Coffee stirring, procrastinating on going into my home office. The swirls are fascinating.

I don’t want to do my makeup this morning. I just don’t have it in me, I think. Technically I’m already on the clock, and there are 15 more minutes until my first meeting. I could walk the dog. She’s not really in the mood, she’s curled up in her little bed, but if I put on my shoes and jacket, she would join me.

Somebody messaged me on Slack. I’ll respond in a bit. There are group chats to ignore on Whatsapp and reels to watch on Instagram. There’s my ex’s band that released an EP. I’m pretty sure one of the songs is about me, and it’s not very flattering. Seven minutes. No more time for makeup. I could swing it, but I won’t. There’s no sense in rushing.

I’ve turned off my camera in meetings - or rather, I’ve turned off the setting where you can see your own face in the meeting. I had a project manager who showed me that setting once. He said “why would you want to look at yourself?” and I thought he was psycho, or had an unimaginable level of confidence, which is also psycho. Do you not worry about - like, what if you have spinach on your teeth or bras drying in the background? These days I’m psycho. I’ve realized that nobody minds how I look, nobody sees what I see when I look at myself, and it’s okay if I have spinach on my teeth.

It’s time. I have to brush my teeth. I keep my head down. I shouldn’t let it affect me anymore, and some days it doesn’t. The electric toothbrush spins again. I’m three quarters of the way there. But just like when you try to avoid a person’s insistent look on the train, the moment you let your guard down, you slip up. And there she is.

Staring. Eyes open. Eyes open, fixed ahead, right into mine - my face, mouth open - here I am, mouth open wide and screaming, except I’m not. And her eyes, mine, are wide in terror, and her mouth, my mouth, is wide in pain.

I have seen it hundreds of times, now, and still today I can’t help my shoulders from pressing together, and my stomach from heaving up into my throat. I sit back on the edge of the bathtub.

I know when it started. Actually, I know when I started seeing it, but maybe it was there all along. It’s inconvenient when I do my makeup - I do my lip pencil around my mouth, and I feel the relaxed shape against the pencil in my hand, but in the mirror, it stretches against those lips in a way that should feel scratchy. I lean my head forward to do my eyeliner, and I have learned to open my eyes wide right back, because otherwise it’s impossible to keep track of where the line goes. It’s like painting a picture with a weird controller, or like one of those grotesque Instagram filters, and a little bit like dressing a corpse.

I don’t know why I haven’t told anyone about it. I’ve hinted at it. I’ve started to discuss the subject, in vague ways. My friends are sensitive and they don’t push.

I haven’t been able to find too much information on this specific subject, only a Reddit thread that sounded like it was written by somebody unstable - but the trustworthy sources are conservative and reassuring. It sounds like a mild hallucination, and probably a distorted sense of self. Those are part of a lot of mental illnesses, and usually treatable. Ultimately, I’m on the waitlist, so there’s no need to go overboard on the research and the chatbots. In a few weeks, I’ll see a professional, and I’m sure it’ll be sorted.

The other challenging bit is that I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve never been a great sleeper, but since this started, I do take longer to fall asleep, and there’s the occasional waking up in a cold sweat. I know I should cut the screens before I sleep, but I’m basically useless at work in the mornings, so I’ve shifted my schedule down and I’m quite productive in the evenings - but of course the blue light isn’t great.

At brunch that Saturday, my friend Tina suggests yoga. It helps her a lot with sleep - she’s the kind of person who’s always throwing herself into new things, humble, brave - she tells me I shouldn’t feel silly, it’s actually just kind of a biological thing. The breathing techniques calm you down and ease your stress. Tina’s put me onto a lot of cool things - she’s the one who encouraged me to buy my own place, and we’ve upcycled furniture together. I don’t think I’ll do a class, though. I picture myself arriving late and sweaty into a studio, twenty ladies looking up from their downward dogs at me, and me bumbling through a useless explanation to a teacher with thick arms. I might do an at-home practice. She recommends a YouTube channel.

As we hug, she balks. “What’s that?” “What’s what?” “What do you have on your neck?” I don’t know, I can’t see my neck. She tells me there’s a bruise, several actually. One is dark but there’s a few smaller ones around. “Does it hurt if I touch them?” A little, but not really. She takes a picture and shows me. “Do you know how you got them?” I don’t know. “I must have slept weird,” I tell her. “I’ve been waking up with neck pain lately. I’ve probably craned my neck onto something in my sleep.” I bruise easily, anyway.

