shreya

Evidence of what I was supposed to become

Evidence of what I failed to be.

Evidence of what wasted potential looks like in real time

I see the seven-year-old who finished 300-page novels in a day, so much so that my Dad had to buy me a Kindle because of the increasing novel bills. I see the girl teachers paused for; rooted for: the one they spoke about in staff rooms with soft pride. “She’ll do great things.” “She’s the smartest kid in class.” They said it like it was a fact. Like gravity. Like thermodynamics.

And now I can’t walk fifty metres to college without my legs feeling filled with sand and my feet trembling like i’m in danger.My chest tightens like I’m climbing a mountain instead of crossing a road. The same brain that once devoured books now fogs over when I try to read an ECG. QT prolongation stares back at me like a language I’ve never learned. I reread the same line five times and retain nothing except the quiet confirmation that I’m not who I used to be. I reread the same line five times and retain nothing except realising that the “topper kid” has absolutely nothing left to root for.

I swallow fluvoxamine and buspirone with water that tastes metallic at 2 a.m. I hum to myself in the dark while twisting and tossing in bed so I don’t wake up choking on panic, so I don’t thrash, so I don’t scream. This is what “great things” turned into. They turned into blister packs and sedation and trying to trick my nervous system into resting. They turned into “5 things you can hear, smell and taste” and therapy sessions at 6.

Sometimes I imagine the little version of me watching. She thought she’d grow into someone sharp and luminous. She thought she’d be impressive. Instead she’s watching me sit on the edge of a bed in an apartment that is a testimony of me being unable to move, unable to start, unable to explain why everything feels like it weighs a hundred kilos. She doesn’t understand why getting out of bed feels like surgery without anaesthesia. She doesn’t understand why walking towards college feels like a 20 mile hike uphill. She doesn’t understand where and why and how everything went wrong.

I remember the seventh-grade report cards: Highly focused. Driven. Exceptional potential. Ability to do whatever she puts her mind into.

Now my thoughts scatter before they can land. I can’t focus long enough to follow a pathway, let alone build a future. The teachers who once looked at me with awe now look through me, or worse: at me; with that subtle tightening around the eyes. Despise is so evident that is burns my pupils as i look into their eyes. It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me? What changed? What did i miss? Where is the driven topper kid who could get whatever she puts her mind onto?

I keep thinking there must have been a moment;a fracture point - where something in me split. Before and after. Before the crying spells. Before the dissociation. Before the way my body feels like it’s resisting existence itself. Before being the stupidest kid in the class who needs to take clonazepam before stepping into the labs.

When I look in the mirror, I don’t just see wasted potential.

These spaces are loud with that story because they're populated by the people who were ignored long enough to need art as proof of existence.

Maybe it only feels that way because these are the people who stayed with art. The ignored ones needed something to hold them when no one else did, needed language to name what was missing. Art became a place to rest, a way to be seen without interruption.