Trials and tribulations : maybe a story.

The very large box of insecurity and fear that sitn my chest has cost me alot on life. Wishing it would all go didn't make it any less. It kept increasing minute by minute, day by day until I created my own world of make-believe. Like a cocoon with an underdeveloped insect inside it because that's what I was, underdeveloped. I shut myself from the rest of the world having wanted nothing to do with the world or its activities. I only do things that are necessary and was that boring young girl who had no fun in her life no had any idea of how to have fun. Even when I get invited to some fun centre and have no chance of declining. I go along with them and what they do. On the outward I look like I am having fun, but inwardly it means nothing to me. It's not that I didn't know what fun is, I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy it. My heavy chest wouldn't let me.

I can't remember how I ended up the way I am. I recall having really terrible childhood experiences that I can't remember probably because of the coping mechanism I developed early in life, that of denial and suppression. They sometimes seek means of expression in the form of nightmares. There seem to be alot of villains in the dream. Sometimes it's my father, sometimes my mother and sometimes my doppelganger. These dream happen really fast that sometimes I can't remember them and all they leave me are waves of shock and dread. They occur every single night. I want to set my heart free, release all the weight that I have been carrying on my chest. It isn't surprising that alot of people find me strange and when a girl my age once tried to get closer to me in school, she asked me, "Fatimah, what's wrong with you?" because it was obvious to people that I am not that alright. Hearing a person ask me that for the first time felt really good despite knowing that most of them don't really care, they just want to know what's going on in your life. That was the first time anyone has asked me that question. I was suprised at the discovery I made when I tried to give her an answer. I found nothing. "I don't know", I replied. She shrugged it off and attempted to engage me with small talks but the attempts failed. The realisation was so shocking that I felt so ashamed and sad. I have always known that I am not an alright person, but I have never had the courage to search for the reason. It was at this point that I realise why all my attempts towards freeing myself have ended the way they did; in vain. How can you reset a fracture when you only feel the pain but have no idea where it is coming from? That's the most impossible thing in the world. Despite this realisation, I was hardly ready for any of that. I had no idea how to be ready and even if I was, I didn't know I was ready. The pain in my chest got sharper as a thousand thoughts swirl in my head..

I got home with the pain growing sharper and a terrible headache hit my head like a bulldozer truck. Mum wasn't around, "Thank God! No scolding for now". I went to the kitchen and downed some pain reliever tablets on my half empty stomach. Without showering, I went straight to my room and crashed, the girl's question replayed in my head, "Fatima, what's really wrong with you?". The expression on her face looked caring and welcoming, but perhaps that is what I imagined because of how starved I have been of that care. Perhaps she even had a smirk on her face as an indication that she things I am wierd. I don't know and don't really care.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, I don't know....".

In my sleep, I saw myself lying in a garden and suddenly, my chest opened releasing the insecurity and hurts that's been bottled in their for long. They had faces like normal humans. Insecurity was a beautiful girl with long hair and floating robe, hurt wasn't as beautiful and had a huge scar across her cheek. They disappeared back into my chest when they saw an unpleasant looking animal approaching me, the animal darted towards me and was already a few inches away when I snapped out of the dream.

"Not again... not again.."