Jump off the world for a minute

I spent my dinner break the other day lying on the bathroom floor. I don't tell many people, but it's not an unusual or particularly negative place for me to be.

I try not to spend my whole break there too often as it's usually more beneficial to walk to the nearby gardens and lie on my bench under the trees in a few minutes of sensory mindfulness.

Occasionally I don't make it that far, and Thursday was one of those days. I just about made it to the bathroom before it all imploded and my body found the way it needed to calm itself. This time it was lying flat on my stomach on the floor with my face in a fleece, still as can be until the motion-controlled lights time out (3 minutes) and then the fan (5, I think).

By this time the crying has calmed somewhat, and the dark and the quiet help me to calm further. It's not a full-on shutdown. The sounds of the school day going by outside bring me back to my current location, and as I become able to open my eyes I observe the light reaching under the door from that other world of the corridor.

I am removed yet connected. Close, yet apart and unseen. I am safe.