What is "Suffocating"?

A young girl walking home late at night is never a rational or wise choice. Nothing can justify this. This however, was her only way home, or so she thought, and so she continued to walk home. The young girl took all the same short cuts she would have during the day and found herself in an alley way with a man lurking in the shadows. As unaware and naive as she was, she was the perfect target he thought, for all the torture he could instill upon her. She continued walking through this alley with no suspicions what-so-ever when the man made his leap. He had two things for his torture, he had a plastic bag to suffocate her with and a knife to take to her skin. Let me mention though, that this man had no intention of death, only the intention of torture. I'll tell you too, he succeeded. So with the bag over her head and knife against the back of her neck, he would let her suffocate while gently cutting the back of her neck. Then he would suddenly give her a short breath and remove the knife right before repeating the same abuse again. This momentary freedom and false hope provided just as he had hoped--torture. The young girl was so close to death, yet so far in the midst of mere torture and only torture--the torture of suffocation and a sharp pain to accompany it. 

        She woke up form her nightmare in a sweat. She opened her eyes to find she had woken up to her own nightmare as reality once again. She was in all actually still the same young girl suffocating in her own thoughts and negative rhythms just as much as she was the young girl in her dream suffocating in a plastic bag--so close but still so far from death in both realms. She had discovered this place of suffocation when she landed upon the wretched shore of her parent's divorce years ago. This "island" was not a physical reality, but actually an understatement of her mentally reality. This was not a typical island however, because it was not a good vacation spot. And it was not romantic or adventurous; it was torture. Her boat had crashed ashore here in a sad, wretched, and treacherous way, She was not lying out, tanning in her pink polka dot bikini because she had an amazing body to show off. It was not sunny out and her boyfriend was not jumping in the ocean saying, “Come on in Honey, the water’s fine!” because the water was far from “fine”. And it was not sunny out. Perhaps it was raining?

         She did not think of her mental isolation as an island because it was tropical and pleasant or peaceful. The simple fact is that islands are isolated just as she was stranded in her own negative rhythm of thinking. She was completely lost and submerged in her own thoughts, ways, and problems. She was surrounded by all four sides—perfectly trapped. When she tried to swim away, she drowned. She would drown in more thoughts, specifically thoughts of the realization that she was truly trapped. It was all her mind and her own reality and there was not, and never would be, a way out, at least that is how she believed. Yet worst of all, as said before, it was not a sunny island. In fact, it did often rain. The storm clouds would come in at day break and last until her last blink before sleep. It was just a consuming sadness. Like your own skin. Can you peel out of it? No. So she could not get out of her own sadness. However you would like to look at it; being at the bottom of a deep hole and trying to climb out, drowning in an ocean and only continually bobbing up and down completely out of breath--or just trying to peel out of your own skin. Regardless, she was stuck, as simple and horrible as that.