The True Nightmare

Content warning: Themes of body image issues and mental health struggles.

Kids are always envious of people older than them. They think it's cool. They're always wishing to be taller, to be a grown-up. Grown-ups always wish they were younger. When you're young, you're still innocent. You don't think about appearances, or money, or monsters. You just live. You're happy and you live.

It's easy being a kid. Being a teenager is rough. That's when you start obsessing over appearances and popularity, and money. And monsters. Little kids are scared of monsters, you know, the ones hiding in the closet and under the bed. Teenagers are afraid of the monsters you can't see. The ones that tear you down and eat you up from the inside out.

I've never liked my body. I couldn't exactly explain why, it's just the way I think. I hate my puffy cheeks and my frizzy hair that never seems to want to cooperate. I hate the stretch marks on my arms and thighs, and the fact that my stomach isn't flat. I hate how short I am.

I think everyone else hates me too. I've never been popular, and my friends always ditch me. I can't ever figure out why, though.

As I walk to school, I fidget with my shirt, pulling on it a little to try to hide my belly. I trip over a crack in the sidewalk because I was looking at my belly and not where I was going.

Now my ankle hurts as I walk into the old building. It's like I'm invisible. Nobody talks to me, nobody looks at me, nobody knows I exist. That's okay with me I guess. It's better to be invisible than to be the center of bullying.

I'm still miserable though. I'm always lonely and I'm always busy, even though I never have much of anything to do.

Now how does that work? I have homework due but I never have the motivation to do it. I have work but it doesn't feel like work because I'm on autopilot, I'm there but my brain is elsewhere. Where? I don't know.

I got fired from work because I wasn't working fast enough, wasn't productive enough. Now I'm spending my time listening to music and zoning out for hours on end.

Someday, I hope to be pretty. Someday I want to be more than a nobody, more than just a person that exists.

I'm so lost in my thoughts that I crash into another student. I apologize quickly and we're both on our way once more. I feel like karma hates me. I'm not sure what I've done to it, but apparently karma has it out for my guts.

I'm clumsy, ugly, I can't ever do anything right, and my very existence is a bore. To my knowledge, I've never done anything awful, but there's some monster out there that has it out for me.

I always try to imagine what that beast looks like. Is it pretty? Is it ugly? Is it made of thick shadows or rays of sunlight? Does everyone fight an invisible beast like I do?

Later that day, I walk home from school. I head into the house and go upstairs to my room. I hate my room. It's pink and juvenile and messy. I think about cleaning, but instead I just flop onto my twin bed and stare at the ceiling.

What must be hours later, my mom calls my name. She sounds angry. "You missed your father's big day at the company's grand opening!", Mom scolds as she bursts into my room. I did? Darn. I was actually excited to go.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I guess I lost track of time", I say. Because what else can I say? I've been staring into space for hours? I'll make it up to him? My mom doesn't wait for me to say those things. Instead she just shakes her head in disapproval and storms out of my room.

I don't move from my spot. I go back to staring at the ceiling.

I think about what it would be like to have a perfect body. To be everything I'm not. What would I want to look like if I was perfect? Pretty, both curvy and skinny, both muscled and petite, hair both long and short, blonde and brunette. Anything but me. I want blue eyes. Or maybe green. I hate my dull grey eyes and pale skin tone that shows every bit of flush imaginable.

My dog whines by my bed, seeming to need something. I'm too numb to move, too tired to care. She leaves my room.

I must've fallen asleep, because soon I'm dreaming.

A voice in the dark whispers, "Fat. Ugly. Useless." All the words are familiar. I can't see the person- or monster talking, but their voice is familiar, too. "You'll never be enough. You'll never be perfect." It says with a harsh laugh. "What's wrong? Can't find me? Wake up then. I'm right in front of you!" The beast yells. I want to scream, I want to cry, to yell I can't, but I'm frozen. Unable to do anything but listen. "You think everyone hates you! There's only one person out there who hates you! Only one person who wishes you were dead! Only one person who wishes for your downfall!" The beast continues, its voice growing ever louder. "That person's me!" It yells. "You're miserable because of me!" It continues. "You're lonely and sad because of me! All you have to do is stop me and you can be everything you ever wanted!"

I don't understand what the beast is saying. It feels like I can't breathe, like someone is strangling my lungs with their bare hands. I try to fight it, I try to breathe, I try to move, to wake up! Nothing works. I'm trapped, I'm stuck in my nightmares. My muscles are like lead. My words are nothing but short, desperate breaths of air.

"Wake up!" The beast- no, my voice shouts, piercing through my brain and I shoot up in bed, my breaths heavy and ragged.

I thought I'd wake up to see the beast that was in my nightmares, but all I see once my eyes adjust is myself in the mirror across from my bed.