Sleeping Beauty
I spend most of my days wondering why I am so fucked up. Self awareness is a bitch, but never seemed to help me in my search for the tainting event that did it for me. I am conscious of everything, too conscious in fact. Hypervigilant of every action I take, and its impending consequences. My mom irritatingly labels me obsessive, but I'd call it a passion for awareness. Like every entitled psych major, I go around self diagnosing and spending hours on WebMD in an effort to label my problems as a name would kiss away their existence.
The truth is I'm just plain neurotic.
I've been on SSRIs for OCD for around 6 years now, though I had been anxiously awaiting a diagnosis since the age of 12. My mother once walked in on me in shock as I aggressively rubbed my skin raw with a toothbrush for hours, to which I explained I was getting a birthmark off my shoulder for her to realize I wasn't faking for attention. Sometimes I wonder if I'm ill at all. Maybe I am no better than a child crying wolf, all to be cradled by some paternal saving grace. Those thoughts skip through my brain now and then, but leave on days when I am plagued by the dread of my own existence.
I spend each morning popping a pretty pink pill before combing through each brunette strand of my hair into a precise part. My hair is the one thing I can control on days I feel hopelessly divergent. I delicately twist my hip length hair into a braid that kisses my spine. If there's one thing I hate the most, it's the hair on my face. Sensory issues are a symptom of autism I remember reading somewhere, another thing to add to the list of my neurodivergent qualities.
Today was Friday, what day most college students spend getting shitfaced at the bar, I find myself in a raggedy tweed chair getting my brain picked by my therapist. Suzzane is a sweet woman that means well, but she went to college to get her MRS, and came out with a degree in psychology. She sits across from me with her frail legs neatly crossed as she prompts me with questions I could have googled. I go because my mom pays for these stupid sessions. Probably as a way to apologize for not doing enough raising me as a single mother. Today Suzzane asked me about my childhood, to which I responded,
“Nothing much, I swear I was dropped on my head or something. I cannot recall my first memory until I was about 9 years old when I fell off a swing and broke my arm. Before that it is all black.”
“All black?” She questions. “Can you expand on what you mean by that Aurora?”
For a second I was buffering as I gathered my thoughts. I squirmed around in my seat and perched my index finger to my lips.
Well, it's kind of like that feeling of right before you drift off into sleep. You can never remember the transition into consciousness when you are awake. But those few seconds of consciousness before you shut down, it is black, dark, and still. I guess that is what my mind feels like when I try to remember too far back. It's like some biological barrier is blocking me.
Suzzane looked up from her hippy-patterned notebook she was frantically jotting in with fingers plagued with arthritis that popped after ending each sentence.
“I see, " she begins, "I have been reading some literature on OCD and the correlation between unresolved trauma in developing years. Perhaps the answer lies in those premature years of your adolescence.”
My eyes light up with a flame of passion so bright my chocolate eyes flickered red. And suddenly I was directed toward my divine path of identity, given to me by this pale woman, itching to get back to cats at home.
The clock hit 6:30 declaring the ending of our session and so she made her final claim,
“If you can, think back on what you can remember about your childhood. Anything that comes up would be great to unpack for your next session”
Contemplation
I sit in my bed laced with accents of pink. My bed is covered in stuffed animals and cartoon posters plastered against my wall. For someone who doesn't remember much about my childhood, I sure do seem to live in it. An adult mind living in a body so little, typical me. I opened a fresh page of my notebook to which I titled, “Little Aurora, what do you remember?” That same confused darkness comes to mind, and a sigh in frustration as the blank page stares back at me.
My phone chirps an obnoxious series of dings, awakening me from my contemplation. I check my phone to see a group chat blowing up my phone titled, “Maribel's 21st”
Shit. How could I forget? I can't miss this. She will be pissed.
I check the clock to see it is 9pm, only 30 minutes before I need to be at the bar that is 20 minutes away.
I rush to the closest to put on a low cut lavender shirt revealing my lack of chest, paired with flared low waisted jeans with stars comically placed on each ass cheek. The kind of bar outfit that one might say would draw male attention however I hate that sort of thing. Men scare me to my core. I never knew my dad but I assume he is a piece of shit. Men in this generation don't exactly give me redemption either. Classic case of daddy issues I suppose. Not my most interesting trait I must admit.
