Unravel

Intro- Heroes are Nightmares

I woke up screaming and covered in cold sweat again. At times like this I remember why I hate sleeping. Sleeping is when reality hits me like a truck, afterwards leaving me broken and breathless. His face shows up every time I close my eyes, his pale dead face. A week before we were all laughing and smiling, I guess happiness isn't forever. Now I question if happiness even exists. On days like this I wake up empty and feel as if I'm just a puppet being pulled by the strings of society, smiling and making people laugh, but yet I'm still empty and hollow on the inside. Days when I don't sleep are my happiest. I can last four days without sleep, but then the nightmares come back.
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We are all at the lake, he's cracking jokes about his accent and how his girlfriend doesn't understand him. My sister and I complain to each other about her. We never liked her, no matter how happy she made him. All us kids got to play in the water and then the adults came along. He was in shorts and a tank top. "My bones are hurting me," he would say. He had been complaining about his bones and chest for a couple of months now. We would call him old and laugh about it, he would always join in on laughing. He was a lot skinnier then what I remember when I was a kid. His eyes were sunken in, hands cold, skin pale, so skinny his shoulder blades were showing. Just the last year he weighed around 270, and in one year he went down to 145. He never went on a diet, he was diabetic and was always over weight even as a kid. He was around 6"1'' and we all clung on to his back when we were younger. After a while in the water we were all red and hungry. We stayed at the lake until 7 pm. He smiled the whole way back, speeding up on the hills, telling us childhood stories, and telling us our plans for next week. Our first week of school started the next day. We got home and prepared our backpacks for the following day. At school I told everyone how my dad was going to take us to see my oldest brother, I haven't seen him in five years. The whole week I was just an average ten year old girl starting 5th grade at a new school. The whole week I was adjusting to the new environment and was making new friends. It was finally Friday and I knew that meant two more days until Sunday and I would see him again. I got off the bus at my grandpa's and walked to his house with my brother. My mom would leave work at 6 am and I wouldn't see her until 9 pm some days. We entered the house talking about our teachers and heard mom's voice, it wasn't her usual voice. She was crying and was talking to our grandpa in Portuguese. I saw my grandpa cry for the very first time that day. My brother and I looked at each other and asked what was wrong. They saw us and said we had to wait until my sister came home, she was at high school and had to walk farther. She kept crying when she would look at us, it looked like she was trying to figure out how to say something but didn't have the heart to do it. My sister walked through the door with a huge smile on her face, but she noticed the mood and her reflex was to ask, "What happened?" In a shaky voice.
"You guys might want to sit down for this," my grandpa's voice barely whispered. We all sat down with worried expressions, I was hoping we didn't have to move again even if we lived in a one bed room. "I-I-I" my mom started,"h-how w-would I-I p-put th-this..." She paused for a long time and looked at us with sad eyes, we all knew by then it was something much worse than a house. "Y-your d-da-dad... I got a call and he's... He d-died." We were all quiet until my brother broke the silence.
"Are you joking?" He whispered. His eyes were red, bottom lip quivering, and his fists were bunching his shirt. All she could do was shake her head. He ran out to my grandpas backyard and we heard a scream and a crash.
"Breathe" my grandpa told me. I looked up at him and it hit me. I started crying, I cried until my throat was raw and my whole body was shaking from my sobbing. I fell asleep at some point and woke up being surrounded by family saying they were sorry. My oldest brother saw me for the first time in 5 years, when I saw him I cried, he brought it all back. A spitting image of him was hugging me telling me it will be okay soon. I wore my black dress and walked to his casket. I don't know how long I stood their but my cousin pulled me away after a while. The whole time in the church I couldn't stop looking at his dead body. I remembered all the times with him, praying he was just asleep and he would open his eyes and call me his gatito just once more. He was to still, to pale, to stiff, to dead. That was it, my dad was dead and I couldn't change it.
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The same thing every time, you would think I would get used to it right? Wrong. Every time I sleep I'm stuck with the image of his dead body in my head. I sometimes want to speed up the process of seeing him. I can't stand someone calling me kitty, gatito, or gata. Every time I hear them I get reminded of him. The way he would try to warm up my feet, or how he would say I was his little girl. Sometimes the nightmares leave me crying, or they help me remember him. Most the time I'm sad, angry, and just lonely. Before I would tell him everything about my bad dreams, now he is my bad dream. It's strange how your hero can turn into your nightmare sometimes. I can't stand looking in the mirror sometimes because I see him. I some times don't talk because I'm to far away from the world to hear what people are trying to tell me. My mind scares me, the thoughts I have scare me, the way I see things scare me. The way these thoughts, nightmares, feelings, fears, and urges are constantly on replay scare me. I hate the way I feel when I wake up and when I go to sleep. I hate the way I feel by strangers, it as if I can feel them judging me by my appearance. People make decisions to quick, they just take one look at you and if your smiling then your happy. If you are frowning then you are sad, but they never look deep enough in your eyes to see the pain you have gone through. I'm not as happy as I seem, I don't sleep every night, I don't like myself, I don't eat every meal, I don't like closed spaces, and I have suicidal thoughts here and there. Yes I am tired. I'm tired of long nights, drinking coffee 24/7 just to get through the day, feeling empty, not liking what I see in the mirror, not being able to be close to people without freaking out, not being able to be in a car or room with out wanting to rip my hair out and scream all I can, and seeing my dad die before my eyes every time close them along with his funeral. I hate-
"Alex?" I snapped out of my thoughts to see my sister sitting up and checking her phone, "it's 4 in the morning, did you have the nightmare again?" I nodded.
