Haunted Mansion

As you lie down for the night after another exhausting day of being a working adult, your body collapses and you enter this void between being awake and in a deep sleep - no transition. In that moment do you feel your body grow heavier until you begin falling while remaining perfectly still? Then suddenly, as if hearing a call for sanctuary, your mind awakens and your entire being jolts as you catch yourself just in time.

Only, what if you didn’t catch yourself?

That phenomenon of fake falling without rescue is something I’ve felt for a long while. I still feel it. To me, dealing with mental health is similar to not being fully awake and on the edge of falling every day. Some days you have the strength or the luck to sound off the alarm and wake up. Other days you just fall.

When that happens, people on the outside don’t always notice. You’re still. There may be a grimace here or a twitch, but for the most part you’re someone sleeping. Yet in your mind you’re falling into this black hole that only you can see and feel.

I’m tempted to say it feels like an ocean despite how cliche that sounds. Although, I do feel like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into a great mass with nothing beneath me. It’s difficult to breathe when the anxiety takes over. It’s difficult to see any light when you’ve slipped too far from the surface. Words from others are gargled, but your own negative thoughts seem to echo and grow louder. There are strange creatures present to haunt you. They swim slowly nearby to serve as an ominous worry, which will later grab onto you and drag you down.

That’s what the abyss feels like to me part of the time, but recently it’s transformed. I see it now as this rickety old mansion. I’m constantly discovering new passageways and rooms that lead me to thoughts I’d rather not visit. As I walk through, I notice the mansion is filled with antiques - each item representing a part of me, good or bad.

I see a birdcage holding a feathered creature who blinks, but doesn’t speak or move. The paintings in the hallway depict landscapes void of sunlight or of lonesome people who neither frown or smile. I see souvenirs representing regrets - unfinished novels and sketches, job applications, degrees, photographs of nearly forgotten faces, and a bracelet given to me by a crush who probably doesn’t remember my name.

In the kitchen I see a vase of sunflowers - hope, perhaps? Maybe the thought that things have to get better eventually and that I have to face the sunlight to survive. Only behind this vase is a large window revealing a foggy afternoon. Beyond that is a yard covered in weeds and field mice. Near the edge is a wishing well infected by vines and chipped stone. It holds pennies for wishes that never came true - enough for them to spill over.

I can hear a train nearby. A promise that I can always leave with the possibility of going someplace better - or worse. Only I can never seem to make it to the station on time.

And if I choose to explore long enough, I’ll come across a room of mirrors. This is where I’m forced to stare at the imperfections on my body. My soft stomach that I wish would flatten. My hips that I pray will shrink. I can see the lines steadily being drawn against my cheeks and eyes. Upon closer examination, I see the cracks from dry skin. I see the increasing rouge on my nose and eyelids. The stringy, frizzy hair. The overbite I could never afford to fix. The houndish features. The bad posture. The disgusting creature starting back at me.

And I’m forced to reflect. Not only do I need to judge the monster’s exterior, but I need to examine the beast inside as well. The worrisome girl. The liar who chooses to tweak stories of herself and her life so that others don’t click their tongues at her. The narcissist - why am I not treated like the sun? Why am I always Pluto? I hate being Pluto. The hopeless romantic who fears she’ll never wear a wedding dress. The dependent partner who needs people she tolerates within the same vicinity as her at all times. The lonely lone wolf. The dark humor. The addiction to misery. The attention seeker. The ditz. The dreamer with no talent.

This mansion is a shrine to my self-loathing. It’s placed so far into the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the sea and forests that no one will find me.

And yet I search.