Page 99 - KCN 2020

An Old Friend

Chua Ee Zhen

It begins from the inside, a dark whisper You lose your sense of time in a place like
from the corners of your mind, serenading you that. Days becomes hours, months become days. way. But I never could. I always managed to Here is a message to the people who are
with its sweet malice. Its persuasiveness is hard Before you know it, you’ve lived there for years. Life get on my feet again. As a result, I have become still going through the same experience as I am.
to ignore, hard to forget. The more you let it stay becomes a repetitive cycle, and you start to realise a better version of myself. The journey, as painful and traumatic as it is, will
inside of you, the more susceptible you become that the promise of getting better doesn’t seem too not last forever. As time erodes our very being,
to it. Eventually, you fall victim to its poison. It real anymore. It is only when you try to leave that This doesn’t mean that I have our wounds heal and become scars. They serve as
disguises itself as a friend. A friend who will stay you notice that you’ve become a part of this world escaped from that place. It still exists inside of a reminder of the pain we’ve experienced, of the
loyal to you no matter the circumstances, but with and may possibly never escape. The more you strug- me. The friend, now unveiled from its disguise, is tribulations we’ve managed to soldier through.
the condition that you stay with them forever, and gle, the more you scream for help, the more power a monster who is still very much alive, lurking in Grasp onto the fact that you are not alone, even
that you shut out the world and isolate yourself they have over you. the shadows, watching every step I take, waiting during the darkest of days.
from the people who really care about you. for its moment to rise again.
Your words are no longer yours, your actions
It’ll be okay, you think, because you thought not of your own will. You can feel your sanity slowly I feel its hot breath against my neck, but
you had no one else. slipping away. You lose your sense of yourself as I no longer fear it. I have learned from the pain.
a person. The dark abyss of your waning sanity No matter how much it threatens me, I know that
You finally have a friend. consumes you whole, muscle by muscle, limb by it cannot hurt me more than it already has.
limb; it eats away at your being without remorse,
The world inside that the both of you build relishing the pain you’re going through. A grue- There are times when I slip and let it subdue
would at first be strange, but they would be with some metaphor for hurting the ones around you. me, but never entirely. Thankfully, I have learned
Having depression is very much the same.
you along the way, guiding you through every its weakness. It is a being grown from the soil of
step. “If you want to be better, you have to listen Every day becomes a struggle to regain loneliness and fear, built on my traumatic memo-
to me,” they would say. Whatever lies they spoke, ries. It is afraid of what it will never receive from
you would believe it. It was like accepting a drink enough consciousness and willpower to take back others— support. I am thankful for the people
all that was yours, to stop the growth. It took me
served from a friendly stranger and having your- years. Years of blood, sweat and tears to build myself. who have stayed with me in my darkest times
self become drugged on the idea, that this friend and helped me with this frightful journey, but the
was helping you, when in reality they were doing There were times when I wished to just close my person whom I’m the most grateful for would be
eyes and give in to the darkness and let it have its
the opposite. myself.
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