A, B, C, D, E, F & Me

My hands finally stop moving.

“You’re tired,” says D, my closest friend. “You’ve worked a lot today.”

I believe it because my body feels heavy against the chair. Still, it’s early and I could work for a couple more hours if I wasn’t feeling exhausted. Five hundred decent words will have to be enough, I tell myself and D assents. It could seem little, but it took me a few false starts to actually get something done. It was never good enough for my critical friends.

“You should keep going, otherwise you won’t make it in time,” A tells me. She's always presenting me the worst-case scenarios. Along with F, she has kept me up for more nights than I care to admit.

Speaking of F, I hear his voice. He tells me I should review everything that I’ve written so far. I should make sure it’s good. I wouldn't want to make a fool of myself, right? So I struggle against D and keep going by re-reading the words on the screen.

“Utter rubbish!” screams B. “Who will ever want to read any of that? It’s a shameful attempt at writing. Scrap it!”

Before I can consult with my other demon friends, my hands have started to move again. I stare at an empty document. A goes ballistic. She wonders how I’ll ever meet the deadline now that I've deleted everything that I had written.

Thankfully D and E are there for me. E guides me towards the kitchen and encourages me to grab a tub of ice cream from the freezer. I eat it all in one go and D lulls me. My body finally relaxes while the darkness swallows me whole.

***

I wake up with a start. I desperately look for my phone. What time is it?, I wonder. The sun is shining outside, and my suspicions are confirmed the second I find my phone.

“Too damn late! How can you be so irresponsible?” A screams at me. Her voice reverberates inside my body until it makes my heart sink.

“You know you’re a failure. Why would you expect anything else?” I know D is trying to calm me down, her voice is as empathetic as can be. Still, it only makes me sad. D has a knack for it. She makes justice to her name as she depresses me. She makes me feel tired and unwilling to engage in any activity.

Depression takes my happiness away and makes writing feel like a burden. I used to love molding the thoughts in my head and turning that mess into something beautiful. Deep down I guess that I still do and that D is the problem. She’s a hindrance that makes my other demons work overtime to compensate for the delays she causes.

Half an hour has already passed when I slip from D’s grip and step into another’s arms. A is again by my side as she almost always is. She takes turns with D and pushes me towards an entirely different direction.

“Chop, chop. Hurry up! You haven’t got a single word written.” I take A’s hand and sits down by my desk once more. Not even a single hour has passed when E reminds me that I should eat something. It would help me to quieten A as she's been pestering me nonstop. Also, I need fuel after all. Perhaps that's why I wasn't productive at all... So I get up and grab some snacks.

Another hour goes by and E drags me to the kitchen again. He knows Anxiety can harm me and he tries to make up for it. He wants me to relax so he offers me serotonin and dopamine in the form of sweets. I know Eating Disorder has my best interests at heart. He combines efforts with Compulsion and they make me feel better.

It works for a while. All the food helps, but soon after C and EC go away I'm plagued by my other demons. They shame me for hanging out with them in the first place. D can only focus on how I’m letting their bad influence drag me down a dark path. Fear is horrified by what I’m doing to myself. A and B are mean, never missing the chance to point out my ever-widening hips. They remind me that my blood vessels are more and more clogged each time I hang out with my infamous friends. They don’t get that I need that heinous company to take the edge off spending time with them.

I eat until I’m about to throw up. I write until my fingers are about to fall off. I procrastinate until I’m about to miss every single deadline. All of those things take the edge off… So I have peace for a while. I kindly remind C and E that their job is done. I'm calm. When they look and see that A, D, and F are asleep they take their cue to leave. Only B stays with me and he's in a great mood. Thus, so am I.

The food my friends offered me gives me a boost. I notice that my muses flourish and my brain overflows with great ideas and passionate goals. I'll do this! I'll do that! It's gonna be great! My fingers move as fast as they can. I'm on overdrive. Super productive. Super creative.

For a while, I pour my soul into the screen through my fingers. The document is rapidly filled. Five hundred words turn into a thousand and then into two thousand. Three, four... I'm unstoppable!

I imbue each sentence with confidence. I craft a world of my creation. I feel alive even if only for a short while. Everything is wonderful. Certainly, that's how a skillful writer must feel. I'm one of them. Aren't I? Or am I?

Oh, no. I hear them coming.

"Wakey, wakey. Did you miss us?" The second they appear and my world is turned upside down. I'm uncertain again. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up the level of productivity of the past few hours. The worst part is that once they're with me, they don't want to leave and do whatever they can to annulate C and E's efforts.

I stop. I try to concentrate again, but the words I was about to type before they arrived have vanished. I eat some more, but it doesn't ebb the rush of despair that has chosen my body as its temporary home. Nothing feels right anymore.

