Master

by Christopher Tucker
(Sherborne, Dorset, England)

As a child I was very smart, singled out in class as the top student, singled out of friendship groups because I was a geek. I remember being beaten, broken noses, chipped teeth and parental arguments when I got home. about the age of 10 I saw reason to existence after going to a our local abbey and was getting told about the list of people buried near by. All these people who family members are also dead all their memories gone, what's the point. In secondary school things got worse due to bullying going from a class of 20 to a year of 280 and so I begin my time with world of warcraft, too young for drugs, drink or smoking online gaming was the last place I had to turn to. I became obsessed with it, why live in real life when this is so much better, of course this didn't help social standing at all since no-one I knew played it and it was seen as the end all of nerdy things to do. I started to smoke weed, a momentary fix which often left me feeling much worse off after, but I didn't care it was about the short term if I messed up the rest of my life I'd just kill myself, and that became more and more of an option. My first girl friend was a mistake, again a short term fix what better than a girl who gives it away for free for a guy my age? It was the most punishing 6 months I've endured, we were on and off like a light switch turned out she was the kind of girl who'd take guys virginities and then blame everything on them, but I was holding on the a fleeting hope of happiness. After her I just felt numb, orginally I couped with my life at school by devoting all time off to building muscle (No one picks on a guy who throws people through windows, or strangles people in corridors) so everything felt heavy, breathing, opening my eyes, walking, but it was the same weight lifting a bag or working at the gym was either impossible or like raising my arm. I began cutting myself, carving words and symbols into my skin as punishment, I was so sure I was wrong, wrong about everything. I lived the wrong life, my parents had never wanted me to live; I didn't have the right attitude towards school, if I can't do it at school then I can't do it. My home life I was just to busy not thinking, the less I thought the less I wanted to kill myself. I kept going home wanting to break down and cry but I had principles, I didn't want to be bullied and so I didn't want to be weak and I did everything not to be weak. For a time I was convinced I was on a whole other level of depression because no matter what I went through, what I thought, what happened to me or my family I would not cry. I wanted to but no tears and I came to a realization, maybe I don't cry because I don't want to. I had worked hard, making myself stronger physically and emotionally I was a brick wall, no-one got in, I didn't open myself up, I didn't form relationships I just stopped the last thing I had left was my mind and my world of warcraft. A year went by I thought I was better and along came girlfriend number two, like my first but much more attractive and just as destructive. By this point I started seeing a councilor and new things were being turned things that weren't in my memory what so ever, vacations I never went on, family members I didn't know existed, friendships that had past me by, my memories were missing and I felt even more wrong. As it turns out somethings I couldn't remember were for my own good, on a vacation I forgot my dad had tried to kill me by driving his car into a truck, 2 years later my mum had gotten drunk behind the wheel nearly driving us into a tree or a car, my dad trying to drown my mum, my mum nearly breaking my neck. The bullying, the gaming, the pressure of trying to equal my three older brothers one of which being a doctor. It all mounted up and when my second girl friend left me that was it, I was out on my paper round, cycled round a corner, a car coming in the other direction and a van parked on the roadside between me and the car, perfect I thought either I go through the cars windscreen at speed and die, or a brain myself on the van as the car smacks into my side, death or extreme pain. I'm not a masochist, nor an adrenaline monkey, I was just tired of living, tired of people, tired of being tired. People really annoy me, their personalities, their beliefs, their social systems, their ideas. I've had numerous night terrors but not once would I use the standard definition of what happened to me. The vast majority (i.e all except me) say a night terror is when you wake up with a heavy weight on your chest and it feels like someone is in the room with you. I'd describe it as, an evolutionary defense for if there was something in the cave with you, you could wake up and take the time think through possibilities. When you wake up it feels like minutes go by when it's actually seconds, the amount of thinking I did in those 3 seconds I set my life in order, straightened things out in my mind, if there was someone in the room with me I could've thought of exactly who they were by elimination and how I would kill them with objects in my room in those 3 seconds. Also the heavy weighted on the chest thing, have you ever tired lying on your back and pushing all the air out of your lungs ,not breathing, pushing, and then not breathing in for 3 seconds because that's exactly how it feels, during my night terrors I think my bodies forgotten how to breathe, I try to start it up but nothing. I've made peace with my death so many times I couldn't care less when I die. I'd be scared when it happens no doubt, but as it happens I could more than easily accept it as it is what it is. But I've side tracked so much, my current state in life is this, school life is much the same but now that I'm at A levels the being unable to do homework is a serious problem, my lack of motivation is rivaled only by my want to die. I don't want to kill myself, I know I'm to scared to, but I just don't want to live any more. I'm losing my mind, the last thing I had. I can't thing, can't concentrate, can't learn new things, my ability to pick up something I'd never heard of before and learn it in a matter of minutes was wonderful, a moment of bliss where it all slotted together and worked in accordance with the pre-defined situation. I excelled at maths, because to me it was just a series of rules with the way from one answer to another a simple step of logic, and at biology because it was all logical, a case of this causes this and why with proof you could do before lesson time was over. And it's gone, I can't even carry on my online gaming, my head just can't coupe with what I need it to do. I'm still one of the smartest people in my guild, able to make decisions and come up with logical well thought out answers in seconds but I can't push buttons at the right time.. I can't see a reason to go on, I make my mark on this world and when this world ends I'm forgotten. I become the best player in the game and achieve nothing except a new level of loneliness. I work hard at school and then I break down incapable of anything. My mind feels like so much more than school work, it bores me and anything that bores me I just can't do, my head shuts down and says no, go off and do something more entertaining for god sake you are not a robot you have a mind and wasting it on these mundane affairs. So help me god, this mind is a curse