Part One.
Check the lock, pull the handle, check the lock, pull the handle, check the lock, pull the handle. I say to myself.
I see how the front door in front of me slowly grows larger. I slowly lift the handle up so that it gets into the right position. I pull it up and down slowly, without pushing it down to open the door. Just lightly up and down so that it comes exactly how I want it.
So. I say to myself when the handle has settled.
Now there’s only one last thing to do, check out the keyhole. I think I deliberately pulled out on the handle to be able to delay it by just a few seconds. The music in my headphones doesn’t help. In the distance I can see that on the other side of the keyhole is a very dim light. As soon as something comes under them, they ignite with their true capacity. Suddenly the light comes on, it feels like a hard spotlight has hit me right in the face. It can only mean one thing, someone or something is outside that door. I feel a drop of sweat run down from where the light hit me. I need to see what’s out there, I need to know. I pull myself closer to the door, but my instinct pushes me away from the door. Those forces are equally strong, which leads me to stop. It felt like I stopped just after running with all I have, when the force of the sprint is so strong that you have to physically push yourself back. I now feel how my heart beats faster and how a shower of energy settles over me. The adrenaline has gotten so high now that I’m being pulled towards the door, whether I want to or not. Now the light has taken over everything I can see, that must mean I’m only inches from the keyhole. I squint to try to see who or what is out there, but I just have to get a little closer to see.
In ten seconds you will be in your bed completely safe, just do it. I try to persuade myself.
The only motivation I can get is when my brain hasn’t yet figured out what I told myself. It just thinks “do it”. And that’s when I have to watch out. I feel my calves pushing me forward closer and closer to the light. I now have my eye in the hole and just before my brain can take in what I see, I fly backwards and straight into something. I feel nothing.
I feel my eyelids open my vision for me, it’s like they want me to see something important in front of me. I just see my front door, and it makes me remember what just happened. I slowly start to get up but then the pain comes. A sharp and severe pain in the back of my head. I take my hand to feel, with it there is nothing to feel. My hand finds no surface to put its fingers on. I can’t even feel myself, my brain is thinking fast. “Is it a dream?”, “Am I hallucinating?” or “have I died”. I have no idea what’s going on, all I know is that my brain is freaking me out like it never has before. I slowly start to fall forward to find the ground getting closer and closer to my head. I feel myself slipping away from my body and slowly losing consciousness. I feel my head hit the ground. Then everything goes black. It feels like I’m falling into some kind of infinity. Then everything disappears.
My eyes have nothing interesting to give me but they still give me that. They give me the opportunity to see myself in the mirror in front of me. I quickly look away, the mirror helps them to see where I am. I stand up quickly and quickly jump into my bed. I did everything so abruptly that I didn’t even feel the pain in my head until I lay down. I’m sure now, just like I said before.
Part two.
I wake up to a harmony in my headphones, I didn’t have time to take them off yesterday I guess. But that’s not the only thing I wake up to, a sharp pain in my head that now seems to have doubled. I remain in bed to be able to feel the feeling of safety just for a few seconds. I lay down on the other side to be greeted by a red text, showing it’s one minute to 8. One minute of safety I think to myself, more than I thought I’d get. I spend that time like it’s the best of the whole day. But suddenly the scary red eight appears and it’s time to get up. I have gotten up at eight every single day of my life, except for one day when I overslept. The doctors couldn’t take away my sense of stress or make me stop screaming. They did what they thought was right, but the only one who knows what’s right is my brain. It forces me to do certain things and I listen, because if I don’t obey, even doctors can’t help me. So now it’s time to get up. I stand up to put on my clothes and get ready. Then my food will arrive at ten past eight. As it has done for the past year.
It is now ten past eight and my food has arrived on a plate. I take the plate and cutlery next to it and sit on the bed. I look at porridge like it’s the thing that will make me whole. I take the spoon and push it down into the food pick it up, I get ready to receive it in my mouth but it gets stuck just inches from it. “Don’t eat it” I think.
This is crazy. I mutter to myself and try again.
But it stops in front of my mouth. “Don’t eat it” I think. What’s going on, I’m impossibly hungry, how can I tell myself not to eat it. “Don’t eat it”. I look at the food in front of me and think how it will feel to finally have some food. “Don’t eat it”. My willpower is too strong, I can’t get the spoon into my mouth.
Please. I say to myself. Please don’t do this.
“Don’t eat it”. My brain has taken over my body. I feel tears slowly starting to run down my cheek.
Please, please, please, please stop.
“Don’t eat it”. I can now feel the tears just getting more and more,
Please. I sob out.
“Don’t eat it”. I feel my body being taken over by something else, and I drop the plate and throw the spoon in the way.
No, no, no, no, no. The feeling of losing that food was one of the worst of my life.
My knees now bow to the one thing I wanted. Such a small thing to ask for, but now it’s gone. I’m crying now like I just lost a parent. I watch on the ground as it slowly disappears away from me. I can’t manage to hold myself up anymore, I fall to the ground. I have no plans to stand up, I’ll just stay put.
(optional to read)
Suddenly I hear voices outside the walls.
And here is our example for a person with paranoid schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Says a man.
Can he see us? Says a little girl.
No, what you see through he perceives only as a mirror, but there is a small keyhole for him if he wants to see other people. But don’t worry about it, it never happens.