I can honestly say I never understood the world. I was naïve. The people around me told me I had to change, to be like them. I wanted to, but I could not. So instead, I changed in other, much different ways, till eventually I did not recognize myself anymore.
As the world around me demanded more and more of me I tried less and less because the gap between what I could do and what they wanted was already a canyon. I wanted to be like them. I envied their communication skills, their focus, and above all their organization and ability to make sense of things. I wanted to jump that canyon. I didn't want to be a project, I wanted to be a success, but still be me. And eventually I would try to jump a canyon, though not successfully. For now, I learned to live in the shadows. The further you slip into the shadows the less they notice you. At first, it was almost like a beautiful serenity, like an emancipation. I no longer cared what they wanted, what they thought, what they demanded. And they found my absence to be no great loss in turn. No more conversations, no more greetings, not even eye contact.
And yet there were plenty of people trying to "fix" me. Their motivations, intentions and diagnostics of the problem and the solution varied, but they had one thing in common: they failed miserably. their simplistic and erroneous solutions failed to do that one crucial thing: understand the actual problem. Often times they would take whatever belief system or therapeutic approach that they ascribed to and throw it at me without little or no understanding of what the problem was. And ironically oftentimes when they failed, they would blame me, which is why eventually I came to accept it was my fault and that I had to change who I was. In short, these experts were far more toxic then helpful.
One of the first people that was supposed to "fix" me was Dr. Wade Clapton. Dr. Clapton had a great enthusiasm for two things: recently developed CBT and computerized testing for ADHD. I don't think he liked me, and I developed a keen hatred for him. He pushed CBT like a dealer pushes drugs. When it didn't work, he upped the dosage. After some time, he realized that he didn't know what he was doing when it came to me and referred me elsewhere, to my relief.
But the world as I knew it had changed. The sun and the sky and the stars were still there… majestic, powerful, massive, bright. Yet though I could still see them, and name them all, and describe them in the same terms, they had changed. A coldness had slipped in somewhere along the way. No matter how long I stared, nothing stared back, only a void. I walked through the world, seeing friends and family and going to class and doing what always had been life for me… but to my despair the term "life" no longer applied. I was imitating.
Now, not only was I a ghost, but the shadows had claimed me along the way. They had become a part of me, pushing out everything I used to be. And still, I didn't understand.
How do you argue with a shadow? How do you talk to the sky?
With no options as to course of action, I got used to the fade. No longer able to relate to those I left behind in the light, I took refuge in the shadows, alone. There was at least a strange sort of peace there.
Every time I returned my attention to the gritty earth, I was shocked by what I saw. People passed by that I knew, but somehow, I could not recognize them. And if perchance they noticed me (they rarely did), they had the most dramatic reactions… most hurried away, a couple heckled me mercilessly. There was a music in the background. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but I had never heard anything like it.
The strange thing was that as time passed, the light became almost as dim as the shadows. So much so that i could barely tell the difference between the real world and the one I had adopted.
Belatedly, I came to realize that my adoption of the shadows was not one sided, that there was an agenda that was exponentially bigger than I imaged, and the shadows were just the beginning, merely agents of something much more intent... and far more powerful.
The light was dying faster and faster now, and I was becoming increasingly frantic. I tried everything I knew to try, but without exception it all just blew up in my face and I began to wonder where all this was going. I felt like a leaf on a raging river. I was so disconnected from the world that I couldn't trust my judgment anymore.
As dusk settled, I found that the frenzied energy drained out of me. Confusion rallied, but emotionally I was blank. The only thought that broke through this confusion was to seek help, any kind of help, for whatever this was. Then, like a child, I pounced on a simplistic answer and rallied around it. It was the only thought that pierced the confusion: Help, I need help. Hospitals help people.
I started running faster and faster, though it seemed in slow motion. I could hear people calling after me, I could see the alarmed faces. Then I was outside and into the trees. Bursting onto the road, I picked the direction that I was sure would lead me to the hospital, though I knew not why. But once I got to the hospital, they would help me, I was sure of it.
My surroundings blurred. The last thing I remember was running, running down the road faster than I thought I could. And yet, I never made it to the hospital.
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