Lazarus’s

I used to think the world outside my bedroom door was made for someone braver. Morning light felt too loud, too bright, the hallway too wide, the air too heavy to breathe without shaking. Anxiety wrapped around me like something alive, and agoraphobia turned every step outside into the edge of a cliff with nowhere safe to land. My parents called it laziness, weakness something shameful that could be forced out of me if they pushed hard enough. So they pushed. I went to school with trembling hands and an empty stomach, words trapped behind my teeth while laughter followed me down the halls, flinching whenever someone knocked into me. I cried easily, quietly, like even my sadness was trying not to be noticed. Being gentle and introverted in a place that loved cruelty felt like a mistake I couldn’t fix. Some days the loneliness pressed so tightly around my ribs that I hurt myself just to feel something I could control, something that proved I was still here, even if nobody else seemed to see me. I ordered a phone and One night, with only the pale glow of my phone softening the dark, I searched for help the way drowning people reach for anything that floats. A therapist’s name appeared like a promise, and I held onto it without asking why the words felt cold. I didn’t know desperation could be expensive, that kindness could wear a mask and keep a ledger underneath. The more I talked, the more my pain was pulled apart and repeated until it echoed louder than before. Even on his busiest days, when I called with shaking breath, he never sounded angry he only sighed listens to my soft pleading fragile voice as i vent my pain out and let the minutes pass, letting my bill grow quietly in the background. Numbers stacked like shadows I was too afraid to face, and still I called, because hope no matter how small felt better than silence. Somewhere inside all that fear lived a fragile wish that someone might finally see me pass my fears instead of using it against me.