Zach & Ryan

(1) Time to be therapised - Ryan

a/n  I was 12 when I started this account so I just unpublished some of my other work, I am now 15 and I have grown both as a writer and as a person. This story has gotten me through some of my darkest times and I really want to share it with people. With the first few chapters it is a combination of my writing from 2022 and 2024 so there has been a lot added- not much taken away- and a lot changed. I pray that my writing style doesn't change too much but that's why there might be some discrepancies in my writing. 

(tw- triggering warning    cw- content warning)

TW s3lf h@rm (cutt!ng) alludes to physical ch!ld abus3 

It won't stop. They won't leave me. Faces in the shadows taunting me. What is wrong with me?

A perfect winter sunrise, pastel pink tinting the clouds giving it a look like candy floss. My gaze drifted to the treeline of conifers and longleaf pines; I've always wanted to explore their depths. With school ramping up this year I have less free time, although I have more independence there is just less time overall. Curved country lanes made this walk much nicer, little bushes and shrubs bordering the cracking asphalt. Headphones hung round my neck forgotten, instead I was listening to the music of wildlife. Birds chirping and flapping in the hedgerows, cars whizzing by in the distance. What if I just ran away? Well for starters where would you go Ryan? Who would be dumb enough to shelter an irresponsible teen? Nobody I guess... Some of my ideas are better if they just stay as ideas. In the past I've been known to act on stupid ideas. Such as putting beans up my nose instead of eating them- that was a fun a&e visit. Soon pavement gave way to road as I approached the sterile building that my therapist called an office. 

Every time I enter this building the anxieties come rushing in what is the session about? Will he clock that I'm faking my recovery? Is he going to keep me out of school due to my risk? Am I going to be isolated again? Every damn time he seems to mark what is important to me in these moments. It is his job after all to identify what is keeping me on this planet- who is keeping me on this planet. In some ways I hope he discerns my crushes or new obsession with people because maybe it'll mean he wants to keep me at school, and I won't lose all my friends again. That's what therapists do, they keep you safe at all costs and try to find the things that help you and add to the list. Coping strategies to offset the craving for unhealthy ones, ways to stop your mind straying when you need it to sit still. Recurrently, my mind goes on walkies as I like to call it, wondering off to lands beyond leaving me deaf to the actual world. Maybe I have ADHD? Maybe that's the whole point of therapy? Once again, I was too lost in my own thought and hadn't detected that the receptionist looking at me expectantly. 

"Ryan! Nice to see you again.", the receptionist greeted me with a warm smile. She always looked at me like I was her child, a small child, I'm almost six-teen and I'm literally five foot nine which isn't short it's very average for God's sake, when will adults stop being so fucking patronising. Inadvertently I rolled my eyes. Quickly muttering something about it being an instinct I painted the good old fake smile across my face. 

"Yeah! Nice to see you too," I responded with my usual chirp, masking my thoughts. Blue plastic chairs lined the plain white walls giving a hospital-like feel. Memories of overnight admissions for my mental health still haunt me. Those nights spent with nurses watching you sleep, unable to draw the curtain around. Days spent waiting for something to happen, but it never did- did it? Mum stuck on those chairs that turn into beds as the crisis team have yet another useless meeting. You grow used to these chairs, your butt growing numb from the insanely long waiting times of the modern mental health system. Flicking idly through magazines was the main reason I kept coming to therapy as my mum couldn't really afford luxuries now. Sophia Northway, my mom. Some kids have a complicated relationship with their parents and I'm not the exception. From an early age my dad... well he used to...