Spiraling

“This is all my fault.” When I woke up, the words rang in my ears. I knew I needed to stop talking to myself this way, but it was harder to put that into practice than my therapist made it sound. The glow-in-the-dark stars glued to my ceiling dimmed as the sunrise peeked through the white vinyl blinds. I should have closed the curtains entirely instead of lazily pulling them halfway shut from my bed. Moving the bed against the wall gave me more space, but it did not really follow any design style or feng shui. Generally, I had lived in this room too long without committing to a full redecoration. Birthday cards from the fifth grade, tacked to the wall, were paired with posters I hastily bought at fourteen in an attempt to age up or redefine my space. At seventeen, I didn’t strongly relate to any of it. It was not that I was above it all or resented the decorations. The nostalgia for them was why they remained untouched. It was just that some part of my internal monologue desperately wanted a room that represented something different. Maybe that was the root of the problem.

“Chris! Get up! You’re going to be late!”

I didn’t really want to go, but staying there was worse. “I’m getting up.”

I dragged myself to the bathroom across the hall and took a long look in the mirror. Several blemishes emerged overnight. As I began to squeeze them, I berated myself for the damage I knew I was doing to my skin. I had heard it from my parents, doctors, and peers. The zits themselves didn’t look worse than the bloody mess I left behind. But somehow, regardless, this morning ritual persisted. As I attempted to remove every imperfection with brutally inaccurate force, I tried to remember what work I was supposed to do for what class. I calculated the assignments I could miss without consequence and what could have been done hastily in between periods or as class was about to begin: what required accuracy and what required time. Eventually, I concluded it would be easier to do none of it and take the hit.

The hot water washed the blood off my chin as I wrung a nearly empty bottle of two-in-one Head & Shoulders into my hands. I remembered the moment I realized I had dandruff. In a seventh-grade math class I scratched at my scalp until it was practically snowing on me and my neighbors’ desks. I did not think about it twice. It was only once I looked up and saw the horrified reaction of the girl across from me that I realized something I was doing was unusual or, worse, unhygienic. I wondered if I would still think about that when I was thirty or forty or if, eventually, I would let it go.

I pulled my uniform over my wet hair, which I barely tried to dry, and scrambled down the stairs to find my mother, frantic, waiting by the door. I had just enough time to grab a Pop-Tart and say good morning as she ushered me into the car through a series of aggressively opened doors. It was early October and I already had a general sense for how the day would progress. I would arrive in homeroom. I would speak to no one. I would probably put my head down on my desk and take a small nap, unless I decided one assignment would be worth the last-ditch effort. These days it was becoming rarer.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care about school or grades. In clearer moments, I could imagine a better future where I actually put in effort. Some days, I wondered if it was too late. But, now that I was older, I could remember years when I said the same thing about other skills or goals only to feel slightly silly later. It may never be too late to reinvent yourself. This upward wind of optimism was cut short by my mother’s voice.

“Chris, is everything alright?”

“I’m fine. Just a little tired.” I lied.

“It’s just that, I worry about you. You’ve been so quiet lately.”

“I said I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Well… should we go to the doctor? Do you need help with that?”

“No. I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep for a bit.” I cradled my head in the seat belt and closed my eyes—mostly to end the conversation but also because what I was saying was partly true. Ever since I had been allowed to move the TV in my room, and a laptop, I had not gone to sleep before 3 AM. I didn’t even remember what I spent most of my night doing. I spent my nights scrolling through pages of nonsense and watching reruns of reruns of Adult Swim. I didn’t even like most of the shows. I just didn’t care enough to change it.

Around sophomore year, shortly after my bedtime became unsustainable, I started sleeping in most of my classes. When I slept in small bursts, it didn’t really feel like sleeping and it didn’t really feel like being awake. A yelling teacher woke me before a stress dream about a detention from a yelling teacher, and then I would drift off again. I started drinking coffee this year but, really, it only got me through the first period.

“Honey, we’re here.” My mom nudged me awake as we pulled up to the school. I blinked, gathering myself, before grabbing my backpack. “Have a good day! I love you!”

“I love you too. I’ll see you later.”

I walked into the school slowly. As I crossed the parking lot, I scanned to see which classmates were walking in. I didn’t talk to any of them. The school itself was brick with blue adornments. The windows themselves seemed shaded blue in the right light. The signs out front tried to split the difference between historic and practical in a way that felt hollow and half-assed. Once I entered through the side entrance, I emerged to a sea of blue lockers and vinyl floors. I intentionally made my way towards my homeroom, taking the shortest route but, suddenly, I heard a growing chorus of laughter. I looked back to see the same girl who recoiled at my dandruff pointing and laughing at me. Everyone was laughing and pointing at my lower half. I looked down and realized I was standing there in my underwear.

“This is all my fault.”