I was six when the devil whispered in my ear, a sinister murmur that danced like shadows at the edge of my perception. “Watch your step,” he hissed, a serpentine suggestion that slithered into my young mind and coiled itself around my every thought. I lay in bed, eyes wide with the terror of a child who knows there is no safety beneath the covers, no sanctuary in the darkness that presses in like a tangible thing. I was fighting demons, not the kind spun from bedtime stories or fairy tales, but real, insidious creatures that clawed at the fringes of my sanity, whispering horrors that no one else could hear.
The voices inside my head were a cacophony of madness, a relentless tide that eroded the shores of my peace. I sought refuge in the words of doctors, men and women of science who peered into my eyes as if they could divine the secrets of my affliction with a mere glance. But they found nothing, no diagnosis to explain away the terror, no pill to silence the unending whispers. I was adrift in a sea of confusion, a lifeboat punctured by doubt, slowly sinking into the depths of psychosis.
I talked to myself, a desperate attempt to drown out the other voices, to assert some control over a mind that felt like it belonged to everyone but me. I prayed no one would notice the boy muttering under his breath, the sideways glances and furrowed brows of passersby who caught snatches of my internal battle. I heard the voices, a relentless barrage that forced me to make choices, life or death decisions that no child should ever face.
A knife found its way into my hand on the darkest of nights, its cold steel a false promise of silence. I tried not to lose focus, to remember that there was more to life than the edge of a blade. Basketball became my religion, the court a sanctuary where the bounce of the ball and the squeak of sneakers on polished wood could momentarily drown out the noise. But it was like laying on train tracks, the rumble of an approaching train a constant reminder that danger was never far away.
I contemplated the unthinkable, the weight of a gun heavy in my hand as I imagined the release of pulling the trigger. I closed my eyes and saw everything fade to black, a world where I no longer existed, where I no longer had to suffer. People stepped over me as if I were nothing more than a placemat, an inconvenience to be ignored, their indifference slicing deeper than any blade.
Fuck. Let me make it clear, God was the only one I ever truly feared. Yet, even faith became a source of paranoia, a constant need to look over my shoulder, to wonder if the next betrayal, the next hurt, would come from those who claimed to love me. For years, they inflicted their wounds, their words carving scars into my soul that no amount of time could heal.
So I had to escape. If you’re listening, I know you can relate. It’s that feeling, that gnawing certainty that your life, your very existence, is nothing but a colossal mistake. I felt trapped, suffocating in a world that offered no respite, no space to simply be. I turned to creation, to the things I could shape with my hands and my heart, to find solace in a reality I could control.
Ever since I was a child, they hated me, judged me, scrutinized every action, every word, every dream. I was the outcast, the anomaly, the boy who heard voices and fought demons that no one else could see. My life was a testament to survival, to the strength it takes to stand when every fiber of your being screams at you to fall.
I am not the whispers. I am not the judgments. I am not the psychosis that sought to define me. I am the artist who paints his pain in vivid colors for the world to see. I am the poet who weaves his suffering into stanzas that bleed truth. I am the musician whose melodies are born from the darkest corners of his soul.
I am the survivor, the warrior, the one who walked through fire and emerged not unscathed, but unbowed. My story is not one of despair, though it may have begun that way. It is a tale of triumph over the demons, both within and without, that sought to claim me.
So hear my voice, not the voices that once threatened to consume me. Listen to my story, for it is one of hope, a beacon for those still lost in the grip of their own battles. You are not alone. You are not your illness. You are not a mistake.
I stand before you, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a living, breathing example that even when the devil tells you to watch your step, you can choose to dance instead.
R.M Anderson 2023
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