failures IIII » kpop ✓

two

The feelings come in waves. I climb high and I fall low. Happiness had become a scary thing. I'm afraid of the sparks of hope that suddenly ignite in the darkness. They always burn out too fast and once they're gone, it hurts even more than before.

I'm fine, had become the easiest lie to tell, even though I was tearing myself apart on the inside and I wanted to scream to the world that I was actually going crazy. It was obvious if you looked at me a little more carefully, but no one wanted to deal with a depressed kid, so they preferred to ignore the signs, naively believe me and go on with their day.

Sometimes, people would find out the truth about how I was feeling and say one of the worst things in the world besides are you sure that you want to eat that, why are you overreacting or the classic I don't love you. They'd look me in the eyes, study my tired expression like I'm not even a real person and say: '' Really? You're depressed? You don't look depressed. ''

They make it sound like some of us aren't even allowed to be depressed. Was there a criterion for that? Were you really supposed to have a shitty life for at least three years before you got to admit that you're sad?

What if you had no real reason to be depressed but you still couldn't help yourself?

My mom thought that I'd grow out of it eventually, but spoiler alert - I didn't. I was at the exact same place as three years ago. Maybe even worse. I wished that I could just quit being this way, but it wasn't that easy. My mind had become a prison and I had no idea how to escape it.

I was holding a pouch of orange Capri Sun juice, pulling my yellow bucket hat over my eyes and tapping my foot against the ground. I took every ounce of my strength to keep sitting there and counting the white tiles instead of caving in under my fears and running away. Nurses were running down the hallway, people were coming and leaving, there was chatter everywhere and the hospital was bustling with life. I was familiar with this place, but new faces put me on edge and I was quickly running out of patience.

Another nurse walked down the sunlit hallway and I slumped down in my plastic chair, hoping that I would somehow disappear in the white walls of the hospital. A relieved sigh left my lips once I realised that I only mistook the straight-faced woman for my mother. It wasn't really her. I was stupid to think that in the first place. My mother knew that I was here and waiting for my father, but she would never leave her position in the emergency room just to come by and say hello. Even though it's been weeks since we last saw each other.

A part of her still resented me for what happened three years ago. She was working one of her regular night shifts in the ER, drinking her third cup of cheap vending machine coffee - the decaffeinated one, because she was a psychopath like that - and gossiping with her coworker, when the ambulance brought in a new patient. The screaming and the blood were all part of her usual routine, so she didn't think much of it. Then she found out that the patient was me. Just like that, I singlehandedly turned her dream job into one of her biggest fears.

After that night, I became a frequent visitor at the hospital and right outside the psychiatrist's office, was also where I met Lee Sunmi. We were sitting five chairs apart and I was hiding behind a pair of giant black sunglasses, when she suddenly glanced in my direction and asked: '' So... Do you come here often? ''

Did she really just ask me that outside of a psychiatrist's office?

She was slouched in her seat and drinking red wine from an Evian water bottle. She was still wearing the previous night's makeup, sparkly party dress and high heels. One glance in her direction and I knew that she was trying to heal her hangover by getting drunk again. '' Why are you ignoring me? Do you not know how to talk? I know that we're waiting outside of a psychiatrist's office, but I swear that I'm not crazy. It's my ex boyfriend's fault. He put me here. He's the crazy one. Not me. ''