The End is Nigh

It feels like the end of the world. I try to control my emotions, but I can’t. I try breathing and meditating. I try everything but nothing works. My heart keeps pounding and my thoughts are racing to the point of no control. And I want to be happy, I really do. I try to show gratitude and I try to put a smile on my face. I try to think about all the positive things in my life. I try and I try but my mind keeps going back to all the pain and hurt in my life.

And no matter how much I try, no matter how much I pray, nothing changes. My efforts are powerless against the battle ahead. I have to provide for my family in the future but I don’t think it’s possible. I have to do well in school but I just can’t. There is so much that I want to do but I don’t know how. Nothing ever seems to be enough. But there are people who can do it all. They get good grades, go out, have a social life and I wonder why I can’t be like that. I pray so hard that I can be that.

My emotions get even more intense and I try even harder to calm down. But I am stuck where I am. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no one who would help. Everyone has their whole lives to deal with and it feels like their door is always closed. Plus, I’m always the ‘reliable’ one. The one who always has the door open and will always be there. But when I need help, there is nowhere to go. I have to fight this battle alone.

If I can only turn back time to when the world was brighter, lighter and happier. My friends and my family paid attention to me. I felt loved and cared for. I had friends who I knew I could rely on. And I don’t need a lot of friends, I just want that one friend who I can always count on. But those days are long gone.

I try to breathe through this and calm down, I really do. But I start to feel the tears falling down and I can’t stop my emotions. I keep thinking about everything wrong in my life and there is a long list to go through.

And now all these negative thoughts I have said to myself over the years start to overwhelm me. You’re ugly. You’re too skinny. You will never be as good as your friends. You need to be doing more with your life. You need to make your parents proud. It’s all too much to handle and I am going crazy.

Now I am freaking out. I want to stop crying but I can’t. I can’t even describe what I’m feeling. I am just so tired of everything in my life but I want to have something to live for. I want to be alone but I also don’t want to be alone. Nothing makes sense but I just want someone to understand how I feel. Just one person….

Sometime later, I wake up after spending the night crying. It’s all over. I am still shaken by the night but I pick myself up and move on. That’s all I can do, keep moving on.

Analysis

To many people, the apocalypse means the end of the world. But more often in literature, it’s the fear of the unknown, what happens when we are confronted with that fear, and what we learn from it. There has been a fear of nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War. There has been a idea that the apocalypse will occur when aliens take over the world.

In American society in the 21st century, the apocalypse can also be seen as the fear of the loss of purpose in our lives. It’s the fear that we may live our lives without happiness, and without a sense of fulfillment. And slowly this is becoming an epidemic. More and more people are feeling lost in this world and it’s starting to become a public health concern. More people are losing the will to survive and suicide rates have gone up quite a bit over the last few years.

An apocalypse is a threat that applies to everyone, not just to one person. So with an alien invasion, you don’t get to say ‘I don’t want to be a part of this’. When the aliens invade the earth, you have to deal with that. For Adam and Eve (the first apocalypse in the Bible), they had to deal with consequences of eating the apple and God’s punishment. In our society, we are living in a world of social media, where we are constantly pressured to be better than the next person to survive. And we are expected to cope with all the challenges that it brings and that pressure has taken a toll on humanity.

In every apocalyptic narrative that I have read, there has been 2 endings. The first ending is that the world is over and there is no hope left. In the movie ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, the original ending showed that humanity is doomed and there is no hope for survival. However this ending is not popular and the movie producers were forced to change it. The second ending is that although the world ends, there is hope for a new world. Narratively this is the more popular choice. In the Bible, although Adam and Eve eat the apple, they were able to continue the lineage of mankind. And in the second apocalypse of the Bible, which is Judgement Day, Christians are taught that there is another world that they will go to after death, either heaven of hell. In most zombie apocalypses as well, there is at least one human left who saves mankind. People want to see hope in the end of times, so they write stories in which the world survives at the end.

So why can’t this be the ending for the mental health apocalypse? Apocalyptic narratives tend to see hope for the future. Even in the darkest and the most trying of times, there is something pushing people to keep on living. So why can’t this mental health journey have hope as well.

- Akhila