22
I wake to the dream I’m in a world of broken glass. It’s everywhere: glittering slivers wafting in the air I breathe; jagged shards cobbled in the path I stand upon; serrated flakes that are tiled in glimmering fields, before rising into precariously stacked mountains; and a sky that might be a shattered mirror. I’m twenty-five and going through my second serious bout of depression, struggling to find functionality and purpose in a life that feels like it’s irreparably breaking. It’s not surprising to be here. Part of me, I think, abides here, and it’s a case of just how present I am. Now I am wholly here. Every step…
20
I lay in bed, waiting to hear voices. My psychiatrist has asked me if I have heard voices, and told me if I do I’m to ignore them, so hearing voices must be a possibility. I’m nineteen, and new to anxiety, panic attacks, and everything implicit. I don’t know what I’m facing. I don’t know what might come. I don’t know anything, so a mental health professional is logically my guide. I’ve never been so conscious of my thoughts. Like everybody, I think about what I might have to do, but only inasmuch as how it connects to do what I need to do in the world around me –…