Twenty percent of teenagers suffer from some kind of mental illness, but not all get help; many suffer alone. I have been fighting a battle with my own mind for years.  

It is a place where I lie for hours on end staring at the ceiling, where I cry myself to sleep, and where unfinished homework piles high. An old yellow bed frame creaks up against the wall, windows are adjacent to me. One is missing screen and another is smudged with fingerprints. Cranked open with the broken handle, a musty breeze fights its way through the woven screen. The corner of the room spits a dull pink light at me. A diffuser bubbles over with potent oils. Floral sheets strap me down, my left ear and cheek stick to my blanket with sweat as I lay with my back facing the poorly painted ceiling. Birds screech, leaves crunch and the sun barges in creating sharp shadows on my walls.

Through the kitchen and hall, up the stairs, across from Ava and Brooke’s room, lies the cage I lock myself in. Laying still, I try not to shake. The brain is panicked beyond measure- in racing hearts, in heavy chests, in the empty breaths of lungs.  My arms draw tight to my side, my legs stretch out in a single continuous line. I have clammy skin, sweat forms on the inside of my palms but I shiver. My feet are neither pointed or flexed. My jaw clenches and my hands create tight fists as fingernails carve into my skin. I try to breathe slowly, I suffocate. It seems impossible to swallow the lump in my throat, someone is sitting on my chest; my heart races.

My mind spirals, it is overflowing. My mind spirals, I can’t keep the anger from overtaking me. My mind spirals- do this, you aren’t good enough, do that. This panic confines me. I attempt to breathe but fail. The walls are falling in on me. I can’t breathe, I am being surrounded by my please-put-me-out-of-my-misery thoughts. They fill me from head to toe. Why does this happen to me? Why me? Screaming. My mind is screaming; it’s screeching; it’s spontaneously combusting. I can’t breathe. My eyes dart right to left and back again. The walls are going to collapse. I still can’t breathe. I can’t fight it. I need a distraction, an escape. Help me, I’m suffocating. Tears fill my eyes clouding the little vision I have left. I’m getting dizzy. I’m seeing stars-not ones on my ceiling. I need to get out. Out of where? I don’t know, but I need to get out right now. Nothing makes sense.

I can’t breathe.

I focus on the chickadee outside my bedroom window. I take a single slow breath. I feel myself slowly coming down from the adrenaline that previously raced through my body. At first, I found this feeling one of the strangest things in the world, but this is my new normal. The guidelines of my life. I think to all the other times and places that this has happened. There is no single trigger, that’s what makes it so hard to understand. I could be on a hike or watching a movie when all of a sudden, I am slapped across the face and run over with a train.

I wonder my own home mindlessly, to my own bedroom as I starve. Starve for the feelings I lack, to feel at ease or calm, even if it is just for a second. I slide further under my weighted blanket, trying to focus on the singing coming from the only bird on my bird feeder.

My eyelids fall, I release my jaw and unclench my fists. From my open mouth, I sip a single staggering breath in. Counting to three, I hold it inside me, “One...two...three” and slowly begin to exhale the air trapped in my lungs. Tension runs throughout my empty shell of a body, I try to relax. Starting with my toes, I release every muscle in my body. I continue all the way up to my face. With my focus on the bird, I begin to steady my breathing. My tears of panic dry, leaving little trails of salt on my cheeks and a small puddle on my pillow. The weight on my chest removes itself. If I’m “just a kid,” if I’m “making it up for attention,” if I “don’t know what I’m talking about,” then why do I feel this way?

“Chica-de-de-de, Chica-de-de-de,” A bird sings.

A vintage yellow bed frame hugs the corner, windows rest halfway up the wall adjacent to me. Propped open all the way, a warm breeze whispers through the blinds. The corner of the room offers a soft pink glow from a rugged salt lamp. The scent Peppermint and Eucalyptus fill the room as an oil diffuser gurgles. I lay snug in my floral sheets, my left ear and cheek rub the fuzz of my blanket as I lay with my back facing the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. Birds chirp, leaves rustle and the sun begins to create shadows on my walls as it is now the afternoon, and today I feel at peace with my mind.

Unlike the previous years, I can focus on something other than the monster inside me. I no longer bite through my own lip out of pure panic or scratch so hard I bleed. I march this uphill battle with dignity, some days are good and some not so great. I am a teenager who has good grades, who has a loving family, who looks forward to a future created by herself, and who happens to have a few mental illnesses. I am learning, learning to love myself, learning to ask for help, learning to be myself, to never give up, and most importantly I am learning that I am loved for doing those things.