The Fear

Feeling the way your brain slowly looses control, watching the strangers pass by and know that there is something different about you, something peculiar, something that even these people, people that don’t even know you, can see; and they stay away. Having the knowledge of your friends beginning to back off, one by one, the people who you used to laugh with, used to talk to for hours on end, the people who you used to care for so deeply, are vanishing into thin air around you. When you come home, your family members don’t try to talk to you, don’t ask you about your day, and never come to your room, because they know that you are no longer the person you used to be.

Even though all of these people might know everything about you or nothing at all, they can see. They can see that you chose to separate yourself from the rest of the world, and they can see that you are slowly building a world of your own, a world from which you watch everything on the outside happening; seeing the stares, the shape of people’s mouths forming around hateful words, the pained looks of those who you used to know, but the door to your world only opens from one side, and you are never opening that door again, and they know it. They know that you are far, far away from them, and you are never coming back. Friendship and family become such needed aspects of our lives, that, if these bonds are broken, self isolation and detachment may strike, which is a problem we all deeply fear.

“But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn't touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away.” Margot drove herself mad in her own little world that revolved around the sun and the sun only; she kept herself away from others, and they kept themselves away from her, afraid of being infected by her, like she was a disease, and part of her was.

That part of her was the insanity. Becoming isolated from the people who you love and care for not only takes a toll on those around you, but it also plays it’s part on your emotions; your mental structure begins to fall apart at the edges and soon the part as a whole starts to come loose, and losing your grip on sanity altogether becomes an inevitable outcome.

As well as going insane, losing all your will to live belongs under the isolation category. When one no longer has people to depend on, nor can one be depended on, one finds themselves alone, alone and with nothing. This nothingness drives those to the verge of death, they speed down the road of life and stop just before the edge; lingering on whether or not those last few feet from the end, the end of life, are worth backing up for, or pressing down hard on the gas. Once the state of isolation takes over, the gas is a much less painful decision.

When you isolate yourself from your friends and family, your brain looses its function, looses its ability to control your thoughts, your movements, your words; you are no longer in control. The insanity is. Isolating yourself hurts you and those whom you love, and hurting people and yourself is the only future you have. This choice is one that is unsuitable for all people, and by choosing to go down that path, you choose to end the person inside of you, and let insanity wash over your mind, something rather beyond fear; absolutely and utterly terrorizing.