Protecting yourself from yourself

Days went by and Rebecca didn't want to leave her room, she felt that if she went out of there the light coming through the windows would make her eyes sick and she would go blind. That was the strangest thing I had ever heard anyone say, I didn't know it yet but that was the beginning of a long season.

I lived with my cousin Rebecca for a while, she had a big house and offered me to stay with her, I gladly accepted and we split the expenses for food and utilities. Everything was going great until Rebecca came home crying one day, I asked her for days what was wrong and got no answer, she just came in and out of her room to eat. A week later I heard Rebecca call me from her room and I went to her worried, she said "Ana please bring me some food here, the light coming through the windows can hurt my eyes".

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I was speechless on the other side of the door, I did not understand what was happening to my cousin, I prepared food for her and took it to her, when I left that day to the university I met a neighbor named Julieta who asked me about Rebecca and told me "How has she been after the fatal accident she witnessed, it must have been very difficult to assimilate". At that moment, I understood what had happened that day that she came home like that.

I got worried and decided to go back to support her or to try to make her feel better, but something was happening with my key, when I inserted it to open the door there was something that prevented it from opening, I started to call her "Rebecca, Rebecca". Rebecca leaned out of the window and told me "Ana I can't open the door, they may come to hurt me, go away, you are in danger with me". As I already had some idea of what was going on and that my cousin was not in her 5 senses I told her "I also saw what happened, if you are in danger I am too, open the door and we will hide together".

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Rebecca quickly removed the heavy crate she was protecting the door with and let me in. I couldn't risk my cousin getting hurt because of the fear I had, I had a goal, to protect her even if it was from herself. From inside I could help her or get her help. When I came in he closed the door again and then gave me a big hug, he told me "I didn't know you were there when that girl was hit by a car, that man she was running away from must have seen our faces".

I understood why my cousin was so afraid, I hugged her and told her "everything will be fine as long as we are together, but I have to confess something, I was very affected by what happened, I think I need help to overcome it, could we call a doctor we trust to help me? Surely he will want to ask you about things too because we went through the same thing, would you talk to him so that I can recover?

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Rebecca agreed to help me, I was still studying nursing but there is a subject I had studied the semester before called psychiatry, there they teach you how to deal with emotionally unstable patients. Rebecca was not well and I knew that if she thought it was me that was wrong she would agree to see the psychiatrist.

Those were very hard days, where my dear cousin felt fear, pain, confusion but with the doctor's help she was seeing the sunlight again after so much darkness. She was always a normal girl, extroverted and very sure of herself but an instant, a situation, a trauma changed her completely, to the point that she had to fight with her darkest thoughts to find herself and see her life illuminated again after that storm.

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That taught me something very important, anyone can have an emotional problem and become destabilized, but only if you are brave and surround yourself with people who love you can you go back to being the same person you were before. Rebecca was diagnosed with schizophrenia and major depression as a result of trauma, but by catching it early she did not progress and her recovery was quicker. She is now happily married to someone who cares for her and protects her even when her thoughts are accusing her. But there is something I will never know, is if there was really someone chasing the girl who was Run over or it was just Rebecca's mind that made her see it that way.