Touched With Fire

When I looked up, I noticed I was in a small, brightly-lit office. A vase of flowers and a decorative box of tissues rested on the glass coffee table in front of me, along with a stack of books with titles like An Unquiet Mind, Perfect Chaos, and Madness: A Bipolar Life. It was 2019. I was twenty-eight years old.

I looked up to see the psychologist sitting in a matching aqua-colored lounge chair on the opposite side of the coffee table. She was quite pretty, with short brown hair and a face that looked around forty years old. She had a calm energy about her.

"Nicole," she said, her eyes brimming with kindness and understanding. "What brought you here today?"

A lump formed in my throat as I remembered back to a few days earlier, when the world was dark and hopeless, and my mind was drowning in a cesspool of thick, black, putrid consciousness. I was curled up on the floor of my apartment, crying uncontrollably. I hadn't been able to function properly for months, and that morning the weight of the whole universe came crashing down upon me.

Call someone, Wisdom whispered. You need help.

No! My mind snarled. No one wants to see you like this. Get it together. Don't be weak. Don't waste everyone's time. Solve this problem yourself, you pathetic creature. Look at you — you're disgusting. You're pitiful, lying helpless on the floor like a wounded fawn. You fail at everything you ever attempt. All you ever do is wreak havoc on the world and fuck everything up. All you ever do is create things and then destroy them and make a mess like a fucking child. All you ever do is disappoint everyone. All you ever do is disappoint yourself. You're worthless. You're a waste of space. You can't do anything right. The world would be better off without you. No one would notice if you disappeared. No one would even care.

Call someone, Wisdom whispered. You need help.

I crawled the length of the hallway to my bedroom, grabbed my phone off the dressing room table, and collapsed on the floor again. Before my mind could circle back for another attack, I dialed the first person I could think of — one of the loveliest, most supportive, and most brilliant women I knew.

My big sister, Alex, answered the phone. "Hey, Nik. What's up?"

A sob erupted from my mouth.

"Nikki, what's wrong?" she asked. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I just — I — I — I don't know. Something is really wrong with me. Something is really, really wrong with me." Tears were streaming down my face. "It's just — everything — everything is hopeless. The whole universe is hopeless. I am hopeless. I am the most worthless person in the world. I am the worst person in the world-"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I'm the worst, most useless, horrible, worthless person that ever existed."

"Nik, where is this coming from?"

"I don't — I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me. Something is really, really wrong with me. I just — I just — I just can't. I can't do it."

"You can't do what?"

"I just can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't."

"Nikki, stay there. I'm coming to pick you up right now. Just pack a bag, okay? You're going to stay with me, and we're going to get through this. We're going to sort this out, and everything is going to be better really soon. Just pack a bag, and I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Okay," I said as I stared lifelessly at the wall. My voice was weak. I felt so weak.

The sunflowers on my bedside table were wilted and brown and dying. I picked up the greeting card that was propped against the vase. It was from my twenty-eighth birthday, less than two months earlier.

Dear Nikki,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

We hope this year is your best one yet! You are such an amazingly talented, caring person and we are so lucky to have you as a sister. Thank you for always being there for us and helping us see our world in new and exciting ways. Can't wait to see you shine this year!

Love,
Callum, Hamish and Alex

Shine? Me? That was the least likely thing in the universe — a probability approaching zero.

"I'm sorry you went through that," the psychologist said. "But I'm glad you're here. It sounds like your family is a great support, and I'm here to support you too.

Now, I've got the questionnaire that you filled out before your appointment, and I wanted to ask some more questions so I can understand your symptoms better. Firstly, have you ever had any mental health issues before? Perhaps anxiety, an eating disorder, or-"

"Yeah," I said. "I had an eating disorder when I was sixteen."

"What was it? Anorexia? Bulimia? Obsessive exercising?"

"A little from column A, a little from column B, a little from column C. I have a very addictive personality."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Like, when I become fixated on an idea, I can push it to the extreme. When I was sixteen, I started getting up at six a.m. to go running every morning in circles around the school oval. I'd just do laps, over and over and over again, while everyone else was asleep. I wasn't allowed out of the school grounds."