"It's still the same and I-I-I just c-can't sleep, I don't know what to do, I'm so tired Adriana, I'm so tired... I.. I just... I don't think I can anymore." She gave me a worried look but understood. She stood up slowly not to frighten me more than what I was.
"Come on, I'll make you some tea or coffee. We can watch a movie or make something to eat." I waited for her to leave and then I wiped away my tears and went to join her after opening all the windows in my room. She already knew the drill and had all the kitchen windows open along with most the chairs gone. Usually my sister is gone working, but when she's home she helps me through my panic state. She's one of the few people I let get near me in this state. We sat in silence for a bit, I can't talk much when I'm panicked. Once my breath was evening out she asked me about my day, usually shitty days make the dreams worse. Sometimes my brother comes out and joins us but today wasn't one of those days, he was sick and was sleeping it off. I try to hide how much everything effects me and I let it bottle up inside and let it out at night, but other days nothing effects me. My panic attack routine is like a video tape stuck replaying one piece over, and over, and over again. My brother tries to distract me as much as he can, I appreciate the effort, but sometimes he sets me off more. We went back to the room after an hour because my sister was tired. In my room the air became thinner and thinner. I began to feel as if the room was trying to suffocate me, as if I could never leave it, my panic got worse. I started to get a headache and nauseous, I focused on my breathing as much as I could but most the time I lose track of it. My breaths became faster and closer together I curled myself up into a little ball and was shaking like a lunatic. I rocked back and forth waiting for the horror to pass. I lose track of time when I enter this state, seconds feel like minutes, minutes like hours, and hours like days. What felt like forever of me in my ball I finally calmed down. I looked at the time and it was almost 10 am. I wasn't glad it was a school day, but I knew it was going to be a hell of a week. I stayed outside for the most part until a migraine hit and made me go back in. I didn't feel any more calm, and I couldn't do anything to really keep my mind off it. I felt the loneliness sink in and the emptiness taking me over yet again. I was depressed and I knew it. The thought of dying wasn't scaring me anymore, it was quite inviting around this time. I didn't realize I was still shaking until my sister asked me if I was fine. I looked at her and she knew the answer. "You need to tell someone about it, you being like this worries us. Mom wants you to talk about it more. Keeping it all up in you isn't good, let us in, we are all worried," she said looking at me. I opened my mouth but I couldn't find any words to come out. I looked out my window and let the breeze hit my wet face. It's not as if they can understand. The death part yeah, but every time I open up to them about my claustrophobia they just tell me it's fine I won't get hurt, they don't understand what my mind does to me. My mind has me on a leash, pulling me into anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and sleepless thoughts when I've go to far. Practically that's everyday. The day past on with me barely saying a word. I ate as much as I could and started drawing. I always let my thoughts into a paper, I usually throw them away before anyone can see. The day passed on slowly, I hated every second of it. I tried to stay outside as much as I could. I wanted to run, just run as far as I could. To outrun my mind, all of my problems, and to be free from them. Sometimes I wish to run so bad, but my asthma won't let me. During the times I need it the most, my asthma acts up and won't let me. It was getting dark quickly and I realized it was almost nine. I didn't shower because even the shower scared me. I made my self green tea and after a few hours of thinking I was off to bed. I walked into my room and heard the snores from my sister and the creaks and pops of the house settling. I grabbed my headphones and put on some twenty one pilots. I feel as if theirs songs are so relatable, no matter how happy some might sound, they are actually quite depressing if you listen to the meaning behind some of the words. My panic went down a bit, I closed my eyes and tried an exercise I learned from my group. My therapist said it might help me since I've been getting worse. My group consisted of teenagers, about 15 of us, that all have anxiety issues. I hated it, I thought why the fuck am I here with these people? They don't even have anything in common with me. I didn't like how close all the chairs were, or how small the room seemed. It's supposed to help some how, but I doubt it will. I started entering the panic mode yet again. I guess they don't work for everyone. I don't know how long I was in my PM (panic mode), but after a while I heard my sister's snores in the distance, the creaks and cracks of our house, all the frogs croaking, the dogs barking, cows mooing, horses neighing, and the rosters doing what they do. I began to come back to the real world. The one I have grown terrified of. The same world that haunts my dreams at night. I checked the time and it was almost 5:30 a.m. My panic was starting to settle so I decided to watch the sunrise. It was Saturday so no one was awake. I sat at my window just dazing at the way the sun would peek over the hills as if it was checking it was safe to rise. Nothing in this world is safe. I loved watching the sun rise, it sometimes gave me hope, it helped me through my shitty days and my panicked nights. After a couple of hours everyone was awake. It wasn't a shitty day for me, it was an okay day. Sunday was the same, I had one long panic attack through the whole night, but my day wasn't to bad. I had one more night and then I will have to sleep. I always hated when the days would come to fast, My next night would have to be Tuesday. The day of my second time at group.
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