I get up and walk almost in perfect circles. I feel trapped. My reflection shows a perfect caged animal. There's nowhere to run to. Nothing will ever be okay. I'm doomed. I'll fail again, I can feel it in my bones. I head to the bathroom and trace the cabinet. I open it up and stare at a particular item inside. I'm tempted, but there's still a tiny little spark of an estranged colleague I hardly talk to anymore: Me. I close the cabinet and walk back to the desk.

It's no longer my heart that writes, it's my brain that compels my hands to move while A threatens it. I struggle against the bleak prospect of not finishing in time. I still have two hours...

I fill in the gaps, but I'm starting to lose the fight against my demons. My breathing is ragged, my fingers tremble and my head won't stop manufacturing dark fantasies. I take another break.

"You're wasting precious time," A screams at me. I know. Oh, I know it so well. I try to remind her that this is the umpteenth time that I'm in this situation. I'm no stranger to having her and the rest of our friends over while I'm trying to create something. She snaps at me as she reminds me of how many of those times I wasn't good enough. A believes I'll fail again and I think that myself.

F is nervous. He calls on B to convince me to give up before things go south. "If you quit you can't fail," they remind me and I'm tempted to listen to them as I have in the past. It came to no fruition then, though. It definitely won't come to any fruition now.

I sit back. C wants to distract me again. She begs for any kind of cheap thrill that can take my mind off of this torturous experience I signed myself up for. She compiles a list. Food, funny videos, a well-written story unlike mine... E comes along, tugging D by its arm. They want me to prolong the break.

I look at the clock. I only have 45 minutes. A gives me a pointed look. There is no going back if I don't resume my writing right now, the two of us know it.

D adds her two cents, "For all we know, it's too late already. You're in a vicious circle you can't break."

I prefer to stick with A. I won't give up ahead of time again, so I place my fingers on the keyboard and wait for inspiration to strike.

Eleven thirty...

Inspiration doesn't strike. I revert to logic and fix potential plot holes. I finish the story, but the ending is so predictable... I don't like it. It doesn't feel like it's a part of me. I try to make it better, to relate more to it, to turn it into something I can consider to be artful...

Eleven fifty-nine…

"If you just change this one last line…" I try, but time passes me by.

The clock strikes midnight and there’s another missed deadline. My eyes, they cry. I’m not all right. I can’t escape this sorry plight.

B and C grab my hands. The blade is where it always is. It's in the cabinet as I had seen it hours before. I feel the need to stop the pain. I feel the need to control the pain. I feel the need to inflict my own pain. The old scars are still there to remind me that I'm no stranger to this. The oldest ones are hidden by tattoos now. I had vowed never to do this again, but both Borderline Personality Disorder and Compulsion know how it works.

My hands move of their own accord. It must be muscle memory, I realize. The blade grazes the skin of one arm, skirting the drawings that adorn that patch of flesh. I know I shouldn’t. I know it won’t make it any better. There are other less permanent ways to deal with the torment of having my friends A, B, C, D, E and F daunting me. I will myself to stop. I place the blade back to where it belongs, but I can't just leave it behind. It comforts me for a while. I lie down on the floor, but the pain comes back within minutes and it brings my demon friends along with it. Each one takes turns to tells me the nasty things I don't want to hear.

"What will we do now? How will we ever trust you again? And how are you gonna hide the new scars? Everyone will know that you've lost your mind again," A admonishes me.

"Trash that damn computer! Why does it matter if you're a terrible writer? Why does anything matter? It's pointless anyway. Nothing even feels real!" Borderline Personality Disorder blusters.

"Do something about it! Stop the pain. Grab some food or cut some more!" Compulsion cajoles.

"Let's just end your sorry life. It won't ever get any better. You already hate yourself anyway," Depression decides.

"Maybe if you ate the sugary things you have in the pantry and fridge… It could get better. It has always helped before..." Eating Disorder entreats.

"Stop them! We're gonna die, we're gonna die!" Fear fretted.

Still, among those dark friends, there's Me.

I can barely see through the tears, but I manage to fish my phone out of my pocket. My fingers tremble. I still remember the numbers from the last time I called. The time in which I hung up before anyone could pick up...

Eight. “You should give up.”

Double oh. I take a breath.

Two, seven … “Stop now.”

Three. I tear up again.

Eight. “You won’t ever get better.”

Two. I remember my art.

Double five. There’s no going back now...

I hear a machine and a song before a human being talks to me.

“I need help,” I almost scream on top of my demons. It’s been too long since I’ve heard that sound. It's Me and I have a voice, too.