I Guess They Never Disappear

Chapter 21

Trigger Warning: Panic Attack (Do Not read if this is a trigger, please stay safe!)

Jared rolls over in the bed, flopping onto his arm. 

I look away and sigh. 

I've been trying to work on distancing myself a bit these past few weeks, but it's not working so well. 

Sometimes I feel like Jared is almost trying to do the exact opposite, moving closer to me as I try to drift away. 

Logically, I know he isn't trying to stop me from making sure I don't become too much of a burden on him. I mean, I don't actually know that for sure. He doesn't bring it up, ever. Maybe he's doing it all unconsciously, like some sort of strange reflex. 

I don't want to say that I know what's better for him, and for us, because it's not true. Jared knows more, and he's always known more. He's always going to know himself better so I'm not going to pretend that I'm in the right for protecting him from this, at least yet. 

Maybe the only person I'm really protecting is myself. 

That's not a thought I like. Whenever it occurs, I try to brush it aside, return to what I was doing before, as most people do when they get these little daggers in their thoughts. 

I've started writing in a journal whenever I feel like I need to bother Jared about something small. That's healthy, right? 

See, Chris would be proud of me for this. 

The journal is just a coping mechanism, and a better one than some of the other stuff I've done before. 

Does it get rid of all my problems?

No. I didn't think it would. And Jared still wants to talk about emotions sometimes, which is a little bit weird, especially for him, but I definitely shouldn't judge. Maybe I'm not the only one trying to change my behavior. 

Right now is a prime example of a time the journal isn't working. 

I couldn't fall asleep tonight. Maybe that was because of the massive amounts of caffeinated drinks I had drank earlier in the day: it wasn't that much, compared to what Jared drinks (he goes through so much iced coffee in a day — apparently the stuff tastes great to him), but I'm still struggling to sleep. I'm not used to that much of it. It tends to make me more anxious than I already am, which is just wonderful.

And for probably anyone else, being a little too awake wouldn't be an issue. Anyone else would probably just read a book or draw or something like that while they waited to get tired. Fuck, I could do that, but Jared's right next to me and I can't get up because he'll know, and then he'll get worried, and I can't turn on the light, because then he'll know, and he'll get worried, and the whole point of everything is for him to not be worried about me so the only reasonable thing I can possibly think of doing is just lying there and trying to fall asleep. 

Which is terrible for a lot of reasons, because caffeine, once again, adds to the whole being anxious thing, and then besides that just letting my brain ramble on whenever it wants to isn't really great because it often tends to become a spiraling thought line. And that's not good. 

Also, whenever I can't sleep I tend to get more anxious because I feel like I should be able to get to sleep but I can't and it's worrying me.

So three very good reasons why not being able to sleep and not being able to distract myself wouldn't lead to anything good. 

Anyways, all of this just leads to another mental monologue on whether or not I'm attaching myself too much emotionally to Jared which goes on for too long and by then I'm starting to get the amount of worried that would normally make me want to talk to Jared about something, anything, because he would then maybe be able to distract me which would be really nice right now except he's asleep and I'm trying not to do that.