Islands in the stream. That is what we are. No one in-between. How can we be wrong? How can we be right? We are alone, floating, stranded, drifting on a never-ending path with an abrupt stop. Trapped in our own minds. Surrounded by floods of people. Alone in our own bodies. Going in multiple directions but getting nowhere.

The brain is an interesting thing. It named itself. It refers to itself in the third person. It is also entirely in control of me. I no longer have influence over my own thoughts and ideas. The walls around my brain have crumbled, beat down by anxiety, phobias, and depression. The day those walls fell I relinquished my freedom. I gave a part of myself to the darkness. I did not go willingly, but just as identities are stolen, I somehow became the property of a stranger. All of a sudden the ideas and morals that represented me were suppressed by this new and “improved” version of myself. An unrecognizable shadow of what I had once been now controlled by the machine inside my skull, completely crafted by my own means. Once a cohesive part of my body now like a foreign object projecting it’s terroristic ideas like a war cry through a loudspeaker echoing through the hallows of my soul.

Islands are often seen as an oasis, a beautiful vacation from reality. My island could not be farther from this. My island is surrounded by a raging sea that sinks those who try to reach my stranded soul. My island is made of black jagged rocks. They provide shelter from the raging waves but also keep me trapped, stuck, stranded. On an uninhabitable island I am the only inhabitant. Every day is a struggle trying to leave my island but I get cut, scraped, broken. Because in the end, it is My island and it is My cage.

I have tried escaping “My Island” in forms of therapy, pills, and bad decisions. I have tried suppressing my thoughts with addictions one after another, alas, to no avail. The walls of my island are strong. The barriers keeping all of this in are tall, but like my faith in humanity and myself, they are crumbling. Soon I will be exposed with no protection. My emotions and lack of mental stability put on display for the world to gawk at, to point, to stare in horror and confusion. For they cannot possibly understand how one could decay from the inside out, how one's brain could possibly be the reason for their dismay, their downfall. How could somebody who has lived on an island of shells and sand their whole life possibly understand life on a barren and black island like mine?

“Breathe.” They say. “Take one day at a time.” “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” “Ask for help.” Can’t they see that my island is sinking, that every day its walls descend and crack? Can they not see that there is no concept of time on my island? The days flow one after the next bringing storms that ravage my island. Can they not see the red flares I send off dripping down from my bare arms? How can they not hear my cries for help? Are they swept away by the wind the moment they leave my lips or is my island just too ugly to look at, too ugly to save?

My island has been left to defend itself from itself. There will be no “backup”, no “second-chance”. There is no hope for “help”. I am my own flotation device. Responsible for saving a life but only capable of staying afloat for mere seconds. My survival falls on my shoulders but my shoulders are weak. Weak for the weight of society. Weak from the wear and tear of the harsh words that bounce from my semi-permeable exterior. I am all I have left. There have been many battles but they have all added up to this war. This war that rips me apart from the inside out. This war that turns my body against my brain. This war that has become my life.

There are moments where waves of normalcy will wash over me but just like the tides, they retreat back into the cold dark sea. The frigid cold sea, the sea of no return. This is what I have been submerged in. No longer able to be touched by the warm, soft waters. The dark sea engulfing me. No way out. I can only sink further down into the blackness, into the depths that are my thoughts, my evil, cruel thoughts.

My island has been sucked into a hurricane. Everything is spinning. My life has become a blur of disorienting visions. I can not sit and think clearly. I am spinning faster and faster. The red sound of sirens fill my head. My island is hurtling across open waters at thousands of miles per hour. My walls are crumbling fast, succumbing to the inky sea. They cannot take this much pressure, this level of complete destruction. Soon I will become exposed to the raging sea. Soon all that will be left to face these demons from the ocean will be me, and I cannot possibly do that on my own.

Crash. My island has crashed. The whirling winds throwing my island off a bridge. My island was me. The bridge is not a metaphor. I could no longer handle the ocean. I could no longer handle the winds. I have sunk, sunk past the point of no return. My walls crumbled and fell into the sea taking me with them, swept away into the ever-winding and moving currents. I am now at peace. I saw how calm the water could be. I saw and respected its depths. My curiosity got the best of me and I jumped.

Only now do I know. I know that my island was not the only one of its kind. I have come to the realization that there were others battling the waves day after day trying to reach my island. Those people are now understanding, maybe for the first time, just how fast my island is spinning. These people were not unaffected by the crashing of my island. In fact, some of the debris from the crash hit them as well. They will forever have these scars and they will wear them on their hearts. I may have escaped my island but they will never see a freed soul, only a battered, bruised and broken one. They will see me as I was. They will say “We could have helped her paddle, helped her stay afloat. But we did not see her until the island picked up speed and by then it was too late.”

I do not regret my decisions. I was living an imperfect life with ravines and oceans I just could not cross. To this day I hope those who knew me remember me by days where the warm waters washed over me. I hope they can learn to live with the decisions I have made and the drastic steps I took.

I am finally happy. I have landed on a new beach. A beach with pearly white sands and I can see the sun. I finally feel the rays of euphoria on my skin. There are no walls on this beach for I do not need them. The seas are warm and turquoise and the water laps at my feet. I have no fears on this island. I am free. The turmoils of the past slowly fading into the distance. This is not my second chance. More of a first chance at a second life. I vow to live more clearly, more vividly, to find joys in the light but not cower from the dark. I vow to make this island my island, to become a permanent resident and explore it for all it may be. This is my island and it will not be my cage. It will become a sanctuary for all the souls who have been as lost as I.