me. I’m just a person with a mind that needs a little helping from time to time.