Ashttyn Marceline

My Mania (The Beginning)

    I didn't understand what she meant. I only ever saw her in a bright light, what bad parts of her did she want out of my reach? Surely it wasn't horrible. I wanted all of her features. Barren and deranged or not, I wanted to turn those sections around and make the my own. By then, I was frustrated. Just how many things did I have to listen to and not understand? How long did I have to wait to finally learn what they meant?

    Every character origin contains a turning point for when things turned for the worst. A year from when being diagnosed at the ripe age of five was mine. Six years old, barely even coherent in the english language with my accent and my heart was ripped apart from my body. I was walking home from school with my siblings, my older brother in charge of making sure the three of us came home in one piece. The front door was locked and nobody was there to open it. We knocked and checked the windows, rang the doorbell. Nothing. Thankfully, there was a secret key in a compartment in the backyard which opened all the doors leading in. We barely got through the frame when the choked sobs of our father reached our ears. Immediately, we followed his voice, shaky and panting. I'd never heard him so devastated. It left a piercing feeling in my chest, as if I was stabbed just by the sound of his pain. When we stopped at his bedroom door, it opened by the hand of my brother to see his figure on his knees, our mother in his arms. I tore my eyes away to the rope hanging from the ceiling. I didn't know what was so special about it, but all I knew was that it was in the shape of a loop where it ended. A rope which I now know is a noose. Peering back down I noticed my brothers were now at my fathers side, shaking at the limp body of our mothers arms. Instead of following suit, my breath got caught in the back of my throat and I choked. My chest felt heavy and I found it difficult to breathe properly. I noticed how hot my head felt. My eyes would dart to wherever I thought I could receive help from. There were few options. The door which remained open for the crying to sound through the entire house, the light which I wanted to turn off to cure the pounding in my head, my older brother which shook and cried. He was no use, not when he was in this state. My father, also useless to me in this situation. My mother. I wanted to shake her awake, to crawl into her arms for comfort, but the more often my eyes landed on her the more I wanted to look away. The sight was dragging cold knives from my throat to my chest and each time I saw a peak of her eyes open I nearly threw up. So with what little choices I had, I reached for the light to turn it off and ran out the door towards the comfort of my room.

    There I hid. In my bed covers now drenched with sweat and tears, I remember being paralyzed in the same spot for what felt like ages, listening to the cries of my family. Eventually it all stopped and the world went quiet. The last thing I could remember was my aunt from my mothers side of the family coming to drive me to the hospital, for I was left alone at the house after everyone else had rushed to the ER. She remembered to bring the pills my mother always reminded me to take.

I usually took them with her.

    I met with my father and brothers in the waiting room. He didn't dare bat an eye to me when I arrived. Once again, I failed to understand what I had done to receive such punishment. I didn't care though. Plainly, I sat on a free chair with my hands by my sides. One played with a loose string from my shorts and my feet stilled. They usually swung when they weren't long enough to reach the ground. But my energy was limited, and I only did this when I felt content with the state I was in. When I felt stable. I lacked both those properties. I didn't feel much of anything really. There was a lot of squeezing my eyes shut. I couldn't bare to open them when the white UV lights were so sickening and when my father and siblings had been choosing to ignore me and my existence. I just wanted it all to disappear. A warm feeling rushed down my cheeks and it came to me that I was crying again. My tears felt sticky against my skin, I began to rub it away using the harsh yarn of my sweatshirt but they wouldn't go away. The fabric tore at my skin, scratching, slowly but surely scraping my cheeks till they were red and puffy, the same went for my eyes.

    I can't remember why I began to scream, but when the tears and pain just wouldn't stop, there was another breakdown which nobody needed from me. "Grabbing for attention," I was told by my older brother. He pulled me out of my chair and screamed for me to stop. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, seeing. Once when I was three, he smiled at me, sent me reassuring words and made sure what was mine remained in my tiny, slim fingers; The chocolate bar wrapped in a pretty pink plastic packaging. I thought he was so cool. I thought he knew of me a better person. But staring up at him then, I don't think I've ever seen him so disgusted. And it was towards me.

    When I raised my hand to rub my eyes again, he reached down for me and gripped rapidly at my wrists; tight enough to break a bone, I struggled to free myself from his grasp. His voice bellowed out and I could barely make out the tears now rushing down his face or the words that left his lips. I sought out for my father, someone that would stop him from hurting me any further. But no matter where I looked, eyes avoided mine. Even the doctors that passed by did nothing to prevent it. I ended up having to ask for assistance myself after it all. I was thrown to the floor and I sat there for hours before I finally got up in search for a nurse to treat my arm. It was bruised and for a fleeting second, I believed it was broken. But I was a child. Fragile no matter what, so was my older brother and he had no strength truly enough to break a bone in my body. Or anybody else's for that matter. He was the same as me. Experienced the same story, just with different mental voices.