I thought I would start a sort of online journal to help keep my thoughts in order. Even after all this time, I struggle to come to terms with this curse I have to grapple with. Maybe the extra eyes will help me come up with better solutions than just surviving what I am dealing with. Who knows, maybe someone knows something. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
My name is Alex and I have a weird “affliction”. Whenever I experience a negative emotion, my surroundings begin to morph into some sort of death trap. They are kind of like tests. Part of the reason I struggle so greatly is I am the only one who witnesses these events. It’s really lonely. On the bright side, my tests dissipate into nothingness before they can kill me when someone else approaches. It has to be a person though and they have to be actually there. Calls drop and devices like cameras fail. Basically, I can’t prove this happens to me.
I talked to my mom about it, when it first happened to me. I was so scared. She patted me on the head and told me I always had such an overactive imagination and I would put it to good use one day. Then she smiled at me and walked out of the room. I remember crying because who would believe me if my own mother wouldn’t. That resentment, anger, and sadness triggered my second test. It taught me to be careful who I talked to though. I am sure I would get locked up if I talked to a therapist about my issues. I would be immediately dismissed as a drug addict and be diagnosed with psychosis or schizophrenia. Maybe I have just lost my marbles and extensive therapy would help. Even then, if I’m not crazy, I would be under near constant surveillance at an institution. No room for any tests, under that kind of watch. I want to live my life even if it is lonely. What reason is there to live in a supervised box anyway?
Anyways, enough sad musings for today. I am posting with a purpose. Let me explain my affliction. My curse has two variants. The variants depend on how my negative emotions come about. Emotions that stem from real world occurrences and problems I was faced with or emotions that stemmed from my own inner dilemmas. I know it’s confusing as pretty much anything is technically a real world occurrence but issues I classify as real world variants are things like fights, breakups, etc. Whereas my own internal negative emotions would be more like my anxiety or depression, mood swings, things like that. It isn’t a perfect system but it lets me know which variant I’m in most of the time which changes how things operate.
In a real world variant, I have two options: outlast my trap or solve my dilemma with that person (which pretty much never happens). In an internal variant, I have one option, pass my test. It can be anything physical, a puzzle, or any other crazy thing but it’s always something I am equipped to deal with. At least, so far, I guess.
Which leads me to my current problem, sleep paralysis. I’ve been having nightmares and a lot of anxiety about my college applications so for the past three days I have been waking up to near death experiences. Let me just say, I am not a fan. Two days ago, I woke up to my room turning into a deadly treadmill. The wall opened up into an incinerator and a timer on the front of the wall read ten minutes. I almost cried when I saw that. Ten minutes of cardio at 10 am?! All my stuff was getting thrown through the incinerator and back through my room to really make my morning special. Luckily, these trials don’t actually affect the world around me. Objects and walls don’t stay damaged after the tests. It’s actually a blessing to get my anger out sometimes. I have “broken” so many windows.
Yesterday, I woke up and a double-bladed ax was swinging on a pendulum inching towards my stomach. I could slowly wiggle away from it but I couldn’t lift myself up or I would risk goring myself. I was in a narrow little gutter that didn’t even give me room to put my arms at my side. I was practically out when I heard the knock on my door. I was a little annoyed that I didn’t finish my test but my dad was just letting me know we were heading to the dentist. I wasn’t too worried as it was a fairly easy test.
For the internal variants, I get the same test over and over until I pass or die. As opposed to the real world ones, as long as they are different feelings or originate from a different source then it will be a different test no matter if I passed or not, as well if I pass the test I can continue having those feelings without getting a new test. A big risky thing about that is accruing resentment and then having to pass a new test. Yeah, I know, I’ve written the whole fucking ten commandments about how my curse works. When it’s life or death, you keep track of the rules.
This morning I woke up anxious again ready to start my test when I realized I couldn’t move. I started panicking, crying, screaming, nothing worked. I watched the ax come closer and closer and I had finally accepted my death when I realized I could finally move. I thrashed as fast as I could when I noticed at this point it was too late to get my feet past. I yelped in pain as the ax nicked my ankle when it all suddenly stopped and my mom stuck her head in. She let me know she was gonna make breakfast. She was about to leave but stopped for a moment and looked at me for a good minute. Then she just said it would be ready in twenty and closed the door behind her. I limped to the bathroom and psyched myself up. It was a really nasty cut but I luckily didn’t seem to hit anything important. I went back and cleaned up my trail of blood.
I was still so anxious I just decided to wait in my bed so I could just get the test over with. If I had wanted I could have just gone to breakfast but I didn’t want to risk the ax test tomorrow and now that I was able to move I was pretty sure it would be an easy pass. I got through it very uneventfully but afterwards I cried like I hadn’t cried before. It had been a while since I was so close to death. I kept thinking about how my parents would have felt to find me gutted on my bed with no explanation. Or having to live without both my feet. Wouldn’t be able to explain that one either. Ultimately it made me write this post. At least if I die there is some kind of trace of what happened if they look hard enough.
Honestly, I am really scared that tomorrow I will have sleep paralysis again and that will be it. At least I won’t have to deal with the ax test but I think I’m gonna spend some time researching sleep paralysis. Wish me luck. If you don’t hear from me again, I’m probably dead.