I am in the precarious uber drowning in the nauseating scent of my own perfume by 9:50 speeding to the shitty bar to celebrate my best friend's birthday. The drive is the sacrifice to get into The Mirror, the only bar in San Diego that accepts underaged students with fake IDs. The beer is cheap on Fridays, and it's where the horny youth go to mingle, so our grade collectively declared it to be the spot to celebrate relief from long college weeks.
I stumble out of the Uber up to the entrance of the bar. The bouncer smiles while his eyes molest me from my chest down to my ankles. What a creep. I fake a grin as he scans my obviously fake ID.
“Have a goodnight sweetheart.” he mutters with hot breath.
I lean forward to wave at my friends through the window to which the bouncer grabs my ass. I flinch, feeling my insides twist and my brain fog cloudy gray. I walk through the aged wooden door ignoring the entire encounter. That's it. I'm getting drunk.
The BlackOut
I am more than a few shots deep with the birthday girl before I notice a familiar smell that captivates me. I am drawn to the aroma of a fruity pink drink, a large burly man, clearly not within the demographic of underaged college students.
“I'll have what he's having!” I shout to the bartender, he looks over at me and smiles. A warm type of smile that might possess the lips of a teacher or preacher of sorts. My drunken body relaxed into his direction as curiously begged the outline of his life’s story.
“I'm a writer”, he chuckles,
"So stories are my kind of thing”. The tropical drink is slid down the table by the bartender while my friend calls me over to borrow some chapstick. I returned to the fruity pink concoction that seemed to be fizzing around the edges. I don't remember seeing carbonation in the man's order, but I down the whole thing in one gulp.
My body begins to tingle as I am entranced by the Man's story detailing his backpacking adventures across Europe. Gravity seems to lose effect as my body sloshes from slide to side. The stream of consciousness that typically flows through my brain goes black and I am speaking from a source I no longer have control of.
“And what about you?” He gestures placing his hand on the small of my back bringing me in closer. My face grows hot and flustered.
“Well I grew up in daycares mostly. My dad was a very Christian man so he left me with the Church most days.”
The second the words left my lips they were as if enlightening a hole in the blackened depths of my mind. Hm interesting I catch myself whispering.
“What?” The man beckons confused. “Anyway, I'm looking for inspiration for a story, perhaps you can show me one”, he grumples, moving his hand closer to my thigh. The dizziness exacerbates in my head until my consciousness wavers in and out of blackness. Maribel touches my shoulder, seeing my visible uncomfortableness and takes me with her to the bathroom.
I look in the mirror and cannot process my reflection. When did I grow so tall? And when did my boobs fill out? I drunkenly slur to my friends in the bathroom as the change in lighting temporarily blinds my retinas.
“You've always been beautiful” the girls cackle at full volume,
“I swear you only pay attention to the worst things,” Cassie, a distant friend, notes.
The rest of the night follows in fragments;
Suddenly I am over the curb outside of the bar vomiting out my guts next to Maribel, who holds my ratted hair out of the splash zone of my stomach acid.
I wake up to the light hitting my eyelids. I find myself in Maribel’s dorm with my eyeliner messily coating my face like a raccoon. My head throbs with regret. “What happened last night?” I groaned. “I didn't even drink that much.”
Maribel rolls over with sleep still in her eyes, “That weirdo guy you were talking to was roofying girls last night, I think you got the worst of it”
I sank my head into my pillow in disgust and shame of how I could have lost control like that. Reviewing the events of last night, I recalled the fact that I described my father as a Christian man, and how I went to Church often, a fact I wasn't previously aware of. I sat in drunken confusion. Somewhere in my blackout I had access to the dimension of unconsciousness where my childhood lied. Perhaps this is the solution to my problem of amnesia, and the key to figuring out the root of my compulsive fixations. I smiled so wide my head began to pound as my brain rushed with too much blood from excitement. This is it. The answer is the void.
I began to sit on my bed jotting down in my notebook ways to get back to the state of what I call The Darkness to recall more about my past. Roofying myself was out of the question. Drinking to blackout was not a feasible method, because next week was exams. I needed something quick, accessible, and low recovery time.
Straight to google. Weed isn't strong enough of a psychedelic to elicit such an effect, and acid would be potentially harmful depending on the interaction with my SSRIs. Shrooms I decided would be the safest option, and I knew exactly who to text.
