Clover hearted

Mathematical reasoning overview

I enjoyed some of the wording in my GED textbook, some of it funny, some of it poetic, so I highlighted some of my favorite phrases and used them in the titles for this chapter.
TW: suicide attempts (detailed description), addiction, hallucinations

Fortunately, it doesn't, and it isn't
I watch my body sit in the shower fully clothed, he's tying something around his neck and pulling tighter, tighter, tighter.
I watch his face become red, I watch him attempt to suffocate himself, I feel the pulsing.
I hear his thoughts as if they are my own, he thinks it ends here, he thinks he dies here today, fortunately, he doesn't.
I call his name, my name, I listen to him gasp for air and shuffle through his mind for an excuse to be sitting on the floor of the shower breathless.
"I swear it's not as bad as it looks." His voice is hollow and hurting.
"Elliot I know what you're doing, just come out and talk to me."
He stumbles into my bed, his bed, our bed, he lays on his back."Why are you here?" "I'm here because I think you know better." It's quiet for a long while.
"Why do you say that? What do I have to live for?"
"Elliot you do live in a lot of pain but you also live in a lot of joy and love. You have many people who you adore, who adore you. You become elated at the thought of many things, you have more songs to listen to, more poems to write."
"What's the point if I spend my whole life aching?"
"That's not based in reality."
"What if I only keep getting worse? What happens when I lose my mind? What happens when I don't know what's real anymore? That's why I'm doing this, because I can't trust my perceptions."
"Do you know what's real right now?"
"Yes, mostly, at least."
"That is what you hold onto. Hold onto the self that searches for small strange loves. Hold onto the self that grows towards the sun. You know that self exists."
"I do."
"You just have to wait for him."
"I will."

The main expression you are calculating
You stopped feeling like yourself the moment you started again, as the relapse hit your bloodstream you left yourself.
You left yourself on those late night walks in the heat. You left yourself in abandoning your family while living with them. You left yourself in leaving behind everything about yourself that you liked.
When you arrive at the front door steps of inpatient addiction treatment and you hope to return home to yourself, for a long time you don't.
You hallucinate awful things. You consider taking your final breath. You tell yourself you won't get sober. You drink. You do lines of nothing.
For a long time you don't return home but slowly you do.
You wear rainbow bracelets. You ramble on about death cab for cutie. You talk loudly and energetically. You flap your hands with excitement. You write poetry.
In one hundred little ways you find a way to return home to yourself.

This is not the same
You text him little love letters throughout your day, music to listen to, small things about yourself, funny videos.
He sends you songs that remind him of you, he tells you antidotal stories you've heard before but you love him too much to mind, he tells you about yourself.
You love the sound of his voice, you love the way he smiles in that picture you always show people, you love his drawings.
You loved him until you loved getting high more, then he knew it was time for him to put his love somewhere else.
He still has love for you but he cannot hold someone who is killing themselves slowly, so you stay in his heart but you are no longer his boyfriend, things are different now.
You talk to him about the same things you used to but you know you have tainted this, you hear his voice and feel a regret pool into your stomach.
You think of all the little ways he used to show love for you and your shoulders ache.
You look at those old messages and you are reminded of something beautiful you ruined, something good you had and threw away, someone you loved who you hurt.

Which answers don't make sense?
I attempt to lull myself to sleep with soothing thoughts and remembering calming voices, I see a monster standing in the middle of my bedroom, he watches over me, he reaches for me, for a moment I am consumed by a primal fear, but this is something that is not real.
I feel my bed rocking me, my still body being comforted by the repetition, maybe now I will fall asleep. I open my eyes for just a moment and see a ferocious ebony hand trying to cause unknowable harm to me, but this is a perception that can be defined first by its falsehood.
I interact with altered memories from the past, I remember the way he asked me questions about my favorite things as a means of distracting me from my perceptions of unreality, I pretend he's asking me questions about poetry, I remember my favorite poetry books and the titles of books I've written, this daydream helps me return home to reality. I feel bugs on my skin and see little insects in my blanket, I squirm and twitch but there are no bugs in this bed.
I close my eyes and think about things I love, I tell myself stories of days past, I pretend like someone else is here with me to listen to these stories. I say to myself, "Elliot honey you're okay, you're safe here." And maybe if someone were to hear myself speak this aloud I would look abnormal, and maybe if someone were to see me interacting with a daydream to cope with other false perceptions I would be seen as strange, but I must find ways to comfort myself and return back to some form of reality.
I feel the softness of my weighted blanket, I notice my teddy bear Wonder sitting under my arm, I sink into the honey bed and achieve slumber.

You'll be able to figure out where you went wrong
When you were fifteen you berated yourself for never committing to a passion, you hated the way you flowed into so many different ponds, you wished more than anything that you could find one thing to define yourself by.
You would soon realize that a person of many passions is a person with many loves. You would find your passion to follow mercilessly and relentlessly, despite, despite, despite. No passion you had was without adding something valuable to yourself and your life, it all meant something.
When you were sixteen you believed you would never move past the pains of the past, you had a story that ached and you believed the bruise would stay lavender, you wished more than anything that you could forget what it felt like to be consumed, but you believed you wouldn't.
One day you would realize the bruise was no longer purple, that the different shades were telling a story of healing. The memories became easy to coexist with, the past is not an ache anymore.
When you were seventeen you felt trapped in doing as you're told compared to doing what you understand to be ideal for you. You wanted what they had so you attempted to embody their truth but you could not mold yourself entirely.
You would later come to understand that you do not have to follow every instruction you're given, you can author your own truth.
When you were eighteen you understood yourself to be painfully behind your peers, you worried you would never meet them at their level, but this is yet another story with an unknowable solution that lies ahead.