All in my Mind

XXXIII.

Firstly, I want to beg you to please not be mad at me. I told you this ends badly at the very beginning. I never misled you in any way. I've tried to be as honest as I can be given the circumstances. I've been honest to my own perspective about almost everything.

When I got to the facility, everything was a blur. Everything was like a dream gone wrong. It was like I was an astronaut alone on the moon. It was an echo chamber of my thoughts and nothing more.

Addison was really scary back then. She seemed to be around quite often and she seemed to be deeply unhappy with just about everything. She blamed me a lot. I kind of blame me too.

The boy was present too. Of course when I say the boy, I'm referring to Alexander. You know that now.

"You're going to be okay, Alex," he said to me nearly every day.

I owe him a lot for that assurance among his many other assurances.

I found him comforting in an almost embarrassing kind of way. I wasn't exactly lucid to how bad everything had suddenly gotten, but I knew that it was increasingly negative at the very least. He was always calm though. He was always seemingly trying to help.

That doesn't come easy to him, you know? He isn't well versed in being the optimist. He grew up in a household with a slowly departing father, a sick sister, and a quiet financial crisis that only got alleviated because his grandpa died. His philosophical end point before I came into being was a collision with bullets. Optimism is sparse.

Alexander had always been mildly stressed, even if it wasn't always as pronounced. Even before all of those major stressors popped up.

For example, his parents used to have a boat. With a lot of people, a boat is kind of the sign of a privileged childhood, which might be a fair summation. He was just a little bit privileged. This was all before Emily had even been born, and before his parents had sold the boat to pay for cancer treatments, and before Alexander had any reasons to doubt the rationality and capabilities of his father. His dad knew how guide a boat. They lived near the ocean. He grew up on boats. Alexander had nothing to fear in all that.

When Alexander remembers the boat, all he remembers is how terrified he always was. They'd go on boat trips, the three of them together. His mom and dad would look so relaxed while the little aluminum boat rocked in the low swells of the ocean. They always went on clear days. The sun was always shining. He supposed even as a child that it seemed quiet and relaxing to most people.

Alexander felt like his tiny body was suffocating in his life jacket. He couldn't stop thinking about how small and vulnerable they were in comparison to the entire sea. He felt like the entire world was off balance. He thought he was seconds from drowning anyways, even though he was safe in the boat. He imagined how deep the water was. He imagined death.

Those aren't normal thoughts for a small child. Alexander was barely even school aged. It just goes to show that he's been scared like that his entire life. He's been scared of small unreasonable things forever. He's always been scared of the world.

Imagine how hard it's been for him to try and fight me off. Imagine how strong he's had to be.

We have this in common though. I've always been completely and utterly unsure of the world around me. That little bit of kinship between us has helped. Even when I was completely lost from reality in those early days, I could at least take comfort in knowing he understood something.

I also need to be blunt and honest with you here. I know exactly who Alexander is to me. In case you've misunderstood that, then you should know I'm aware. I understand how dissociation works. I know his experiences are mine too. I know I've developed this convoluted explanation to separate me from the sweet kid of whome I have nothing but empathy. I know that the only way I can sustain hatefulness for myself is through removing all acknowledgements that I hurt like Alexander did too. I know... okay?