Owen was the guy that lived at the end of my hall of my building that was the known supplier. If you didn't know he dealt, one look at his flowy bohemian attire and kicked-back attitude would assume that he rolls. He was a guy I always felt safe around, the rare type that I knew I would be okay to trip with. I knocked on his door,
“Owen. This is a state of emergency. I need shrooms. Now.”
The Shroom Trip
His delayed smile and the stench of weed emanating from his room indicated that he might already be on my desired level. “Oh Aurora, anything for my sunshine" he giggled, waving his hand inviting me in.
He placed 2 grams of dried leaf-like stems on a chocolate bar and whispered bon appetite as he ate the same exact proportions. I quickly issued the sign of the cross before I ate the concoction in one bite. We laid there on the grimy dorm floor on our backs itching against the carpet for a little while before I noticed the ceiling fan emitting ocean-like waves. The light whispered indistinguishable traces of noise, calling me into its presence. I could almost make out the words, Stay, stay stay. I sat up.
“Yo. It's hitting” I whispered, as my face tickled in patterns of strange happiness.
Owen giggled, grabbing my hand in a reassuring manner. “Oh sick!” He sat up so our pupils the size of grapes gazed into each other. I gave him a piece of paper ripped from my notebook detailing questions I wanted to ask myself in this state.
He quickly glanced through the paper, “Oh…cool! This is like a spiritual trip for you, I respect that” he nodded his head in approval.
“I suppose,” I flushed.
“I just want to know what's wrong with me, like why I am the way I am, I guess. I want to become aware so I can be a better person. Maybe suffer a little less.”
These words came out of my mouth and I began to doubt my mission overall. My life was going great, the only problem was the insatiable curiosity within me. One that wouldn't let me look in the mirror without doubt.
Owen nodded though I'm sure my claim went in one ear and out the other.
“What was your dad like?” He reads in a choppy tone as if he is pronouncing each word like it is his first.
My mind zooms in and out of consciousness as I begin to see myself entering The Darkness. I see flashes of long brown hair, large tan hands decorated in a blue dress shirt, and a closet light hanging by a string. It's still too vague to make out.
“Well, my dad was a strict man. He liked things his way. He hated tangles and messes and above all sinners. These words were so strange coming out of my mouth, like a child confessing secrets to their God. I tried to think harder, to pull more from the depths of the darkness but I couldn't manage. I growled in frustration. The secrets of my past were taunting me at this point, I was so close to passing the threshold of mystery.
“Owen, do you have anything stronger?” I frantically slurred.
He had a pipe to his mouth as he nodded.
“DMT baby girl, it will make you see God," he chuckles. Before my rational brain could object, the passion in my eyes called him over for a hit.
DMT Darkness
The glass pipe coldly kissed my lips as Owen held the flame to the pipe. I had no idea where this was going to take me, but my destination was The Darkness. I wanted to come back from this a better person. I ran my fidgety fingers through my scalp, gripping my chocolate strands of comfort, thinking I'd wake up from this like every other day, braiding my hair and taking my pill. There was nothing to worry about.
Everything was under control.
. . .
I am sitting in a wobbly chair feeling smaller than usual. The air was perfumed with holy water and the delicate decay of old people. I look around to see a man behind me with my hair in his hands. “Look forward”, he says sternly. He tentatively rips through my hair with the stiff brush, my scalp screaming in pain as my neck mischievously twists away.
“Stop moving, you're such a pain," the voice aggressively mutters.
My neck continued to jerk and squirm in discomfort as he finished tying off the braid.
“Now that isn't a proper braid at all. God cannot bear to see such a disgraceful child.”
I could feel my frustrations grow feverish as my cheeks grew hot and my nose canal stung with tears. A familiar feeling of holding it all in, trying to remain in control. My throat accumulated sore lumps of unexpressed emotion, forcing my tightly clenched jaw open for a gasping breath of air. The pink Sunday dress wrapping around my torso felt restricting as my diaphragm expanded to its limits, as my lungs hyperinflated in an effort to avoid the inevitable tears that glossed over my eyes. The first steaming tear ran down my cheek, followed by a school of others frantically swimming down my face.
All of my efforts to bottle up my frustrations failed as I cried in howling shame, echoing down the halls of the church. The man palms my small mouth and guides me to the storage closet. His mature hand feels calloused and hot, twitching with what cannot be differentiated as arthritis or anger. He aggressively throws me against the wall of the small room and turns off the light, finally slamming the door. The clicking sound of a lock seals my fate. My temple throbs in pain from the blunt contact with the chipped walls.
