No place to hide. There is never a place to hide. How do you hide from your own thoughts? You can’t.

My parents don’t think twice when I talk to them. They brush off my problems as if they don’t exist. But they do. My mind is slowly eating me alive because of my problems. My mind is the one telling me I’ll never be enough, never succeed, never be loved.

And it is right, you know. I’m not ever going to be enough because I can’t overcome these thoughts. I will never be my own person because my mind consumes me day in and day out.

I’ve tried to fix this. I change personalities in an attempt to run. No one notices, though. I’m scared, so scared. If no one notices that I am a new person, why would they notice when I’m gone? They won’t, my brain whispers. No one cares now, they won’t care later either.

Shut up brain. I try to tell myself people do care, they would miss me if I left. My mind just laughs, because it knows that it will always win, in the end. It will take me back to the dark, haunting corners until I submit.

I don’t want to submit. Some days, I can even see a glimpse of the girl I used to be, before I went through the cheerleader phase, the nerd phase, the jock phase. Before I kept myself separate from everyone else, for fear my mind would begin to destroy them as well.

There is always a before. I used to have friends, I think, in the before. I can remember them sometimes, if I manage to cut through all of the people I have been since then. Maybe they used to care, these friends, back before I was first consumed. Perhaps they even tried to help when it happened, or talked to me, or attempted to persuade my parents something was wrong. Or perhaps they did nothing. Maybe my monster of a mind tricked them into believing I was fine.

No matter. If they had tried to help, it didn’t work. I still fell down this never ending dark rabbithole, changing and pushing everyone away, my mind becoming stronger the farther I fell. 

I want this falling to end. My mind will win in the end, so why should I fight it? It has forced me to do wrong before. I cried when I saw my wrist the next day.

But like I said, my mind will always beat me, no matter how hard I fight. And I am so tired of fighting.

When I do it, I don’t really feel myself. It’s more as if I hover above my body and watch myself do it instead. Good. I would rather not have to fight my mind ever again. I fill the tub and slip in. My mind cheers as I quiet it for the last time. 

I always did like water.