It's all in your head

Dear Diary,

I don't know where I am, what I was doing before, or how I came to be. I am in a small, low-ceilinged room. For my companions I have you and a wooden desk and chair set at the end of the room. A feeble window lets in light but it is translucent and I really can't see what's going on outside. I am scared, diary. I... I don't know why I'm here.

Dear diary,

Today is day 2. Or day 2 and a half. I have no sense of time. A square meal was pushed into my room. I had boiled potatoes and water and I am feeling a little less nervous now. Although, I am still scared. Flashes of memory come to me in the night as my dreams but I can never remember all of them. Help me, diary!

Dear diary,

It has now been a week (according to a calendar I grew up on one wall) and no one has spoken to me yet. I sleep on a steel cot provided to me by my captors and I cannot feel my back anymore. My spirit is more broken than ever and I am considering starvation.

Dear diary,

I finally got the window open! Today along with the food, someone slipped in a small screwdriver in the middle of the sandwich. I turned it clockwise and opened the window! I can breathe fresh air now. But all I see is a dense fog. Well, at least now I know the difference between night and day.

Dear diary,

According to my calendar, it has been a month. I can hear voices from outside my room. It feels like someone has opened up my ears and every day it is just getting louder. I feel like someone is trying to get to me. I can't keep this up anymore diary. Now and then I see big burly figures and I wake up with a black eye on those days. I feel scared to even walk from one end of the room to another and as a result, I can't sleep for another three days. This cycle has been going on for three weeks now. I think I'm glad that I'm being held in this room because I know for a fact that I can't bear to go outside.

Dear diary,

Three months have gone by and I can feel the beginning of a summer heatwave on my face every morning. I now had a fluorescent light in my room and I am being slipped new pieces of paper now and then as though someone wants me to write in you. Two people- a man and a woman were talking in hushed tones. Whatever is being done to me is probably so bad that they can't talk about my punishment loud enough.

Dear diary,

Six months. Six months since I was locked up in a bare room. I didn't write in you quite that often because I felt things were getting a little more clear. I could see faces and realized my door had a minuscule window. It feels like someone removed the fuzz in my room and the fog outside started clearing up. I think I can last another few more months.

Dear diary,

It has now been nine months and I cannot believe I stuck around for so long. The window was open and I could've jumped but I made an active choice. I think I am being rehabilitated. Perhaps I am in a prison and I have been given solitary confinement. Oh my! I must have done something very wrong then. But I heard the voices more clearly today. A soft female voice was telling me Mmmhmmm now and then like she was listening to everything I am telling you. What is going on?

Dear diary,

It has officially been 11 months since I woke up in a room with no idea of what I was doing before that. The white walls seemed a little more colorful now. The stark contrast of the brown desk looked aesthetic. The steel cot had been replaced with a mattress about a month ago. Someone or something was slipping me treats once in a while. And the voices! I heard the voices getting more clear every day. Someone was talking about this year's end being the day to take me out! 1 more month diary. Let's go!

"Hello Simon," I heard a soft female voice. "How are you feeling?"

I shook my head, trying to open my eyes against the blinding lights. "A little fuzzy in the head but I'm actually doing great." I finally opened my eyes to a doctor's office. No. A therapist's office.

"What am I doing here?" I asked, still processing my surroundings.

"You have been depressed and suffered from anxiety in the past year. I blame the trauma induced by bullying in your junior years. A year ago, your sister brought you to the Er when you fainted due to a panic attack. A week later your parents brought you to me. You were very unresponsive for a while but often you would refer to me as a 'dear diary' so I assumed you had a secret diary that you often wrote into. I was given the diary and I realized your issues."

I was silent for a while. "Well then, what was the room and the fog and voices I kept hearing?"

"Oh, the Room was where you had locked yourself into. You refused to let me in your head to help you out for the first month. But slowly, you opened to 'dear diary' a little more. The treats that you told me about were active efforts by your parents to reach out to you." She looked solemnly at me, "Simon, I want you to know that whatever prison you lock yourself into, someone is waiting to pull you out. Today you broke out of your own prison. You have opened your mind to new things and I am so proud of you."

I left the office today and for the first time, I thought I saw the world for what it was. Although my parents came over constantly to check on me, I felt like I was finally free. Confronting my problems as an image was a horror story I wanted to forget but a lesson I wanted to keep in my mind forever.