Where am I? It’s dark and cold. I can feel myself moving, feel my lungs breathing, feel myself talking, laughing. But where am I? I can see, but not with my eyes. These aren’t my eyes. There are hallways, colored a deep grey, flickering lights on the ceiling. Mustering up the courage to move, I travel down one magnificently empty hall. Dead end. Dead end? Why can’t I find myself? Where am I?

After walking down more empty hallways, meeting more branching or dead ends, I’ve realized where I am. I’m in my body. I am lost in my own body, no longer in control. My real self is on autopilot, a mere shell of what it was before. But it’s a damn shiny shell, no one knows I’m lost. No one can help me here. It’s all up to me.

Oh boy. One hallway wasn’t empty, after hours of walking, stopping, thinking, I found a not-empty hallway. There was a couch, a marvelously ordinary grey couch. I’ve been sitting here for days. Or was it just minutes? My sense of time is nonexistent here, not a clock in sight, no windows or natural light. It takes all my strength to even seriously think about getting up. I was an MMA wrestler fighting for the golden belt, every punch I took knocked me down, every time I got back up I was 10 pounds heavier. It was a fight that seemed endless, and pointless, and hopeless. But I did it. The weight on my feet pushing them into the ground enough to stand myself up. I began walking again. I would ask again, where am I, but from saying it so many times it no longer feels like I’m speaking real words.

I realize I’m not in color, everything is grey because the world isn’t in color anymore. It’s a grey scale, the lights aren't yellow they’re pure white, the shadows have no hint of blue, they’re the blackest black, the glimmer of green in my hazel eyes gone, the pink of my palms reduced to a light grey. I tripped. I tripped up. The pain in my leg was a slight numbness like everything else, I tripped up stairs. Looking up in astonishment I realized, if I’ve reached rock bottom, the only place left to go is up! If I keep going up, I’ll find my heart, my head, my eyes again, I’ll see in color again! I ran up the stairs and through the hallway at the top.

The euphoria didn’t last, it never does. More hours wasted away in the meaningless gray prison. I guess this is what the inside of myself looks like, that's not very comforting. I feel bad for my food. This level is different, there are pictures covering the walls. They’re moving, little memories encapsulated behind dusty glass. Going up to one of them, I wipe the settling dust off the glass and peer in. I’m at a frozen yogurt place with my dad, there were stickers of glasses and a mustache on the store's front window. I went inside and had him take a picture of me. I think I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I go a few frames over. It's 6th grade, the first day I missed school because I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to escape. It's my first memory without color, all the ones before are vivid and full of life. All the ones after resemble this dull hallway. Looking through more moving pictures you can almost see hints of color shine through the gray, like then you close your eyes and still see the light you were looking at. I spent my whole time trying to get out of here so I could see color again only to realize my world hasn’t been in its real opaque color since I was 11. I get to a memory from 8th grade, when I fully believed I would not live past 15, my life past then was just a blur. Thankfully I got help, I pass the memory of myself telling my therapist how happy I am that I was 15 and could see the rest of my life, beautifully planned out ahead of me. Then why do I still feel so lost? Why am I lost? I love the person I am more than ever but I don’t recognize myself at all. 

Floor by floor by floor by floor. Some were much easier than others, some I spent days or weeks or months in. Time, an old friend, has blocked my number and skipped town. With some floors I’m forgiving, I understand that I’m in a tough situation and I let myself take breaks and stay right at the bottom of the stairs for a few days. Because I know it would be so easy to get up but I can’t and that’s ok. But with the other floors, the floors I’ve been challenged with more recently, I can’t get up the stairs. The stairs disappear, their time runs out or their due date passes or they just get sick and tired of waiting for me. Then I need to go out and find them again. Then I’m less forgiving to myself. Why didn’t I just pick myself up and do it? It wasn’t hard at all. Why couldn’t I move? Why couldn’t I think? Why couldn’t I breathe? I don’t know.

Currently, I am out of time. I need a break. I know I’m close to getting back to my eyes, my head, my life functioning again, but it's too much for me right now. Hopefully that's ok, hopefully I forgive myself because I’m the only one I have. But I know I’m trying, I’m trying so so hard, and even though I have many more hallways to get through and stairs to climb I’m getting better. I’ll be home soon. I found a couch, bright, bright pink. I lay down and close my eyes...