When I get home, I do rush right into the mirror and see. The possibility entered my mind on my bike ride home, certainty slowly increasing as I went. Now that I’m looking at it upfront, it’s clear. I bring my hand around my throat, and it fits the bruise like a puzzle. I really see myself, eyes wide in terror, silently screaming, my hand around my throat. It fits.

Fuck. I’ve been strangling myself in my sleep.

It’s already the evening, so my doctor’s office is closed. I’ve also obviously been doing fine so far - the bruises are probably just from mild pressure repeated over time, rather than one big squeeze, so I’ll wait until opening hours to call.

I do have a weighted blanket, and it helps me sleep. It’s been in storage because I don’t like to use it in the summer, but I think it’ll keep my arms from moving too much unconsciously. Maybe I’ll get a cooling one at some point, though those things are expensive. It doesn’t smell too much like storage. I get underneath it and try to lift my arm. There’s definitely a good amount of resistance. I don’t know if it’s enough, but it’ll help.

My coworker had told me about this baby swaddle he used for his newborn to help her sleep - there’s a stretchy hole for the arms and it holds them against the sides of the chest. He’d called it a baby straitjacket. I thought that was probably counterproductive, because the kid would start to rely on it to sleep - but desperate times call for desperate measures. I look online for the adult version. I find something. It’s three-day shipping. Maybe I’ll find a store tomorrow. Fuck it, I’ll order it now, just in case, and try to find a store tomorrow.

The next morning, I wake up with the knowledge that I haven’t moved.

I check my smartwatch. Eleven hours. I’ve slept longer than I have in weeks, maybe months. I feel more clear-headed than I have in so long - better than I remembered I could feel. It’s like when the spring comes after winter, and suddenly everything is vivid.

I saunter down to make coffee, and I feel the need to check my reflection like one checks their phone for a text from their situationship-crush - hopeful, and feeling silly at being hopeful. And indeed, I was silly. The scream is still there. But she’s easy to ignore this morning. I do my hair, and I play music. I have the urge to play “Say a little prayer for you”, by Aretha Franklin, because it’s morning and I’m doing my hair and makeup, and drinking my coffee at the bathroom sink, and I feel a little tender towards myself. I add blush today, and although I obviously can’t really tell, I wager it makes me look healthy and crisp.

I take the dog out to the shops. She’s allowed in many shops in Amsterdam, which I’ve always loved about living here. I go to the main shopping street, and although I’m not exactly sure which kind of store would have those adult swaddles, I’m enjoying shopping around. The bedding store doesn’t allow dogs in, but they don’t have that kind of thing anyway - I ask them before I leave. Neither does the underwear and pajama store, which is to be expected. I think this is a pretty niche thing, at the intersection of bedding, clothing and medical device, and left out by most. I’ve gotten an email saying the one I ordered online is on its way, though. If it works out, I would definitely recommend it to others.

We head home after a couple hours, because the dog is starting to get antsy, it’s hot, and we found ourselves headed towards Central Station anyway. Plus I do still feel a bit tired. It’s often like that when you sleep a lot for the first time in a while, it’s like you unlocked the gates to sleep.

We watch shows on the sofa - or obviously, I watch shows, text friends, scroll Instagram reels, and the dog sleeps rolled up into a little ball. Since we had a long walk, she only needs a short one in the evening. I bring her water bowl into the bedroom since it’s still pretty hot and she can get dehydrated. I’ve brushed my teeth, washed my face, I’m in my bonnet and my pajamas, and suddenly I realize - I’m not tired enough.

I’m tired enough to sleep, but I feel strong. Much stronger than last night. With all this extra energy, I think I’d have a much easier time lifting up the weighted blanket. I get underneath, and lift up my arm easily, up and out of the blanket towards my face. The shipment is still two days away.

I have two options. Either I don’t sleep tonight, so that I get myself tired again, or I need something else to hold my arms back. Tomorrow is Monday though, I have work. Worse comes to worst, I’ll stay awake and call in sick, but I think I’m better off going to sleep with some other solution. It’s just a convenience thing anyway, since it had been happening unencumbered for a couple of weeks before I even noticed. So even if it happens again, it’s not life or death.

I rifle through my closet, looking for something that will hold me. I’m thinking tube top, or one of those bodycon dresses I used to wear, but I think my hands will be able to pull it up. Briefly I consider a belt around my hips and forearms - but logistically, I figure if I can fasten the belt, that means I can unfasten it too. This is the kind of thing that makes me miss living with a partner. The cuddling too, of course.

