Fear of Staying at Home....

....for prolonged periods of time. Like over 30 hours including sleep.

You wake up and you get depressed because you're not going out for the next stretch of hours. You get upset because both lunch AND dinner will be at home. You eat your lunch hopelessly. On your dining table, inside the house. The day's warm outside. You occupy yourself by coming online and reading a book. But soon the itch to go out comes back, and clouds your mind with all sorts of dangerous thought. You itch to jump off the window from the second floor, to climb on your father's car and do a high-jump over the fence, running to the bus stop and waiting for a bus to take you anywhere.

But thoughts of kidnap, rape, murder, crime ring in your head like well-drilled practices. In fact, those thoughts are the only thing holding you back. You try to suppress your itch, try to kill a few more hours by changing the location. You go to your bedroom, then come back to the living room, feeling even more depressed than ever. The sun is setting. You regret not running to the bus stop while the sun was still up, because at least crimes don't happen as much in the daylight. You tell yourself to chill, only a few more hours to bedtime. But as this realization sinks in, that you haven't done anything at all today, your heart becomes heavy with repent and grief. Your lips quiver and your eyes feel wet. It is a feeling of extreme sadness and anger at your own helplessness, at wasting away a beautiful perfect day trapped indoors. And you go to bed swearing never to let a day like this happen again.

But it always does, and I do whatever I can to avoid it. That's why I really am dreading the end-of-year school holidays.