Fatma

I’ve been feeling really strange lately. The latest entry from my diary reads, “Eye contact makes me nervous. I hate feeling like this, I don’t want to go outside, I don’t want to leave my room, I don’t want to leave my head, my daydreams, my thoughts. I’m a dying flower. I’m wilting in the dark while the sun is shining on everyone but me.”

I’ve been taking a lot of naps recently–my constant overthinking and anxieties are making me feel like I’d rather be asleep. My family was talking about me while I was upstairs, listening to what they were saying. “All she does is stay in her bed,” my mum said. They were making me feel like I’m lazy, but they don’t know how sad I really am. My parents don’t even remember what I do and don’t like, which made me realise that they don’t listen to me. They ignore me. Because of this, I’ve stopped talking. I don’t want to waste my breath.

Not talking at home has actually been positive for me: I’ve been going to bed earlier, reading more. The book I’m currently reading is The Autobiography of Malcolm X. There’s a line in it where Malcolm X is talking about going to visit someone he knew after years of being in prison.

He said, “Have you ever seen someone who seemed a ghost of the person you remembered?” It made me feel really empty, reading that. It’s so sad. ♦