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When I was small, there were spiders in my sheets. Their numbers were more than a small child could count. They never bit me. They never even brushed by my toes, but I was convinced, at any moment, they would eat me alive. The moment the lights in the hall went dark, they’d come and sit at the bottom of my bed, waiting for me to sleep. The walls creaked with hell fiends that groaned through the wood and surely wanted my soul. Men with sharp knives sat outside my window, hoping to make me another victim on the 12 o’clock news. The night brought all monsters and fears to kill me and everything I, as a child, loved in life. When the lights went out and my parents slept, I was left to fend against every monster on my own.
I had no proof of any of it. When I awoke, never remembering when I had finally passed out, the sun had dispersed all the sounds and shadows from my room and I was safe again. It was all my imagination, as far as adults were concerned, but for me, it was more than possible that every monster I dreamed up could be real. The fear of dying followed me night and day; the only weapons I had against any of them were habits I made up for protection. If I skipped every other stair, I might just avoid falling and breaking my neck. If I never stepped on the gaps in the grocery store’s floor tiles, we would make it home with no accidents on the road. If I lay on my back with all of my stuffed animals lined up in order in my arms, the spiders might leave me alone.
Mornings now are less eventful. The chances of a night terror or insomnia from creaks in the floor have lessened as I’ve grown and learned more about the world. My body seems to make up for the sleep I missed in childhood with an extended state of drowsiness and a cloudy life experience that makes 6 out of 7 days in the week feel like walking around in a lucid dream. I’ve lost my keys seconds after putting them down more often than anyone I know. I say things and immediately wonder if I dreamed up the whole thing up just a moment after it’s left my mouth. I find myself repeating stories. I am the walking broken record!
I hush up most of the time, because of this. Who knows who I might drive off if I don’t? Who wants to hear the same story about my hyperventilation in the car the first time I got a speeding ticket ten times? For me, after all, everyone I talk to I immediately assume has an underlying ire for me. I can’t calm down when I talk. I talk too quiet, too fast. I imagine my own stutter and apologize for it when I’m the only one that hears it. How I have friends? Sometimes, I don’t know. Sometimes, I imagine I don’t. The people around me are just there so I don’t go missing one day. Those are the days that are my ‘bad ones’.
I immediately know when a day’s going to be a ‘bad one’ and I put up a warning sign the moment I wake up for everyone that knows me. ‘I might seem weird today. I might be irritable or distant. I’m sorry, preemptively.’ I roll out of bed, avoid any food because I am certain the thickness of my thighs is a telltale sign of an impending heart attack and I know the pain that sometimes pinches in them must be a blod clot or a sign that I’ll lose a leg soon enough.
I get in the car. Every other car is trying to hit me. It’s better than night when I am absolutely positive, at least at that moment, that I see men with guns and trees about to fall right on the hood of my Impreza out of the corners of my eyes. I breathe slowly, in through the nose, out through the mouth, for the 40 minute drive to school or work. I avoid anywhere cars might possibly run over my toes with the utmost care. On campus, I walk down the stone staircases sideways so my feet are completely on the steps themselves. I can see myself falling down and breaking my back and I am sure I’d be left there.
Classes are a test on these days. I don’t talk. If I do, everyone will know how dumb I am. The numbers are a lie, folks, I am the queen bee of the stupidity hive! All of the drones are no match for my lack of wit and my complete incomprehension of everything being fed into my ears. I sit and I think about every person I’ve ever corrected, ever advised, ever debated with. What was I thinking? There is no way I had any place doing any of that to anyone alive. I know nothing. Something inside reminds me I’ve been through the gifted program. I have awards in drawers at home that mom keeps as her own mementoes. I have to have something worthwhile going on up there, but this is a bad day.
Everyone hates me. I am worthless. I am stupid. If I wasn’t so scared, I’d be better off dead.
I go home. I know I have school work or reading, but there’s no way I can focus. My mind always finds something from that day or 2 years ago to obsess over. Some mistake or misinformed statement or moment of ignorance where I was less than I want to be and it makes sure I remember it clearly. On bad days, that one little thing is the epicenter of why I should just give up and hope that someone else can find use for my organs. No one’s gonna miss someone like me, who can only truthfully answer ‘What’s wrong?’ with one honest word: Me.
But bad days are not 365 out of the year and sometimes, there’s a happy side to having something in you that keeps you scared of everything and alert. It’s like a hyperactive survival instinct. I’ve never broken a bone, never overdosed, I have no scars from self-harm or others and I’ve never hit another person, no matter how bad they might make me feel. It is the glory of a mind that can manufacture worst case scenarios at the drop of a hat. You will never put a foot on a skateboard if the first thing you see is yourself as a twisted pile of gore under the front wheel of a Sedan. Some would call it ‘missing out on the fun’ or say I avoided important life lessons. I say I went through life learning from everyone else and keeping myself in the clear. After all, I can’t say I regret missing out on adding more turmoil to my teenage years. I was the master of my own tornado, even if I never wanted to be, and the irrational moments of my especially memorable ‘bad days’ created enough unique lessons to feed my growing up.
No, no one has secret cameras watching you, except in the stores. No one knows what is in your room if they’ve never been there. No one knows you’re dating that girl when you’ve never told anyone you didn’t trust. Yes, you have people you can trust. No, no one honestly cares if you had a year where this shit got so bad, it affected your bladder and you were sucking down cranberry juice in classes for an entire semester. They were too worried about failing finals.
When it comes down to it, I wish I had help. I wish I wasn’t scared of what truth help might give me. I might be worse than I think. I might be better than I hope and just a weak person who can’t get through things every average person deals with on a daily basis. But, life is interesting when things upstairs don’t turn quite right. Bad days happen. Sometimes, I can’t get out of bed, I can’t bear to see anyone, and going outside takes up too many of my ‘spoons’ after a long morning of convincing myself that it’s not all bad and I might not die today. But having days like that makes the good days shine out. The days where I’m laughing for hours in the company of others are precious, because I never know when a bad day will loom. Somewhere in me, there’s a sickness, but even if it makes the hurdles seem higher, it makes me work harder. It makes me stronger and better.
I’m big now and the spiders that still crawl around my house are still there, looming, but their army has disbanded. Suddenly, their threat is minor and I seem much stronger than any fear they ever evoked. Now, when I see a spider, I don’t smash it. I don’t wash it down the plug hole.
Now, I catch them and carry them to the door. I put them outside and let them go.