A Quiet Kind of Thunder

But, oh. See that other girl sitting on the bench? The weedy thing whose shoulders are a little hunched? The one who has her hair in front of her face and a book in her lap that she’s not actually reading? Yeah. That’s me.

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Alara

Meekness is my camouflage; silence is my force field.

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Reklam

Alara

4yıl

What are you thinking, Steffi? What are you thinking? Everything, all the time. You’re so quiet, Steffi. Why are you so quiet? But in my head it’s so loud.

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Alara

Forever in the grey area, in the question you see behind the eyes of teachers and family friends: ‘Is she just putting it on?’ ‘It’s not a real thing, is it?’ They say, ‘It’s all in your head.’ They say, ‘It’s not real.’ And I think, What is more real than that? I think, therefore I am, right? So, no, I’m not putting it on and, yes, it is a real thing. It just happens to be a real thing that a lot of people haven’t even heard of, let alone understand. What are you thinking, Steffi? What are you thinking? Everything, all the time. You’re so quiet, Steffi. Why are you so quiet? But in my head it’s so loud.

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Alara

I hesitate, trying to formulate a proper reply. It feels like when I had to sit my French oral exam at GCSE and I had to just throw the right individual words together and hope they made some kind of sense as a sentence.

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Alara

I imagine going to the supermarket and buying a bottle of milk without thinking twice. I dream of speaking to the assistant at the bank. I hope of getting through a Saturday in town without a panic attack. These are such small things to most people, but the fear of them takes up my whole world.

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