Nightmare

You’re strong. Strong. I’ve hunted for this word all of my life. I wanted it to be mine. I thought it would suit so well next to my name. Strong Eliza. Beautiful, smart…- I’ve never longed for those as much as I did for being strong.

Now when I write down in the middle of a rainy night after waking up from a bad dream, I know I’m strong. But there’s no one who can tell me that. I (have to) know it myself. You know you have to be strong when being strong is the only option you’ve got. When there’s no one who could put her arms around you and comfort you, but instead it is You who has to make sure that everyone’s okay.

But there’s a positive side to it: dealing with others’ weakness means you don’t have enough time to think of your weakness, of your own fears. You push them aside and lock them in a tiny dark room inside your mind. But you know they’re all there, like quiet hungry predators, because this room unlocks itself at night and releases the monsters right at the time when you’re most vulnerable, when your mind and imagination is no longer guarded by its beloved & trustworthy rationality.

Your fears and worries pick on your mind until your soul aches.

I was building my own nightmare to the edge of the loudest quiet scream I (n)ever heard. .. until I woke up. There was no one in there, and there was no one out there. It was just Me. And Me doesn’t always know what to do… Could I have just stopped it? Could I have just changed everything and turned my dream-reality into an okay one? How does it work? Is there a virus that makes us believe all the nonsense we see with the eyes of our irrational mind? After all, how can you run from what’s inside you?

It’s okay. Magic words.

Nothing is okay when you’re caught up in this terrifying storm.

It is the loneliness or the love for others that torments the most? The nonsense of loneliness and the fear of losing what you love: the scariest shadows of something most beautiful.

No, I was never afraid of being alone, but rather of the possible nonsense of it. The loss, however, is the pain in its highest and purest forms.

Should I stop loving and caring? It would definitely feel much easier, wouldn’t it? Could I stop taking what I love as part of myself? It’s so hard when you’re connected to everything and the separation feels like cutting living flesh out of your own.

I know: separation anxiety. I’ve been told before. But not much I can do about it.

I’ve learnt that anxiety catches you in a moment of panic like a fly into a sticky spider web, forcing you to sit there in that moment until your fear and despair intoxicates your system and paralyzes your last bit of will. That one moment lasts forever, while it forces you to go into depths of horrible things that can never be useful to you, nor to anyone. But you can’t fight them back. All you have to do is… release. Move forward and never look back on them.

Anxiety is a master of designing the most grotesque images until it scares your soul to death. You can quiet it by day, but you can’t quiet it by night. You can’t run away from it. You can’t turn your eyes away from it. It just builds up. I just couldn’t stop it.

“Look! Look at what you love the most! You’re gonna lose it! You’re gonna lose everyone. Even yourself. Look at all these grotesque distortions, the madness, feel the horror of nonsense. It’s nothing of what you’ve known. You can’t connect with them. You can’t protect them. You can’t save anyone. You’re too late.”

It hurts.

But I am strong. And as long as I have someone to protect, then I will. I will keep the light bright during the day, and I will deal with the shadows at night. I can do this. Because I’m strong. Maybe I was made for this.