Wishing You Were a Ghost

First Day of My Life

People describe panic attacks in a variety of ways, which Frank has always found rather interesting.

Some say it's like having the walls closing in around them. Others will tell you that it's like having a stone, or sometimes even a car sitting on their chest. Many describe it as feeling like their heart is going to beat out of their ribs, or like their torso is caving in. They say they feel like they're dying.

In some propensity, Frank has felt all of those things to an extent. Sometimes, even the opposite

Like right now, when everything feels like it's far too big for his little body. The world (his stupid apartment) is too wide, there's too much air for him to breathe, which is just as overwhelming as the enormity of the world around him, considering that he feels like he can't breathe. If there's so much air, why the fuck can't he breathe?

Mostly, though, when Frank feels like this, he feels fragile.

Not fragile like a flower, that wilts (like Gerard had the day that he left), and gets dragged down by its own weight (though sometimes Frank does feel like that too).

Fragile like glass. Fragile like old porcelain. Fragile like a priceless vase placed directly beneath the tire of a semi-truck.

All of his edges are sharp and pointy, likely to crumble into something dangerous at any moment.

Sure, there are bigger shards. That's what people always pick up, right? Mother's favorite wine glass gets flung off the top shelf, and the first instinct is to gather all the largest pieces and then work your way down. Frank's largest pieces had been picked up in the first two weeks. Carefully collected and placed somewhere safe so that they could be glued back together at a later time.

Sometimes, though, sometimes you never quite get all of it. There are teeny-tiny slivers that are left behind because no one ever sees them. Just when you think the mess is gone, that you're safe to walk around in bare feet, that's when you find them.

They're jagged, and sharper than the blade of a knife, and they'll slice you to ribbons for a crime no larger than simply walking through your own kitchen.

Tonight, Frank is a tiny shard of glass left to lay on the ground - broken, and only a mere fraction of the man he once was - and wait for someone to step on him. A chance to lash out, to slice into the closest person he can in a desperate attempt to be picked up and put in the fucking garbage where he belongs.

Frank feels fragile in ways that human beings aren't meant to feel fragile.

At least today he's not fragile over anything in particular. It's more just that he's fragile about everything. The last two months have built up into something he has been trying desperately to push down, even though his therapist (and everyone else in his life) keeps telling him that doing so will only lead to self destruction

Whatever new medication he's been put on has made everything exponentially worse, so now he's in his new favorite place.

The shower.

He feels like he lives here these days. Any time he feels sorry for himself he drags his feet along a familiar path and into the tub to sit beneath the deluge. Sometimes he tries to do mindfulness exercises, and visualize all of his bad feelings washing off of him and flowing down the drain. It's useless, but at least he tries, and his therapist always tells him that neither he nor anyone else can really ask for more than that. Frank still feels like he's not doing enough.

Today he doesn't try to be mindful in any way. Today he sits in the fetal position and cries until he feels like he's going to throw up, and then cries some more and does throw up, and then cries even harder.