***** TRIGGER WARNING *****

Day after day after day. When you stand in the shower holding your razor, ready to shave your legs, and the thought creeps back about how easy it would be to accidentally press a little too hard. Day after day after day. When you go to eat lunch and a voice inside your head tells you that you don't deserve to eat today. Day after day after day.

When your friends ask you to go out and you would much rather lay in bed doing nothing. Then, feel left out and lonely. Or when you are with your friends and automatically assume that you are just a burden to them. That you were invited out of pity. Or when your friends go out without you, without asking you, and you feel like a shadow in your own room. That's when you begin to think you might just be better off dead.

Or when you walk into a classroom and everyone stares at you, like you are some unwanted visitor. Or when a professor calls on you randomly and your words stumble, and your heart races, and you can feel the people behind you drilling holes through your head with their eyes. Or when you are put in group projects and your partners are all friends, making you feel like a party crasher.

When you cross the street, do you look both ways? Do you walk behind a bus? Do you wait for the signal?

When you leave the house, do you make sure your shoes are tied so you don't trip and hurt yourself? Do you care about how you look? Do you make sure you take your medicine when you are sick?

Imagine eating M&Ms or skittles and having to organize them by color before you can eat them. Or every time you eat a pretzel, it has to be an even amount so both sides of your mouth can do the same amount of work. Or getting a burger and fries and having to eat only the burger first, then the fries, or vice versa.

Being lonely, craving affection, but scaring away every significant other you ever had - yeah, imagine that. Everything starts out great, they say they can handle your bad days, but then they see it a little worse than usual and they run. Or they claim they can't handle it anymore, so they leave. Or they tell you, "this is just too much for me. Why can't you just be normal?" Ouch.

Or fearing to get a test back, wondering if a bad grade will appear, being the one last straw before you snap. Or furthering your internal thought that you are a failure. Or having to tell your parents, causing a look of disappoint in their eyes and sting in their voice.

Tell someone a story and halfway through, get distracted by another story in your head and begin to tell that, then stop a few sentences in, and think back to the first story again, and continue that one, then back to the first, then back to the second, the back to the first, then mention what you had for breakfast, then back to-

Fifty minute lecture, having to sit in the back so your foot tapping won't become distracting, or the clicking of your pen won't annoy the professor, or so your doodles can fill up the pages in peace. Not being able to sit still, your body craves movement. Your brain filled with the thought of sprinting out of the room.

Empty pill bottles in your desk drawers, a calendar full of therapy appointments, a service dog by your side. You've tried everything. You've surpassed what people can recommend to you. Your doctors are out of ideas, and you're shit out luck. So you are just trying to survive. You can't escape. You are a prisoner of your own mind, and just trying to get through the day. And every time your head hits the pillow that evening, you feel yourself fill with a relief. Another day, another victory.