Seven, Four, Exhale

Her tired eyes were blurry as she laid down on her blue cotton sweat-covered sheets.

“I have everything I need to get through this”.

She was all alone with just the sound of her breathing: inhale for seven seconds, hold for four, exhale, and repeat.

She remembered what she was taught in her therapy session as she pulled back her long damp dark hair from her face.

“What are your five senses, Jess?”

She sat up with her feet firmly on the cold wooden floor and opened her eyes, scanning her room for things she could see. She noticed her dirty white socks hanging over the laundry basket with clothes that she had avoided washing since the last time she left her house almost two weeks ago. A framed photo of her at six years old and her recently deceased father was hanging slightly tilted on the wall across from her bed. He had always told her how beautiful she was. He had been the only man in her life that had made her feel worthy of love. She smiled, hearing her Dad’s voice clearly saying “Calm down, Jessy. You are stronger than your mental illness”.

She saw the ‘one line a day’ notepad that her therapist Dr Rogers had insisted she use to write down her thoughts.

“Yeah, as if THAT will help me” she recalled saying sarcastically at her last session with him.

Jess listened carefully to the sound of the fan on her bedside table as it blew refreshing air at her pale mascara stained face. ‘Dust In The Wind’ by Kansas playing quietly in the background. This is a song she would usually sway along too but today she had no desire in her heart to even sing the words in her head. The thud, thud, thud of her upstairs neighbours walking through their house, she always hated that. Sometimes she wanted to go up there and give them a piece of her mind, but that meant she would have to go outside. Maybe that would be a good thing for her. All of her friends certainly thought so.

“Go outside Jess, you need some fresh air”.

She carefully ran her shaky hand over her TV remote, feeling each button between her fingers. Her bare feet cold on the smooth floor, she looked down and noticed her toenails were chipped and the red nail polish she had put on was starting to fall off.

Inhale for seven seconds, hold for four, exhale and repeat she reminded herself.

Jess picked up her bowl filled with assorted chips and pretzels, smelling the salt as she grabbed one and placed it in her mouth. She thought about the texture and how stale the chip was as she sucked on it, she wondered why she had left them on her shelf for so long.

As Jess looked at her clock, listening to it tick with each passing second, she noticed it was 1:03am in the morning and felt a sudden urge to sleep. Wiping her tears from her eyes, she laid back down in her bed, covering herself with her musty smelling blanket. She realized that her heart had stopped racing, she was breathing at a regular pace again and felt a sudden weight of relief.

Grabbing the notepad Dr Rogers had recommended, she wrote down “I am stronger than my mental illness” and smiled, gently closing the book and resting her head on her pillow. Her eyes heavy, she slowly closed them and said goodnight. Tomorrow will be a better day.