I find compression underwear. I pull it on, and it provides good restraint when I slip my hands underneath, so that problem is solved - but it’s just for my hands, so I do need the tube top too - and I find it! The tube top of my youth, a couple sizes too small by now, striped with a few elastic strings popped out. I laugh when I remember how hot I thought it was when I first wore it out at a high school party. Now here I am, fully encased into it like a sausage, hands in my Spanx. I think this will work, though. I take off the contraption to close everything and turn off the lights, and then it’s back on, and I’m underneath the blanket, and I think it’s going to work.

The trusty tube top wasn’t quite so trusty. I wake up with fresh pain around my neck, and my tits are out. The Spanx are still keeping my butt into place, though. Not much else. But I’m alive.

Coffee, makeup, office. I’m sitting in yet another meeting. And suddenly, the tone shifts.

“Okay, I just need to ask you something. Are you okay?”

It’s my one-on-one with my manager. He is entitled to ask, and my guard was down.

“Yeah, I’m okay. What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve been noticing… You seem tired these last few weeks, and you’re not answering on Slack sometimes.”

“I don’t answer much in the mornings, but I thought you said it was okay to shift my schedule down?”

“It is, but you don’t seem like yourself. You don’t seem as happy. And it’s my job as a manager to notice that kind of thing, because we don’t want you to get burnt out, okay?”

Embarrassingly, my eyes fill with tears. I turn to pet the dog.

“What’s that on your neck?”

Fuck.

“I don’t know, I’ve turned off my camera setting, you know the one where you see your own camera? I don’t know what it’s called, it’s off. So I don’t know.”

Silence.

“That looks like a bruise.”

My intestines squeeze together.

“Listen, I’m going to say this only once. I have a sister, she went through a bad time with her ex, and it turned violent. You don’t have to say anything. Just know -”

“Oh no, no, no! It’s not that. I’m single, actually!” I laugh. “I mean, I’m sorry about your sister, and thank you for telling me. It’s just…”

There’s no way around it.

“Yeah, I’ve been having a hard time, but I’m on a waitlist to see a psychologist, actually. The bruises, it’s just part of the symptoms, I’ve been having all these weird anxiety symptoms, like I hold my neck when I sleep.”

“What? Hard enough to bruise?”

“Yeah, but I’m okay, really, it looks worse than it is. I am getting this device in the mail today that will help me not move my arms at night.” It’s not arriving today, it’s tomorrow, but I already said it was today.

“What, like a straitjacket?”

“Yeah, in a way, I guess, but more like an adult swaddle. There’s all these brands that sell it. It’s a pretty common thing.”

He still has that concerned look on his face.

“Mike, I know it looks scary, but I’m on the waitlist to get help, and I think it’ll get much better after that. It’s just the in-between, you know? I just need to figure this out for the time being. And maybe wear turtlenecks, but it’s too hot.”

“Well… I mean, I get that you’re on the waitlist for the psychologist, but maybe you should talk to your doctor for now. They might be able to prescribe you something that can at least knock you out at night, so you don’t hurt yourself.”

“Oh yeah. That’s a good idea, actually, like a sedative. I hadn’t considered that. I was going to call my doctor this morning, but then I missed the calling hours.”

“Alright, well, you should. And if you need time off, let me know. Forget about work, projects, the December deadline. We need you healthy in the long run. If you need to take a little vacation, I’ll arrange it with the higher-ups.”

“Thanks, Mike.” By now my tears are snotty, and my mouth is pasty, so it takes a while to get the words out. “I really appreciate it. I know we’re over time, by the way, and we have the meeting with legal -”

“Fuck that, that doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does. You should go. But thank you for this. And for telling me about your sister. I hope she’s doing okay, or you know, better.” I feel awkward now.

“Yeah, she’s okay. And you’re going to be okay too. Okay?”

“Yeah. Would it be okay if I skipped the sync with legal, actually? If you don’t mind. I’m a bit tired, and I’m going to wash my face and stuff. I’ll catch back up for the spec review.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

I hit “end call” and fall back onto my chair. I really should wash my face. It takes me a minute to get myself together.

I walk into the bathroom. I’m expecting the face. It holds my eyes a little too long, but it’s familiar. I pick up the soap. I only need to get through tonight. I rub my face. I open my mouth. I open my eyes. The soap seeps into my eyes and onto my tongue.

And I scream.