“I'll be back in an hour," he explains through the door. “Don't you dare make a sound”
My breaths are heavy and irregular, gasping for air in the claustrophobic space of the closet that smells of bleach and lemon scented cleaner. My desperate sobs are muffled by the organ pipes humming Gospel while the choir harmonically bleeds in.
“I'll be good! I'll be perfect!” I plead.
Yet my cries were soothed by silence. I begged to wake up. To return to reality, yet here I am. Fully in the darkness. Beyond the barrier my brain so desperately tried to keep me from. Wrapped in darkness and surrounded by the shame that I am intrinsically bad, wrong, and defected. This was what was inside of me that whole time. Gnawing at my consciousness, the inner defectiveness coming from a neglected child’s tears.
I ran my fingers through my hair that he so carefully braided down my neck in efforts to calm my breathing. Sliding off the textured purple elastic holding the base of my hair together, I began to unbraid my hair, revealing soft waves draping down my nobby shoulders. All these years my hair was my straitjacket, pulling back my innocence, keeping me tame and neutering my desire for normalcy. Control was what parted my adolescence and tightly braided it out of concern. As I raked my fingers through my youthful hair, I began to boil with frustration.
I wanted to wake up. Fuck this journey of self discovery or whatever I originally intended to do. I am getting out of this I thought as I scanned the confined closet for an escape route. Taking a deep breath, I thought out the circumstances of my freedom. This is a dream, I reassured myself, all in my mind. I meditatively inhaled the stench of mold and lemon cleaner before a strand of hair tickled my lip, sticking to the viscous snot dripping down my face. This damn hair I groaned. My quivering fingers combed through the base of my scalp with a gentle touch that turned to a firm grip. With all of the might my young arms could muster, I ripped an unforgiving chunk of hair from my head, leaving the area of my scalp raw and bloody from impact. It surprisingly felt satisfying. Almost freeing. I could feel each hair emancipated from its follicle, liberated from its stationary position. I reached for another section of hair that framed the arch of my ears and yanked as if ripping off a bandaid. I threw my head back in pleasure as blood began dripping down my ear canal, accompanied by the oceanic sound of liquid falling into the confined space. This next pull was with two hands separately, as my fingered grasped each strand as if they were handles attached to a jump rope. A single jerk revealed the fresh scalp stripped of every hair and sin that plagued my existence. A singular hair left dangling from my forehead appeared in the peripheral of my vision. A cheshire grin painted my little lips as I held the hair between my index finger and thumb, rolling over it a couple times in remembrance before I plucked it from my scalp in one swift jolt.
“Aurora! Aurora! Wake up! Are you with me?” A voice haunted the back of my head as the darkness was fading away by a beacon of light. It was as if looking up from the bottom of a well to see the sunlight pouring down from above. My vision cleared to see Owen holding me in his lanky arms, my head gently rested on his lap of acid-washed denim. I nodded, though not fully conscious of the reality I was entering. His lips were moving yet not completely synced to the sound of the words coming from his mouth. My head ached as I palmed my forehead to feel strands of my chocolate hair. Hair. This stupid fucking head of hair I giggled audibly. Memories came flooding back of the secrets of what The Darkness held. The kind warmth of Owens lap was a comfort I never thought I'd find in the presence of a man. I sat there with my head down as delayed tears glided down my cheeks, stinging my skin reminding me that I am real. I am safe. I am back.
The HairCut
The next day I looked into the unflattering light mirror and popped my pretty pink pill in the same manner that I executed each day without fail. Locking eye contact with myself in the mirror, I opened the wooden drawer attached to my dresser and revealed a pair of pretty pink craft scissors. Without paying much attention to the proportions or symmetry of the act, I chopped the long brunette locks a few inches before the scissors kissed my scalp. Strands of hair accumulated in the sink, overlapping the last as if in an effort to braid itself one final time.
My reflection stared back at me with a boyish haircut free from hair touching my neck. I ran my fingers through the fresh length free of dead ends, tossing it around to achieve the messy look I never thought I could pull off. Footsteps heavy on the heel revealed my mother’s presence before her appearance did. Surprisingly unfazed, she ruffled her almond shaped nails through my hair and giggled.
“Suits you well, " she assured me.
“It reminds me of your father when he was young.”