"Were you a boarder?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Anyway, I started getting fitter and eating healthier and looking better. School was pretty boring, so I'd take up personal projects and focus all my energy on those. Unfortunately, my body became a project, and I get very obsessive about my projects. I will push, and push, and push, until something breaks."

"So, it started out healthy and developed into a disorder?"

"Yeah. Before I knew it, I was getting up earlier to go running, then do a boxing class, then go to school, then go to sports practice after school. Meanwhile, I was terrified of food. It was really dysfunctional."

"Okay," she said. "Did you see someone about it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why would anyone care?"

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"I dunno," I shrugged. "I don't trust other people to solve my problems. If I got myself into it, I'll get myself out of it."

"Is that what you did?"

"Yeah," I said. "I fixed it myself."

"How?"

"Mental discipline."

"But you're here now, aren't you? What changed?"

"I don't know how to solve this one," I said. "And I can't live like this anymore."

"Okay," she smiled. "I'm here to help. Let's start by talking about these depressive phases you're experiencing. How do they feel?"

"They feel like I'm drowning in a black ocean," I said. "I'm just drowning in my own mind, and I can't see any light at the surface, so I don't know which way to swim. I have no energy. Nothing I used to find interesting is interesting anymore. I just feel complete apathy towards everything."

She nodded sympathetically. "And are you able to work when you're like this?"

I shook my head. "Not when it's bad."

"How long can it be bad for?"

"Sometimes I can be down there for weeks or months. My brain is just foggy, and I can't concentrate or think straight or make simple decisions. Sometimes my mind is a silent explosion of ideas in a black ocean, and other times it feels like my brain is trekking through mud, and everything is an effort. I can't even focus on basic stuff. Then I get very stressed out because I kinda need to run a business and support my team and customers and earn money and do life admin, but I just can't. Like, I just can't. It doesn't make any sense. I'm normally so capable, and then I just can't do anything. Basic stuff is just so difficult, and I feel like I'm letting everyone down. People put so much faith in me, and they rely on me, and I just let them down. I just fail them. They call me their fearless leader, and I can't even respond to a basic email when I'm like that."

"And what about your relationships?" she asked. "Do you have a partner?"

I laughed. "God, no. Who would want to deal with this mess?" I pointed to my brain.

"Do you still maintain relationships with friends?"

I shook my head again. "Not really. I just withdraw."

"And what does that look like?"

"I don't respond to emails or phone calls or messages. I'll pretty much ignore everything. I feel like I'm curled up on the ground, and the whole universe is punching and kicking me over and over and over again. I'm just down on the ground, being pathetic and weak, but I can't get up. I try, and I try, and I try and I just can't. Willpower doesn't work. Discipline doesn't work. Positive thinking doesn't work. Fighting it makes it worse. I just have no control over my own mind."

The psychologist scribbled something on a sheet. "And do you feel intense waves of worthlessness and hopelessness and guilt?"

I looked at her suspiciously. "Yeah... that's exactly what it feels like — waves of intense worthlessness and hopelessness and guilt. When I'm like that, I actually think I'm the worst person that ever existed. If you were to listen to the thoughts in my head, you'd think I'd have murdered someone — but I feel that way just for existing. And the sense of worthlessness is just so extreme. I feel like a complete waste of space."

How can you be a waste of space if space doesn't exist? My mind asked.

Shut up, brain, I snapped. You're the one who got me here in the first place.

"Maybe that's why I feel like I'm drowning," I continued. "I don't know if this makes sense. My mind works in metaphors, so this is just how I communicate. I can see and feel this ocean of worthlessness, and when the tsunami breaks, it's like a flood, and I get sucked under into the darkness. And there is no light anywhere, so it feels like there is no hope that things will ever get better. I just feel like I'm a mistake that can be erased out of existence, and nothing would change. In fact, the world would be better off because of it."

She nodded again and scribbled something on her notepad. "And do you ever have suicidal thoughts?"

"Like, thoughts of killing myself?" I clarified.

She nodded.

"No. I'd never do that."

"Never?"

"I mean, I feel an intense worthlessness and guilt and hatred of myself, but I don't want to die. There's a big difference between hating someone and saying nasty things to them, and actually inciting violence against them. Like, I could say 'I hate you,' but that is very different from me trying to kill you. Do you know what I mean?"