The Fight.

I’m in a dark, mirrored room. It reminds me of something you would see on television, an interrogation room of sorts. There are only two things in the room.

The first is me. I’m anxious and I can feel my heart throbbing in my chest painfully as I glance towards one mirrored wall. I don’t know why I’m in this room, what’s going on. But that’s not what’s bothering me.

The second thing in the room is a long table with several objects strewn across the top. I immediately recognise every item there and I feel my chest constricting as I look at them one by one.

And then the voice begins. It’s loud and firm as it plays from the speaker in the top corner of the room, above the door and I step back, frightened. The voice keeps speaking and I tune in to listen to what it is telling me. It’s ordering me in that same infuriatingly calm and yet firm voice to pick up the gun from the table, to look it over. It describes the damage that this particular gun could cause and then describes where and how to hold it if I choose to use it on myself. Shocked at this information I drop the gun back to the table, my hands shaking and my breathing ragged. But the voice doesn’t stop. It simply moves to the next object… a rope, already tied into a noose and waiting to be used. I’m feeling overwhelmed now, out of control as the voice simply continues and my eyes are stuck glued to each object as it describes them. The sharp knife, the smaller razor blade, the bottle of prescription pills, the jug of rat poison and the image of a cliff, jagged rocks at the bottom.

When the voice finally pauses I feel the warmth of my tears as they travel down my cheek. I’m completely overwhelmed and confused. Why am I here? Why are these options laid out on the table in front of me like this?

Just as I feel in the midst of my panic, about to collapse to my knees and scream I hear the creak as the door opens into the room, a woman far too familiar walking in and staring me down.

In the same calm and yet firm voice she used over the speaker, I hear her tell me to choose. She tells me it’s time to give up and let myself go, that I’ve been fighting too long and too hard.

I don’t want to listen to her, but what other choice do I have when she is me?

I wake up with a racing heart and my mind already working a mile a minute. Even dreaming I can't escape feeling like this and as much as I try not to let it, it sets the tone for the day. It's even harder to drag myself out of bed, to choke down a breakfast I have no interest in eating.
I don't want to feel this way any longer and I fight to remind myself that it won't last forever. It will end one day. I fight to make it through just one more day.