Life With A Trigger Warning

Content Warning

This page describes or alludes to topics that may be uncomfortable or upsetting to readers. Please avoid this page if you are sensitive to these topics.

This contains suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide, self-harm, slavery, major character death, and uncensored cursing.

### Prologue - Truth

###### (Sorry for how short this is!)

Life with a trigger warning. That's my favourite phrase. The sad thing is that so many people live like this. If they write about themselves, stamp a trigger warning right on their face. Open up to a friend? "I'm uncomfortable with that topic". Tell a professional? Nice antidepressants you've got there. I'm so sick and *tired* of this *loop*. Let me try to put it in simpler words, for all of you non-depressed folks. I'm messed up. Messed up in every way possible. So messed up, that I'm writing a story about myself, but using an alter ego. And you know what? I can't even say I hope you enjoy reading this, because I don't have emotions! It's called emotional blunting. Look it up. Taint your browser history with a common symptom of many disorders. Or don't. Because I'll explain it for you! It just means you have no emotions. Zero. Oh, and don't worry, the rest of this is gonna be more interesting, because it's in third person, and in made up scenarios, so I can feel better about my life! Anyway, I'm Raymond, or at least, that's what I call myself. I'm putting myself in scenarios I've been in before, or some dreams I've had. Good luck trying to empathise with me!

### Chapter One - Vivid

Raymond was sitting on his bed, in a slouched position. His neck and back pain was already agonising, so why bother trying to make it better? A pessimistic view on life was what his friends described it as. A realistic one was the truth.

Another truth, was that he wasn't male. He just decided to use masculine pronouns that day. Tomorrow, he might decide to use feminine, or nonbinary. It was weird. His friends called him weird, but at least they said it made sense.

He whispered to himself under his breath. What was he whispering? Song lyrics. The only things that saved him. He would've been dead if it weren't for music. "I cut my fingers tight off, and you told me to reach out..." That song was awesome. He would've loved it, if he could. Sometimes he questioned if he was emotionally numb. Maybe emotions weren't what he thought they were. Maybe all they were was that feeling in your stomach. Or when you flinch by instinct. Maybe.

Raymond also had a list of disorders he may have had.

Schizophrenia. He had delusions, sometimes heard voices in his head, hallucinated. 'The usual'. But he could debunk all that. Delusions. What if it were just an unpopular opinion? Voices in his head. He'd only actually heard them as auditory hallucinations about once or twice a month. Otherwise, he heard them as thoughts. But thoughts that were not his own. Other hallucinations? So what? Twenty-five percent of neurotypical people have had one visual hallucination in there life. I was just unlucky to get three complex ones, and near daily shadowy silhouettes. Tactile could be real, yet unexplained sensations. Olfactory? Everybody he knew had those. And his speech wasn't *that* disjointed. Maybe he just had a stutter.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. His mother had it, so already a fifty percent chance there. The compulsions were there. But they were more self-centered. Instead of the punishment for not turning the light switch on and of seven times, with it ending on off, being his family dying, it was *him* being injured. The monsters in his head already knew death would be a mercy, so he heard a foreign thought, that wasn't his own, but not an auditory hallucination, promise he'd forever be this way. That there would be no cure.

*I'm truly making myself sound insane. Hah, joke's on them. I* am *insane.* That was what he thought, as he read the words he had just written.

Then there was Antisocial Personality Disorder. More commonly known as being a psychopath, or a sociopath. He often wanted to hurt people. Physically in his fantasies, emotionally in practise. But then again, he probably looked like one of those edgy nine years olds wanting to be *edgy*.

Raymond sighed, closing his eyes as he felt the exhaustion of sleepless nights claim him. Another vivid dream, with insomnia to blame.

There she was, sitting in an art class, drawing on the tablets provided. Her friend, Brooke, and Brooke's little sister and friends were with her, sitting on the blue carpet as well. The art teacher had raven black hair, a slim face, covered in concealer, and blood red lipstick. The instructor's voice, along with everybody else's, was mere background noise. She already knew what to do. She started drawing an eye, and it looked... good? That was strange, but cool. Still passable for real life. Not quite a lucid dream. Then the teacher showed them how to access the different types of brushes, to draw hair automatically. She didn't remember this option on Kleki, but it was neat. Some of the other people there were using the brushes in real life. They drew over top of Jessica's curly, red hair. Jessica laughed. She didn't even try to join the conversation. It was like she was mute. Maybe she was.